I can neither direct nor escape the Other’s freedom.

Evidence

But this guilt is accompanied by helplessness without this helplessness ever succeeding in cleansing me of my guilt. Whatever I may do for the Other’s freedom, as we have seen, my efforts are reduced to treating the Other as an instrument and to positing his freedom as a transcendence-transcended. But on the other hand, no matter what compelling power I use, I shall never touch the Other save in his being-as-object. I shall never be able to accomplish anything except to furnish his freedom with occasions to manifest itself without my ever succeeding in increasing it or diminishing it, in directing it or in getting hold of it. Thus I am guilty toward the Other in my very being because the upsurge of my being, in spite of itself, bestows on the Other a new dimension of being; and on the other hand I am powerless either to profit from my fault or to rectify it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1010

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The double bind — structural guilt with structural helplessness — is the crux on which all of Sartre’s ethics turns.
• XREF: connects to: The Other’s freedom is the sole separation between my self and the Other — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 749; A person who has lost own freedom cannot wager another’s — , A Year of World Stories, 7027; Others’ freedom is the condition of, not a limit on, my own freedom — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 91 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Being seen enslaves me to a freedom that is not my own #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 741
• Others’ freedom is the condition of, not a limit on, my own freedom #contradicts (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 91
• A person who has lost own freedom cannot wager another’s #expands (0.75) — , A Year of World Stories, 7027
• One can act on the Other only once their freedom has collapsed. #contradicts (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 966
• The Other’s objective body cannot itself produce my objectification under his gaze #expands (0.70)