Self-love

The phrase amour-propre (since 'propre' means clean) elides 'self-love' and 'clean-love'. What a striking portmanteau that is! What truths it contains!--not that self-love is somehow good or valuable, but that notions of cleanness are, at root, prideful notions. The euphemism 'ethnic cleansing' has taken on wide cultural currency for a reason, after all ...