when I was that age had none of the clarity and assuredness of Sagan’s work, they were autotelic and inscrutable and quite often when I read back over them I didn’t understand them at all

Still, the jouissance sadism taps can become autotelic, can shock consciences far wider than the hard Left.

Autotelic education requires, in her view, a radical transformation of our cultural institutions, social expectations, and economic lives.

But I would also claim that fantasy and imagination have become not only self-generated, but also autotelic, becoming their own (pleasurable) goals