Alone with Others by Stephen Batchelor

Author:Stephen Batchelor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 1983-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

11. Inauthentic Being-With-Others.

Although being-with-others is a fundamental characteristic of the way we are, in our actual attitudes towards and behaviour with others it assumes one of two manifest modes: it is either authentically or inauthentically fulfilled. Being-with-others is an essential constituent of man’s being, i.e., as a possibility of being that is unavoidably present and taken up in every human activity. It would be impossible to retain either one’s genuine humanity or one’s sanity were one to act in such a way whereby, even implicitly, others were not taken into account. Every attitude we assume, every word we utter, and every act we undertake establishes us in relation to others. Our thoughts mold the image we have of ourselves in relation to others and our words and actions help suggest the impression that others have of us. But in these actual concrete relations with others we sometimes open the way to a fuller acceptance of and greater concern for the other person, whereas sometimes we tend to retreat from him or her and close ourselves off to their plight. In both of these cases we exist in a mode of being-with-others, but in the first instance it is an authentic mode, whereas in the second it is inauthentic.

The root of all inauthentic manifestations of being-with-others is the attitude of self-concern.11 It is in this state of mind that, either consciously or unconsciously, we reduce the central aim of all value and meaning to the accomplishment of the welfare of ourself alone. This attitude can operate very deviously even in the person who outwardly appears to be thoroughly altruistic. Despite all magnanimous commitments and generous deeds, it silently measures the ultimate worth of these things in terms of the personal satisfaction that results from them. It is the root of inauthentic being-with because it is primarily responsible in preventing our essential being-with-others from full and genuine expression. Self-concern is a distorted actualization of the possibility of being-with; for while actually with others it causes us to constantly turn away from them. Thus, in hindering the development of an essential human possibility, it thereby stunts and distorts the growth of the person as a whole.

A major feature of self-concern is that by introverting all attention upon the projects of oneself alone, it tends to reduce the presence of others to that of mere objects. The unique existence of the other is subordinated to a role that he or she plays as a figure in one’s own personal drama. On occasion it seems that the numberless other people only exist on the exterior with sometimes the merest flicker of interiority, whereas I am thoroughly present as a unique interior being and my exterior is just an inadequate reflection of what I really am. Thus we have an I—It situation in which we no longer genuinely encounter another person, but another thing. Such is the underlying structure of inauthentic being-with-others which acts as the common foundation for the emotional and intellectual developments that subsequently emerge out of it.

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