Being perceived as an object by another creates communal shame and alienation

Evidence

It is at one’s body that the Other is looking. Again, there seems to be a divorce between consciousness and the body as Sartre explains that there is a distance between my consciousness and that of the Other, and that distance is occupied by our bodies: “Th e Other is fi rst the being for whom I am an object; that is, the being through whom I gain my objectness” (BN, 361). Th rough experiencing such original reactions of shame, fear, and pride, consciousness comes face to face with its own factical being: the body. One must be a body-in-the-world in order to feel shame. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 97 (#expands, via linked claim)

All feeling of shame rests upon isolation of the individual; it arises whenever stress is laid upon the ego, whenever the attention of a circle is drawn to such an individual—in reality or only in his imagination—which at the same time is felt to be in some way incongruous. … It is one of the strangest social-psychological phenomena, in which this characteristic of concerted action is well exemplified, that many fashions tolerate breaches of modesty which, if suggested to the individual alone, would be angrily repudiated. But as dictates of fashion they find ready acceptance. The feeling of shame is eradicated in matters of fashion, because it represents a united action, in the same way that the feeling of responsibility is extinguished in the participants of a crime committed by a mob, each member of which, if left to himself, would shrink from violence. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 735 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

That’s when we adopted the word negre, as a term of defiance. It was a defiant name. To some extent it was a reaction of enraged youth. Since there was shame about the word negre, we chose the word negre. I must say that when we founded L’Etudiant noir, I really wanted to call it L’Etudiant negre, but there was a great resistance to that among the Antilleans. — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 333 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Being objectified by another’s look constitutes an inescapable existential guilt — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 72; Shame is fundamentally experienced in the presence of another person — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 659; Shame is the recognition of being as the Other sees one — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 660 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Shame first reveals one’s factical body because the Other’s look falls on embodiment #expands (0.82) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 97
• Shame arises from individual isolation and dissolves within collective action #contradicts (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 735
• Strangers are perceived by type rather than as individuals #expands (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 401
• Reclaiming a slur as a defiant identity label emerges from colonized shame #corroborates (0.75) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 333