Being-for-others alienates me into an objectivity I cannot reclaim for myself
Evidence
This double negation, however, is in a sense self-destructive. One of two things happens: Either I make myself not-be a certain being, and then he is an object for me and I lose my object-ness for him; in this case the Other ceases to be the Other-Me—that is, the subject who makes me be an object by refusing to be me. Or else this being is indeed the Other and makes himself not-be me, in which case I become an object for him and he loses his own object-ness. Thus originally the Other is the Not-Me-not-object. Whatever may be the further steps in the dialectic of the Other, if the Other is to be at the start the Other, then on principle he can not be revealed in the same upsurge by which I deny being him. In this sense my fundamental negation can not be direct, for there is nothing on which it can be brought to bear. What I refuse to be can be nothing but this refusal to be the Me by means of which the Other is making me an object. Or, if you prefer, I refuse my refused Me; I determine myself as Myself by means of the refusal of the Me-refused; I posit this refused Me as an alienated-Me in the same upsurge in which I wrench myself away from the Other. But I thereby recognize and affirm not only the Other but the existence of my Self-for-others. Indeed this is because I can not not be the Other unless I assume my being-as-object for the Other. … My wrenching away from the Other—that is, my Self—is by its essential structure an assumption as mine of this Me which the Other refuses; we can even say that it is only that. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 777 (
#qualifies, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: My Ego-as-seen is structurally inaccessible to me, only lived in shame or pride; Being watched strips my own gaze of its objectifying power over others — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 739; The look splits me into a for-itself and an unknowable being-for-others — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 742 (+9 more)
Broader Connections
- My being-for-others is radically distinct from my being-for-myself
#expands(0.92) - Being-for-others is suffered rather than actively existed
#expands(0.85) - The for-itself becomes itself only by assuming its alienated being-for-others
#qualifies(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 777 - Being-for-others generates perpetual conflict as each self objectifies the other
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1462 - The Other’s objective body cannot itself produce my objectification under his gaze
#contradicts(0.78) - Being perceived as an object by another creates communal shame and alienation
#exemplifies(0.75)