The other person does not know you are watching them, so they are completely objectified for you, by you, and you are completely absorbed in the activity of doing so and thus are not very aware or reflective of your own subjective self. Imagine peering through a keyhole at someone else in this scenario. In another example of Sartre’s, we can see how the impact can, conversely, be felt very intensely that of his famous “voyeur” case. But without any judging looks from that other person, the impact on the self is not felt deeply. They need not be near you or even notice you, but the presence of another person alters your experience in the park. This experience can be especially alienating in certain situations.Īs Sartre demonstrates, imagine you are alone in a park, but after some time, another person arrives. This “look” as Sartre refers to it (which need not be literal, as simply imagining how others can look and objectify us is enough to alter our sense of self), is the source of meaning that we get from our relations with other people. In the second scenario, the tables are turned, and we may feel objectified by the look of another. Thus, we struggle to recognize their subjectivity in the face of their seeming objectivity. In the first scenario, Sartre argues that we must wrestle with the fact that this other person, by analogy, must have a subjective mind like me, but we are forced to only infer this because that other person exists in the realm of objects. The ways in which others alter our worlds vary, but what is always the case is that we cannot avoid some form of relations with others. How do you feel and react in each situation? As Sartre argues, the presence of others inevitably changes our world, and the fact that we cannot change nor always control that can be very frustrating. Then imagine a different scenario in which you notice someone else doing this to you. Imagine yourself staring at a stranger, say, in a restaurant. The “Look”: Objectification According to Sartre Photo of Jean-Paul Sartre, 1967, via Flickr.
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