The Plight of the Object

Plight

of the

Object

Maybe you think you are something else. This “something” never reveals itself, of course, but you demand I respect it. I cannot. The politics of your feelings, thoughts, your mind and soul—the subject—all of it you can only ever speak of, and you can only ever demand I listen.

Keep it. The subject is a lie. The subjective is false. Your "true colors", your "true self", are not true at all, for it does not even resemble the thing I see before me, and is a fiction. Your primacy is apparent—it is felt, it is held, it is kissed, while your subject remains eternally missing. You are engaged in the dance of objects, and it is that with which we will dance.

Now that I have you alone, dear object, perhaps you and I can speak freely about our kind, but let's not do so without a little nod to those who cannot be with us. Seeing as how our perpetually late company never seems to arrive, let's burn something in his honor, as he himself is wont to do, and perhaps the light of fire will help lead him to us.

An auto-da-fé is not unlike any sacrifice insofar as it is for the consolation of crowds, whom while taking part in a ritualistic burning or torture of a fellow object (perhaps of the human kind), find a sadistic subjective comfort in witnessing penance, or whatever else they have convinced themselves they are really witnessing.

Penance or not, the fact remains that they are burning an object, a particular, an original and one of a kind, and something the universe will never witness again, for the sake of their fleeting feelings. A shame, of course.

Nowadays, if a particular object is not available for a good old fashioned lynching, or if we are of a high enough civility to forgo ritualistic murder, an effigy or likeness will have to do. We have at least advanced that far. Nonetheless, the effigy serves the exact same function as the object it is meant to represent—that is, so long as it is affixed with the same labels, the same ideals, the same stories we often pretend are so fundamental and real that only burning something real will suffice to be rid of them, we at least have something to destroy and feel better about ourselves in doing so.

Still, an object burns, an object is broken on the rack, a thing is sacrificed to the cult of our subjectivity, for something stupid like blasphemy or heresy or witchcraft. Someone's tender feelings were assaulted by someone else's tender feelings, or some criticism, some stupidity, belief, or other; and hence he, or something representing he, must burn. The object itself, the human being, or the effigy, in all their immediacy, are not at any time considered primary to any feelings or stories told about them. As usual, subjectivity is a euphemism for solipsism.

Imagine instead that they threw their subjectivity to the pyre, condemning their feelings and thoughts before anything else.

But first, a horrific truth about the subject and the subjective, our perpetually missing friends. If the Milgrim experiment is any sort of evidence, we would rather participate in the torture of another object than to receive any rebuke or reprimand from authorities, giving us a taste of the precedence of our dear subject over the object. We would rather wallow in our own experience, our own perception, our own desires, our own safety, our own feelings, our own thoughts, as if in our very own dung, than to risk ourselves for another object, whom we just so happen to be torturing. The mere subjective thought of reprimand is much more fearful than submitting another object to 450 volts.

An object in the world never becomes an object in the mind, experience or thought; it only ever evokes a mishmash of thoughts, feelings and inclinations in thinking objects. In order to experience an object, the object must first be there to experience. For instance, to shine a light on a rock requires there is a rock to shine a light on. The same with perception and thought— every object precedes and is primary to every experience, perception and thought about said object. Despite this, it is all too common that the subject confuses the primary object to the secondary thought as if they were the same thing, leading him to, in some way, prefer the illusion of this mishmash to the immediacy of the actual object.

But this subject too is an object in the world, an unavoidable certainty, but a fact he rarely admits. He begins and ends, he has a surface, has gravity, he is finite, he moves as a whole, and has the power to affect and be affected. Outside of the surface, his feelings, his thoughts and inner-story never appear. They don’t even appear beneath the surface, and we find a subject is an object through and through. Even so, this object would rather identify with something else, perhaps his feelings, his thoughts or instincts, cowering from his object into something he can more understand, something he pays more attention to, something he is more familiar with. In this confusion, the subject demands more, too much more, than what he as an object has to offer. And what else can he do but force his feelings and subjectivity beyond his skin into a more visible and intelligible form, almost like a sculpture of his feelings and inner-stories, something like a journal, but essentially a symbolic representation, some word describing his intentions, desires, beliefs, and other such petty nonsenses. He embodies it in some way, so that when he or another needs to acknowledge what he “truly” is without actually doing so, he can point and refer to something other than himself and say “This is me”. A paradox.

It is hilarious but no joke when something as benign as two pieces of lumber nailed together to form a cross can become a symbol of divinity and sacrifice. It brings a false sense of comfort to those that stand in its presence, while if the same exact wood was put together to make any other shape, it wouldn’t make a lick of difference, and would likely be discarded in the trash. What matters to most is not the object itself, but whatever symbol we can make out of it. A parable.

The ease with which we can pin a story to any object and either condemn or deify it with the splattering of a few words or brushstrokes can be comforting, but when we finally behold the object in its sensual glory, its immediacy, its reality, it never lives up to our painting of it. One look in the mirror can prove this. When we stare into the eyes of the very object we are, nothing we say or think will change it, no cloth or adornment alters it, and every story we’ve told about the figure staring at us in the mirror doesn’t change anything about it. It is much easier to lie to, or at least fictionalize that figure, than it is to tell it the truth about it, finally making it real.

cont.

But the mirror is telling, often too much. It offers one a glimpse of herself from a view she is not accustomed to, that is, from a view not fully her own; a reminder of sorts, found amidst a reflection of herself. She can see how others see her, what everything sees, even her eyes, her ears, her skull, her hair, her posture, and the background within which she stands, which usually lay slightly hidden behind her typically feeble first-person periphery. Here there are no symbols, no stories, and no feelings. She sees the truth—she is not at the direct center of a thinking, feeling and living universe as her subjectivity might imply, but is a thing, an entity, a body, an object, a fact confirmed by everyone and everything (including the mirror), except for herself. With this she is finally considering herself differently, realistically, giving more attention to her actuality, to her reality, her “true self”, and her intrinsic responsibilities, instead of self-identifying with a mélange of fugitive feelings and assumptions. The story she tells herself dissolves, and the feelings such unmitigated fiction has served her up until now momentarily quiets, especially when the subject of the story is standing before her in plain view as an object. From this vantage point she discovers her false dichotomy—no matter what, the subjective is always objective, and the subject an object. Shortly after, she retreats from the mirror.

Kierkegaard was right when he said one should be objective about himself and subjective about others, which seems to be the exact opposite of how the majority of folk operate these days. In his study of Socrates, he noticed the great ironist rarely let his feelings, his inner-story, his beliefs be explicitly known, and by disguising them under a veil of irony, was able to hold to his moral ideals and convictions by not publicly announcing them. This was the reason Socrates was a rare human indeed, one "who effectively employs irony as an incognito for his ethical passions”, leaving us, thankfully, blissfully unaware of them.

More than this, Socrates was so good at suppressing his subjectivity that he rarely expressed it. He could drink copious amounts of wine but not appear drunk, stand in the snow in bare feet but not appear cold, and face death without any display of fear. Whether he was actually drunk, cold and fearful of his impending murder did not matter to his own analysis, or anyone else’s, as his subjectivity, his feelings, his thoughts, his sensations, were never manifest in Socrates the object. Maybe he was some sort of narcissist who hid his true self from others? A mere shell of a human being? An actor? A deceiver? As an object among objects, one who would be remembered and admired for thousands of years, he was an even better “true self” than the fictions he hid and hid rightly. No shell, no costume, but Socrates. What was important for Socrates was not what kind of subject he was to himself—for subjectivity, to confuse the world with ones own thoughts, feelings and consciousness, is an act of self-seeking—but what kind of object he was in the subjective lives of others. Socrates the object was always most eminent. What better way to know thyself than to be thyself? It was no wonder he was loved. It was no wonder he was killed.

Not so much these days. Instead, that inner-story, the fables of our feelings and thoughts and fleeting sensations take primacy, and are the spiritual currency and going rate for most people, even more so than the source from which the inner-story comes from. Hilariously, it is even considered wrong to "objectify" someone, even though they are objects in every sense.

Our mostly liberal culture is not only protective of subjectivity, we even prefer it, making sure to furnish the severely limited subjective view with certain leniences in objective circumstances, such as political correctness in case one might take offence, trigger warnings in case one might become traumatized at the mention of a few words, and so forth. Even though these subjectively-inclined folk may take offence with some politically incorrect speech or other, or be triggered by the misogyny of something like the Great Gatsby, or the racism of Huckleberry Fin, and feel harassed, horrified and oppressed thereby, in most if not all cases they are in an environment where there is absolutely no threat to their physical well-being, for instance on a university campus. If one must remove a confederate flag to make people feel better about themselves, so be it. But if we simply look around, we don’t witness flags, literature, offensive words running amok trying to injure people, we don’t witness symbols standing on street corners harassing the passers by. We find the only one dishing out any sort of damage to a person is that person, and because of his self-imposed fragility, others have to tip-toe around his feelings, which lie broken and damaged all over the place. I can only imagine what these good people might do in situations where actual danger may come afoul.

David Foster Wallace was at least sincere when he noted there is never a time when one is not at the center of his own experience, as if subjective experience was a type of universe in which the experiencer is at the dead center, everything else revolving around him. He called it the “default setting”, that we are born wired in such a way as to consider ourselves before we consider another. One imprisoned by this mindset, whom, while stuck in traffic, honks the horn and becomes impatient with the cars in his way, is often not realizing that he too is traffic, that he too is in the way, and honking the horn at others is essentially honking the horn at himself. Not only do we forget these other objects have such feelings, also become irritated, also having a bad day, but more importantly, he also forgets that he too is an object, and as such, has the ability to affect other objects in the exact same way.

Philosophically, problems such as subjectivity, consciousness, personhood, agency, inner stories, etc. are not signs of ontological, epistemological or metaphysical problems with human knowledge, but are the direct result of this default setting—we cannot get over ourselves long enough to arrive at any solutions.

Thomas Nagel was wrong to argue that “there is something that it is like” to be a conscious thing; and of course that “something it is like” is what he calls “consciousness”. As is the usual for those born and raised with a such a Cartesian tendency—and I mean this pejoratively—this is begging the question, since this “something” is always assumed and never realized. Upon reading we encounter subtle presumptions of this sort, and are immediately taken aback. Where is this “something”?

Read his essay “What it’s Like to Be a Bat” to remind yourself the obvious—that we cannot know what it’s like to be a bat because we are not bats. What makes a bat feel like a bat, experience as a bat, is that bat, one equaling one, and if we wish to describe and define what that bat consists of, we can endeavor to do so, without once having to insert feelings, qualia, consciousness, and other symbolic nonsense. It cannot be that hard to realize subjective experience, “consciousness”, the “what it’s like” to be you, is you, an object, and not some ethereal fog emanating from your body as so many not only insinuate, but get a kick out of doing so.

The short answer to the so-called hard question "how does the brain give rise to mental events”?—It doesn't. Contrary to popular opinion, nothing arises. In order for something to arise, it must first be a something, but it isn’t. In order for consciousness to emerge out of a complex system such as a human organism, something must emerge, or in some other way must reveal itself to emerge, but it doesn’t. No property “emerges” in any intelligible sense. A fart is more of an emergent property than mind or consciousness ever will be. “Mental events”, “cognition”, “qualia” are mere symbols and words thrown haphazardly at a human body, which remains the mysterious object of our inquiry, and ironically, the inquirer.

Upon simple inspection, there is no such entity as mind, no such thinking and feeling element within the body, no subject, no consciousness, and so on. I mean, what else can we expect from an object that cannot peer beneath its own surface, who cannot get over himself enough to witness first hand the entirety of processes occurring in and around him, and must rely on the patchy guesswork founded upon ancient and primitive conceptions—nay, falsities—to account for any subtle and fleeting sensations that he cannot see, hear or touch? What else can we expect from a subjective person?

Not a whole lot. What we can expect, however, is that these subjective types will destroy objects for the sake of maintaining their subjectivity. These objects are not just effigies and representations, but often organisms, the living and the dead, and the world itself.

The Plight of the Object is simply this: that we burn the subject rather than the object; we destroy the subjective before we ever lay a finger on the objective; and in doing so we harm nothing, because there was never anything there to begin with.


Thank you for reading. Too long?

LesMis

in relating to object from the subject humans seem to have an obsession with names.

many circles of social networks an individuals "name" or as observed -ego accumulation- is raised as most important. prime examples: musical artists.

once a younger person looked down and upon realizing the entrapment of the body and name lost the indentification as the object.

or another means to question, do individuals exist or maybe are the bodies all sharing of something bigger called life?

An extremely difficult idea to adjust to and put into practice, if not impossible. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it's true. For most people, it's not things or objects that they fear, admire, hate, or what have you, but the thought of those things. I think the most common variant is "we do not fear death, but the thought of death."

Socrates also said something to the effect of "those two men can kill me, but they cannot not harm me." A far cry from the perpetually harmed men and women of the modern day.

People are very confident in their own thoughts and feelings, rarely ever questioning them. Contrarily, they often refuse to take "objects" or reality at face value. They are terribly confused by and wary of the world around them, being swayed this way and that for reasons they don't know. They don't realize that it's not the world swaying them, it's their own thoughts and impressions. It should be the exact opposite; one should be confident in the world around himself and highly skeptical and wary of his own thoughts and feelings.

It's all in having the correct judgements.

Thank you for reading. Too long?

I think you went straight off into the deep end. Most people won't understand this without more background. A great post though, I've been reading and pondering similar things.

There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy Les Miserables.

A true product of true discernment is joy.

Is your alloy true?

I sense an admixture of sorrow.

The fire burns true, but burns what is untrue.

An object implies what an object is not.

Not what is an object.

Everything is composed of what it is not.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

This is why we need to develop our telepathy. Words get in the way of pure thought and the real communication of ideas. This is where the Tower of Babel came into play, to confuse us and keep us from fully understanding each other. Even though we are all one in the same.

Edit to add: Nice post, thoughtful, thanks!

Such hypocrites we are!
You, placing your internal nothings into symbols out here, placed before us to read
(is it too long? Too sweet? Too sour? Should I have added salt?)
A tableau which describes the folly of doing such a thing.

I wrote the other day,
"At some point in my life, I realized-
my feelings and emotions are not anyone elses business"
And yet I wax on about them anyway in this forum.

My reason is because I've found whatever they are (or are not, in this case)
If I don't express them, paint some sort of tableau with that immaterial medium,
then I will project them instead upon all those around,
they becoming my subjects indeed, all wracked with indecisions, confusions, fears, weaknesses, ignorance, and whatnot .
Socrates figured that out - yes, choose to believe you are the only real thing in a world of nothings.
Those around will often eventually slurp that up and believe they are nothing, especially compared to you.
They will let go of all drive to think and create themselves with that same non-material medium , and just do as told - keep it, hush, listen as I tell you what you are.....


Socrates knew much about making immaterial pictures with words, but obviously, he knew nothing of the creative act of making and forming a human object, that is capable of moving out of being someone elses subject.

originally posted by: Bluesma
They will let go of all drive to think and create themselves with that same non-material medium , and just do as told - keep it, hush, listen as I tell you what you are.....

No they won't. Recognizing that thoughts and emotions aren't the same as actual things and reality doesn't mean we won't still have them. It doesn't mean we shouldn't express them, albeit neutrally and productively. By all means, express your thoughts and emotions, just don't mistake them for something they're not. There's still a place for aritists and inventors in the OPs world, I don't know why you'd think otherwise.

And nobody creates anything with a "non-material medium." Every medium for expression is material. That's exactly why it's called a medium. I'm sure you know what this is, Bluesma:



I think these sorts of Stoic-inspired doctrines are quite transcendental. If they were really implemented by people with honest intentions, I've no doubt the world would be a better place.

originally posted by: Talorc

originally posted by: Bluesma
They will let go of all drive to think and create themselves with that same non-material medium , and just do as told - keep it, hush, listen as I tell you what you are.....

No they won't. Recognizing that thoughts and emotions aren't the same as actual things and reality doesn't mean we won't still have them.

I was refering to what happens when you consider yourself objectively and all others subjectively. (Socrates?) The hiding of all emotion and sentiment.
This is how gurus work their magic, and people get drawn into following them. It is the magnetic attraction between narcissists and those with low self esteem.

Creating with emotions and thoughts does not refer to re-producing the works of others.

And nobody creates anything with a "non-material medium."

The spoken word is immaterial.
Sounds are immaterial.
If you are disagreeing with that I am afraid I'll need some some help understanding.
Or- if it is your usage of the word "anything".... I never mentioned things.
Non-material culture

I think these sorts of Stoic-inspired doctrines are quite transcendental.

Absolutely! Love them! I also adore the irony they often hold.

It is like a mental tickle fest.

originally posted by: Bluesma
I was refering to what happens when you consider yourself objectively and all others subjectively. (Socrates?) The hiding of all emotion and sentiment.
This is how gurus work their magic, and people get drawn into following them. It is the magnetic attraction between narcissists and those with low self esteem.

I don't think he was hiding his emotions and sentiments so much as dismissing them for lack of relevance and significance. But we have no way of knowing, and in the end it doesn't make any difference.

Just imagine if everyone started considering their emotions and impressions mere chemical reactions in the brain, rather than abstract feelings and forms. And I don't just mean "knowing" that fact, like someone "knows" frivolous trivia, but actually taking it to heart. That emotions and impressions aren't world-shaking, reality-bending phenomena, just simple brain activity that's highly prone to error and misjudgment. I think it would represent a sea change in human thought, and it's the logical progression from where we are now. It's only reasonable that we go from being irrational to.... less irrational, superstitious to showing a modicum of self-awareness.

Absolutely! Love them! I also adore the irony they often hold.

It is like a mental tickle fest.

Yes, we can't seem to escape paradoxes. I guess that's why fellows like Heraclitus seemed to insist on them.

originally posted by: Talorc


I don't think he was hiding his emotions and sentiments so much as dismissing them for lack of relevance and significance. But we have no way of knowing, and in the end it doesn't make any difference.

Just imagine if everyone started considering their emotions and impressions mere chemical reactions in the brain, rather than abstract feelings and forms. And I don't just mean "knowing" that fact, like someone "knows" frivolous trivia, but actually taking it to heart. That emotions and impressions aren't world-shaking, reality-bending phenomena, just simple brain activity that's highly prone to error and misjudgment. I think it would represent a sea change in human thought, and it's the logical progression from where we are now. It's only reasonable that we go from being irrational to.... less irrational, superstitious to showing a modicum of self-awareness.

Yeah, I get the idea, I have encountered it before. In fact I think that is why I retain a bit of a bias, or a wariness, about it's effectiveness in practice. The theory sounds excellent!

My stepfather is a professor of Philosophy, and a Psychoanalyst. His particular theory of psychoanalytic practice was somewhat innovative in the seventies, but in more recent times, there are are more proponents of this idea.
His technique is using philosophical and critical thought. I am not in the best position to describe his theory, my understanding of it might be slightly off. But in essence, it is the development of using reason and objective analyzation of your emotions, sentiments, behaviors which aids the person to find understanding of self and stability.

So him and my mother lived with this theory, and raised a child within it.
If the child just cries, for example, it is ignored. If the child speaks , saying something like, "I am feeling this_____. It is arising in response to when I see/hear/do this_________." They would pay attention, listen and converse with him.

My mother first was enamored with this man because of his ability to not empathize except that sort of distant intellectual way. It allowed her to begin distancing from her own emotions, which she felt tyrannized by, and that tended to tyrannize others. He could talk about emotions, acknowledge them, but did not identify with them at all, and did not use them as forms to reason with.

Now, the child became a meth and oxy addict, who lives on the streets and is often in prison. My mother killed herself.
My stepfather recently said he suspects he might have Aspergers- but I don't know if that is true. In any case, the great experiment showed to have several drawbacks in practice and reality, despite the excellent theory.

One of them I personally find bothersome is that identifying with emotions, really living them, gives you physical energy. For sports, for work, for accomplishing things in the material world.
This way of distancing oneself as an observer of them only drains them of energy, stops action. They are not burned by muscles, and make for toxic build ups in the body.

If the person can get enough at rationalisation and reason, they can slowly create views and thoughts which might limit the production of emotion (emotion being chemicals produced in the body), but that also has a detrimental effect upon human relations and bonding.
These non-existent forms and structures we come up with become very important in relationships, and in the accomplishment of some very concrete material endeavors. An emotional desire for certain limits and protection gives birth to an idea of a house, which gives birth to the action which build a house.


My stepdad did enjoy a guru type position for most of his life, with followers and worshippers. He jokes that he is lucky to be able to live off those now, as he has become physically handicapped.

Perhaps because I am a female, though I appreciate the objective view of life, I cannot let go of the equal importance of that emoting and the thoughts it provokes, in terms of raising children, for example. These biological bodies are geared to be using those for part of their survival and well being.

Yes Ideology is poison... it is the very subjects that we nail onto the objective without any objectivity being subject oneself or slave to the very ideology of labeling in self and others becoming the nails in our own feet seeking some savior instead of sitting like a rock and sinking as a stone to the very center of the entire pond, knowing when one first enters they are a rock like all others and then drowning among a sea of sameness... the frame work stripped away it's just rocks and ponds and skipping stones across the surface seeking if anything counts. The sinking will occur so one might as well get it over with.

Mao was correct in saying religion was poison, of course he couldn't go so far saying it was ideology itself as he had a platform to stand on... so ommiting the ideology in exchange for religion made his noose dissapear in his rise of power. Because one can stand on one leg and hop around but when desiring subjects one cannot sit down on such a stage without getting the chair.

So in all his strength his last temptation was to rule on one leg... many a monk lost an arm just to get in such monasteries. Of course, freedom means freedom and in even a grasp with no arms to embrace, there's two legs to walk and when one only has one left to stand on... of course in self protection they'll avoid the noose and hop around the subject of being simply object... too bad of course, as when the other leg is removed one simply becomes a bob and the golden fish gets hooked and yanked out of the pond and a stone no longer and yet still simply a stone.

The stone cutter is the diamond cutter of doubts, as he chips away at the mountain in woe as the mountain will always be mighter than he only to find out his true self was always in his work, his action, his deed and his speech is only really needed when asked what are you? To simply hold up his tools.

I'm glad to see the pruning of your tools have ended... with the regrowth of your M it was a part of you and is something to appreciate, despite all of the sheers that wished to trim it to their own fancy, making your image an effigy of their own design.

Homage to the hermatage wherein there is no house to dwell... in all your days I hope they fair thee well. I would have said fare thee well, but taxation without representation? Is for existentalists.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Do you make a difference in the world you see with your eyes?

I once heard a quote; " Words dont bring food to the table ." This woman sold her body to foreign men, what was her
" true self "?

LM I compliment you on your OP it seems Poetic and in that regard

Having said that here is my critique...

Not only in respect to the rules of this forum but in general we should not base reality simply upon what is known. Thatt problem being the extent of that argument is reflective of only the known and not the unknown. Consciousness its activity could very well represent an aspect of structure and so objective in every sense and at the very least, with respect to emotions objective at what is fundamental and objective to the structure of reality as a whole.

Suggesting that is impossible and that brain activity can in fact not have an objective effect upon reality implicates our current understanding of what is objective as absolute which, in relation to modern science is not necessarily correct.

Modern Science present that everything created at the same time interacts, so the question is the extent of that interaction in relation everything that exist.

Suggesting that the relationship of consciousness to the standard model as the only way to understand consciousness does not in and of itself, prove that in and of itself, being aware of an environment, has nothing to do with a objective function
of the Universe at large.

Blusma:

"The spoken word is immaterial. Sounds are immaterial."


There at issue is whether or not the issue of what is fundamental. From the context of the quanta, does in and of itself. Present that if for not that factor reality would not function, as it currently does and as we understand it today.

Hypothetically all forms of life are instantaneously rendered extinct everywhere......and the result is?

"In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state."


en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: Kashai

If sounds are immaterial then an echo is being haunted by your own voice... as a parrot flys away.