Being seen enslaves me to a freedom that is not my own

Evidence

Thus being-seen constitutes me as a defenseless being for a freedom which is not my freedom. It is in this sense that we can consider ourselves as “slaves” in so far as we appear to the Other. But this slavery is not a historical result—capable of being surmounted—of a life in the abstract form of consciousness. I am a slave to the degree that my being is dependent at the center of a freedom which is not mine and which is the very condition of my being. In so far as I am the object of values which come to qualify me without my being able to act on this qualification or even to know it, I am enslaved. By the same token in so far as I am the instrument of possibilities which are not my possibilities, whose pure presence beyond my being I can not even glimpse, and which deny my transcendence in order to constitute me as a means to ends of which I am ignorant—I am in danger. This danger is not an accident but the permanent structure of my being-for-others. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 741

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines slavery and danger as permanent structures of being-for-others, not contingent historical states.
• XREF: Directly lays the ontological groundwork for Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, where woman is constituted as object for a masculine freedom. — connects to: My Ego-as-seen is structurally inaccessible to me, only lived in shame or pride; Freedom constitutes my being rather than attaching to it as a property; Being seen by another person confirms one’s own freedom after captivity — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 67 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• The Other’s gaze imposes unchosen determinations on my being #expands (0.88) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1229
• The look splits me into a for-itself and an unknowable being-for-others #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 742
• Being seen by another person confirms one’s own freedom after captivity #contradicts (0.82) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 67
• My being-for-others is radically distinct from my being-for-myself #expands (0.80)
• Emerging from incarceration, a person can rediscover freedom through witnessing another’s captivity #contradicts (0.80)
• Being seen alienates my flight into an object I cannot escape #complicates (0.78)
• Freedom constitutes my being rather than attaching to it as a property #qualifies (0.75)