Talk:Self-mortification
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[edit]No question, this is messy. Self-mortification can be used generically, outside of the religious context, to mean any kind of pain or privation one chooses to inflict on oneself. That would be a dictionary definition, which shouldn't be here. It could be a wiktionary link, but the wiktionary entry would have to be created.
Then there are the religious senses, the more general one, and the Catholic one.
Then there's the involuntary "mortification of the self" from the sociology of total institutions. Goffman was careful originally to distinguish mortification of the self, done to the individual, from self-mortification, done by the individual. Both terms appear in On the characteristics of total institutions, because sometimes inmates do engage in self-mortification, in addition to the mortification of self the institution does to them.
But then one sees some later sociology papers using self-mortification as if it were just a shorter way to say mortification of the self. Argh.
It is also not good that Total institution has no anchor for "mortification of the self" to point to. I think, ideally, that article should be expanded to give a bit more complete outline of the characteristics of total institutions paper, and then "mortification of the self" would have a proper anchor there. That'll take more time though.