Day 7 – THE PROBLEM OF OTHERS, II
Day 7:
Recognition
Live Like an Existentialist
Background
I ask that I be taken into consideration on the basis of my desire. I am not only here and now, locked in thinghood. I desire somewhere else and something else. I demand that an account be taken of my contradictory activity insofar as I pursue something other than life, insofar as I am fighting for the birth of a human world, in other words, a world of reciprocal recognitions. He who is reluctant to recognize me is against me…
– Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Conclusion
Fanon introduces the concept of recognition into our existential toolbox. If humans always exist for-others as well as for-ourselves, then the former is not necessarily antithetical to a good life. That dimension of ourselves does become a problem, however, under a certain set of conditions. When who we are for others is not a human (a negating existence) but a positive thing, we have not been recognized. Recognition is not knowledge of “what I really am like,” but rather an acknowledgment of one’s inherent freedom. It is an acknowledgement of the fact that I never COULD know what you are “really like”. This is the principle category of unethical behavior for existentialism: all genuine crimes and immoralities stem from a refusal to recognize the “like-me” character of other human beings, which is to say their character as existences rather than essences.
Today’s Exercise
Today, identify three moments in which you experienced another person without recognizing them. During or immediately after those moments, spend ten minutes journaling. Describe the experience: try to avoid moral panic and truly put the experience “in parentheses.”
Once you’ve completed the assigned exercise for today, click here to access the prompt for tonight’s reflection and to submit your 1-2 paragraph journal entry.