Self-avoidance differs from hiding external objects because the self is translucent

Evidence

We can hide an external object because it exists independently of us. For the same reason we can turn our look or our attention away from it—that is, very simply, fix our eyes on some other object; henceforth each reality—mine and that of the object—resumes its own life, and the accidental relation which united consciousness to the thing disappears without thereby altering either existence. But if I am what I wish to veil, the question takes on quite another aspect. I can in fact wish “not to see” a certain aspect of my being only if I am acquainted with the aspect which I do not wish to see. This means that in my being I must indicate this aspect in order to be able to turn myself away from it; better yet, I must think of it constantly in order to take care not to think of it. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 259

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Lays out the paradox of flight-from-self — you must think of what you flee in order to flee it — a genuinely dense knot about consciousness’s translucency that structures the entire bad-faith chapter.
• XREF: The ‘flight from anguish’ mechanism directly underwrites Beauvoir’s bad-faith analysis as a systematic backdrop. — connects to: Shame precedes reflection and arises from an opaque self-relation; Self-consciousness need not posit the self as an object — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 10

Broader Connections

• Shame precedes reflection and arises from an opaque self-relation #expands (0.80)
• Self-consciousness need not posit the self as an object #qualifies (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 10