Every attitude toward the Other fails and collapses into its opposite

Evidence

Just as Love finds its failure within itself and just as Desire arises from the death of Love in order to collapse in turn and give way to Love, so all the patterns of conduct toward the Other-as-object include within themselves an implicit and veiled reference to an Other-as-subject, and this reference is their death. Upon the death of a particular conduct toward the Other-as-object arises a new attitude which aims at getting hold of the Other-as-subject, and this in turn reveals its instabiliy and collapses to give way to the opposite conduct. Thus we are indefinitely referred from the Other-as-object to the Other-as-subject and vice versa. The movement is never arrested, and this movement with its abrupt reversals of direction constitutes our relation with the Other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1006

Categorization

• XREF: This is the structural bedrock for Beauvoir’s account of love in The Second Sex — the circle of failed attitudes toward the Other that she inherits and adapts. — connects to: All interpersonal relations rest on an unstable subject-object struggle. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 92; Two primitive attitudes structure all my relations with the Other.; The ideal of loving unity with the Other is structurally unrealizable and breeds conflict — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 941 (+5 more)
• DEFINE: Defines how ‘the circle of relations with the Other’ is structurally constituted — by indefinite oscillation between Other-as-object and Other-as-subject.

Broader Connections

• The ideal of loving unity with the Other is structurally unrealizable and breeds conflict #expands (0.90) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 941
• Being-for-others generates perpetual conflict as each self objectifies the other #exemplifies (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1462
• Self-justification sought outside oneself collapses into perceived absurdity. #exemplifies (0.80)
• The For-itself becomes itself by negating the Other. #exemplifies (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 775