preserving its character as freedom (Sadism). These are relations among
Others and not between a consciousness and a thing. And while the
(in)famous example of Sadism/Masochism articulated in this section
strikes many as offensive, it does serve to emphasize the embodied charac-
ter of Sartre’s ontology as his account becomes increasingly “concrete.”
These “two primitive attitudes” are inescapable. Indeed, “there is no
dialectic for my relations toward the Other but rather a circle – although
each attempt is enriched by the failure of the other...We can never get
outside the circle” (BN 363 ).
The result is a kind of tension without resolution because, ontologically,
we are dealing with a “double internal negation.” Despite the romantic
and psychological desire to “melt” into each other’s consciousness, this
“freedom,” which defines our being-for-itself, remains insoluble. This is
obvious in the revolving, alienating relations of “inauthentic” love
described inBeing and Nothingness, but we shall see that it continues
throughout the introduction of “dialectical” reason in theCritique. Sartre
calls upon a “preontological comprehension” of the deception at work in
our pursuit of love. He finds in it the source of the “triple destructibility of
love,” namely the lover’s perpetual dissatisfaction with this impossible
ideal, his perpetual insecurity (in the face of the Other’s freedom), and
the lover’s shame in the inevitable regard of a third party.
The second attitude toward the Other is simply another fundamen-
tal reaction to the being-for-others as an original situation. Sartre
considers this a deliberate turning from the failure to solicit the Other’s
consciousness by assuming my objectness for him (Masochism) toward
an equally vain attempt to collapse the Other’s subjectivity under my
objectifying gaze while still acknowledging a spark of subjectivity lest
my own objectivity disappear. This can assume several forms, from the
“factual solipsism” or the indifference that Martin Buber captured in the
“I–they” relation that one adopts toward the “functionaries” in a public
service, to the “troubled” phenomenon of sexual desire or repulsion,^21 to
explicit sadism (“an effort to incarnate the Other through violence”).
Sartre cites an example from Faulkner’sLight in Augustwhere the dying
man “looks” at his torturers: “This explosion of the Other’s look in the
world of the sadist causes the meaning and goal of sadism to collapse”
(^21) For an insightful description of sexual arousal inspired by this Sartrean text, see Thomas
Nagel, “Sexual Perversion,”Journal of Philosophy 66 ,no. 1 ( 1969 ): 5 – 17.
“Concrete Relations with Others” 213