The study traces a development extending from Nietzsche to Brecht in which traditional identities lost their sustaining power. The ongoing disintegration of ordered structures, traditional faith, or social position left the self without the support and sustenance they had hitherto supplied. The free-wheeling individual was set adrift in a heterogeneous environment, and self-determination became an imperative. This uncertainty was aesthetically fruitful in that it engendered innovative uses of language. At the same time, however, it also spawned a quest for new 'imperatives' promising stability and security. Among those imperatives were the totalitarian political parties of the 20th century.