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In his play No Exit Sartre wrote that �Hell is other people�. In order to make sense of this famous quote it is necessary to read and understand his work Being and Nothingness, particularly the chapter concerning �Concrete relations with others�.
According to Sartre �conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others�, that is of relationships with others and from this conflict there is indeed no exit. Though it may seem surprising, this notion is not confined to relationships of hate, but extends to indifference and to love and desire also.
This underpinning conflict is born of our fear of �nothingness� and our desire to find a foundation for our being. Sartre contends that existence precedes essence: �Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up into the world � and defines himself after.� Human consciousness is based on existence � what a person is becoming; the relationship between a person�s present and future � and essence - what a person is; determined by a person�s past.
Sartre draws our attention to the fact that being and nothingness are necessarily conjoined, for �if we ask ourselves� what it is which separates the subject from himself we are forced to admit that it is no-thing�. Human consciousness is characterized as a nothingness, as being �empty of all content�. This leaves us with an existential �nausea�, the subject of Sartre�s first book, accompanied by a fever to ground our essence. This is the fundamental aim of our relationships with others. The self is nothing but a mirror, which can only attain a fleeting security by reflections from the world and from others.
Sartre attributes such statements as �I am a coward� to our project of finding a foundation for our existence, to our desire to be. Since we fear that we are no-thing, we desire to be a thing, an object, to be defined. However although we may be cowardly today, Sartre maintains that tomorrow we could be a hero for we are always in the process of becoming and thus must always be in fear of our own nothingness. Existence therefore, is always chasing after essence, but to no avail.
As others provide us with a foundation for our being, so �being-for-others appears as a necessary condition for being-for-[our]selves.� �The existence of the Other renders the Cogito [� Descartes� famous conclusion that �I think therefore I am� -] possible as the abstract moment when the self is apprehended as an object�. It is the Other�s Look which creates me � I need to be seen, defined as an object in the eyes of the other so that my essence may be assured.
The Look is the basis of all our relationships with others. It is not tied to the presence of a physiological eye (or else Sartre would have had a bit of trouble with the blind population!) - the eye is merely the support for the Look. Although our ultimate aim, being transformed into an object by an Other's Look is experienced as shame � it is much like being caught unawares, peered at through a keyhole by a peeping tom. My existence is reduced to a single essence that is judged by another � I am spatialized and made an object.
Though this Look affords us what we seek, it is accompanied by a distinct sense of unease. We are insecure because our being lies in the Other�s gaze, which he or she may choose at any given moment to avert, so to speak. Our relations with others are an attempt to assuage this insecurity.
Love is one relationship by which we hope to grab and hold our essence. In Love I am faced with the problem of my beloved�s freedom and the danger that implies for me. I cannot wish that it be pre-determined that my beloved love me, for this would amount to a cheapening and would rob the beloved of his or her freedom, which is what makes him or her the Other and able to create me with his or her Look. Paradoxically however, I want to be a priori determined as my beloved�s beloved. It irritates me to be told I am the �chosen one� for this puts my essence into jeopardy � if I am merely chosen, then a number of other candidates might have taken my place and may indeed in the future. Thus I am insecure, the foundation for my being, as it lies in my beloved is threatened. This is why people like to think that they are �made for each other� � to give themselves a feeling of security. I want my beloved to love me freely and yet I am irritated by this threatening freedom.
In Love relationships there is much talk of possessiveness. According to Sartre this is linked to our need to ground our essence. Realizing that my beloved holds the key to my existence, I seek to assimilate him or her, to dissolve the Other into myself so that I may hold the key to my own being; so that I may be my own foundation and no longer fear my nothingness. However in absorbing my beloved (which it is at any rate impossible to do), I must necessarily restrict his or her freedom and it is of this very freedom that my being is born. In possessing the other�s freedom, I objectify him or her, robbing him or her of the power to create me with his or her Look. Moreover, the moment I assimilate the other into myself, the Other becomes me, is stripped of his or her otherness, which provided the ability to define my being in the
first place. The otherness of the Other must be a specific requirement, or else my foundation might come from within myself. Alas, this is not the case - As Sartre points out, it is impossible to look upon oneself and see oneself as does the Other. Hence, in a bitter irony, in seeking to possess what I want I destroy it and am left only with its shell.
In a Love relationship one is always trying to possess a freedom as a freedom, which is of necessity impossible.
Love becomes one sided, for my ultimate goal is to be looked at, to be loved, in a vain attempt to feel my essence defined. It so transpires that in a Love relationship, each wants to be loved, rather than loving and, capriciously, each requires a Love which is not reducible to the desire to be loved. The lover then wants to possess without being possessed, which inevitably leads to a conflict, a chase: my beloved seeks to possess me when I flee him or her and, like Narcissuss�s cruel and beautiful reflection, flees me when I reach out. The beloved is hence inapprehensible for the lover. Perhaps it is not vanity, as is usually supposed, but conflict between subject and object roles which is at the heart of �playing hard to get�. Sartre�s philosophy also explains why Love is so often selfish: we want soaring sacrifices to be made for us by our beloved, but do not want to have to make these sacrifices ourselves. We may think it is perfectly reasonable to have dinner with a good friend of the same sex, but feel extremely uneasy when our partner does the same. In both scenarios we wish to possess without being possessed and because our relationship is reciprocal this wish cannot be fulfilled. When a lover says to his or her beloved �you are mine�, he or she reveals a desire to possess the Other�s consciousness as described by Sartre. The lover who �needs some space�, flees his or her beloved�s grasp.
This conflict leads to an imbalance: Masochism arises from the failure of love, as I give up trying to absorb the Other so as to possess my essence, and instead, �abdicat[ing] my transcendence� , simply try to dissolve myself in the Other, by refusing to be anything but an object. Yet masochism must also fail � for it to work it would have to be possible for me to see myself as an object in the same way in which the Other does. If this were possible we could stand back, look at ourselves and define our own essences in all security. Naturally it is not: just as we must look in a mirror or a shop window to see out face, so our essence is nothing to us without the Other.
Masochism fails because it is impossible to deny my subjectivity: the more I insist on being an object, the more aware I am of my insistence and hence of my very subjectivity! Then in the face of my subjectivity the Other is rendered an object and I fall into the role of sadist.
Sartre concludes that Love is a relationship of conflict, which results in the lover�s perpetual dissatisfaction, insecurity and shame. �We are ceaselessly tossed from being-a-look to being-looked-at� , from subject to object, from sadist to masochist. �We can never place ourselves concretely on a plane of equality.�
Desire is the second attitude towards the Other arising from the failure of Love. In fact neither comes first nor second necessarily, rather the two attitudes form a circle, chasing each other endlessly as a dog does its tail. Realizing that I cannot find a secure foundation for my being in my attempt to absorb the other in his or her otherness, I then turn to look at the Other�s Look. This is Desire � the attempt to achieve a �double reciprocal incarnation� ; to be joined with the other as two freedoms, two transcendences, two subjectivities. Sexual Desire is not just the desire for physical possession, although this does fleetingly relieve us of it. Desire can only be overcome by a �reflective consciousness� � that is what we seek and will never find. We desire not just the Other�s body, but the other�s transcendent flesh; his or her consciousness. We cannot have it, however, for as soon as one asserts one�s subjectivity in order to look at the Other, the Other is objectified once more. As Sartre so beautifully puts it, one cannot look at a look � one sees only eyes. Sexual desire must then fail as it is �an attempt to get hold of the Other�s free subjectivity through his objectivity-for-me.� With the failure of desire, one is left with the Other�s body, his or her incarnated consciousness having slipped away, as a clever child slips away during a game of chasey, leaving a forlorn playmate clutching at a jumper.
In attempting to fulfill itself, Desire destroys itself, and we are left in a sadistic relationship in which we directly appropriate the Other�s body as an object. However even sadism is no escape from the endless torment of Desire, for �the moment appropriation occurs, Desire reappears�. As the Other becomes aroused that is, incarnated and I am faced with �panting flesh�, I am at a loss. I am merely an instrument engaged in appropriation of an object. My transcendent flesh has dissolved and I do not know what to do with this transcendent flesh before me. It seems all I can do is become aroused and hence incarnated myself and start the cycle of Desire all over again.
The only way out of this cruel conflict is sexual intercourse, that is penetration creating pleasure, but this is only because pleasure is the death of both Desire and sadism, not because it is desire�s fulfillment. At any rate, the cycle will begin again as quickly as it ends.
One may choose to look at the Other�s Look, as one does when one experiences Desire, as one�s first attitude, rather than as a way out of the conflict of being looked at and attempting to assimilate the Other (the situation we see in love).
This is Indifference and it is achieved by blinding oneself to the Other�s subjectivity and to the fact that the Other grounds one's being. The term blindness must not however be confused with the term Look. For I become blind in looking upon the Other as an instrument � I define the Other merely in terms of his or her function � paperboy, waiter, barmaid. Indifference is, however, futile as an attitude, for even my greatest solitude is �contaminated� by otherness. Although this blindness towards the Other means that I don�t have to be afraid of his or her freedom, it must imply a recognition of this freedom and so I am perpetually uneasy. Indifference then degenerates into sadism: the attempt to reduce the subject to an object, by appropriating it. But yet again, the moment I begin to enjoy the spectacle I put myself at the mercy of the Other as a subject: at any moment the Other may choose to resist the torture and so swell up again in subjectivity.
Hate is born of my constant oscillation between subject and object roles. I tire of this conflict, recognize it�s futility, and seeking to escape it, I hate the Other who brings the conflict about. Hate �implies a fundamental resignation: [I] abandon [my] claim to realize any union with the Other; [I] give up using the Other as an instrument to recover [my essence].� Equating the Other with all others, I desire that all others die so that I may be free of their tormenting Look. Hate does not objectify the Other, as indifference does, rather �it places the dispute on its true level.� It is the Other�s freedom, the Other�s subjectivity that I hate. This is why hate must also lead to conflict - even in order to wish that others did not exist, because their subjectivity is threatening, I must recognize that others do exist and hence even Hate must lead to a conflict.
Sartre anticipated the objection that We and Us relationships with others could surely not be based on conflict in the same way as one-on-one relationships.
First he points out that neither the We nor the Us experience can exist without conflict: one is defined by the other and we are the subject while the object is us. In this respect the relationship of we/us falls into exactly the same category of self/other. The experience can be defined as two opposing groups of people oscillating between roles of we and us, subject and object.
However, to defend his claim that all relationships are based on conflict it is necessary to examine the We experience and the Us experience separately.
I become Us when a third party, that is another Other, comes to look at my conflictual relationship with the Other and tries to assimilate Us into his or her world, by making Us an object. Is there not then an experience of unity with he or she who was once the Other, seeing as we are seen by the third party as a collective object? Perhaps, Sartre says, but this unity is secondary to the conflict experienced with the third party and only fleeting, as we will turn to look at him or her reducing him or her to an object and rising up in subjectivity.
Thus We are no longer Us and no longer experience that spurious unity. Are not we then also experiencing a certain unity? As we engage in conflict with the third party, so we cease to be in conflict with each other and experience a unity. Sartre points out that we only imagine this: the experience of we is purely psychological and has no ontological basis. There is nothing really joining me to the Other, we are both simply in simultaneous conflict with the third party.
Hence if any unity is experienced as Us it quickly must promptly dissolve as Us inevitably becomes We.
According to Sartre, our relations with others form a tormenting circle � �just as love finds its failure within itself and just as Desire arises from the death of Love, so all the patterns of conduct towards the other-as-object include within themselves an implicit and veiled reference to the Other-as-subject, and this is turn reveals its instability and collapses to give way to the opposite conduct.� The amount of time we can keep one attitude towards the Other going depends on the �particular circumstances of our history� and on whether we act in bad faith or not. If we act in bad faith, we are attempting to make what is an impossible situation possible, we continue with one kind of conflict, say love, in what we know to be a futile attempt to ground our essence. If we do not act in bad faith, we are constantly moving from one attitude to the other, from one conflict to the other.
In his play No Exit Sartre examines the importance of a mirror to a group of people stuck in the same room. The mirror, perhaps a symbol for the Other or for our own consciousness, is powerful, and a struggle erupts for possession of it. Since no one person can succeed in possessing the mirror and its power and since there is no way out of the room, the only solution, is to smash the mirror, to rid it of its threatening, yet desirable power. No Exit thus develops a metaphor for life and human relationships according to Sartre � an unending and cruelly paradoxical struggle for possession and freedom, which can only be resolved by our own death or the death of all others.
Sartre concludes that �concrete relations with others� are in fact impossible. For them to be possible the Other would have to be �revealed to us as subject and object� , as transcending and as transcended � �which is on principle
impossible�. We can neither avoid relationships with others, by means of Hate or of Indifference, nor can we experience any kind of unity in these relationships, not even by means of the We experience and the Us experience. Relations with others are thus unavoidable and yet impossible and we are caught in an endless cycle of conflict between subject and object roles, between freedom and possession, in a struggle to find a foundation for our being: this, we are never granted.
Copyright 2000 BlueSuzanne