(BN 406 ). This is interpersonal relations as a game of stare-down. In this
case, the victim refused to “blink.”
Sartre makes a claim that he will explicitly reverse in theCritique
when he concludes that “neither of these two states [of “Masochistic” or
“Sadistic” attitudes to my body-for-others] “is sufficient in itself, and we
shall never place ourselves concretely on the plane of equality; that is, on
the plane where the recognition of the Other’s freedom would involve
the Other’s recognition of our freedom.”^22
Once again, Sartre appends a footnote of relief from the seemingly
inescapable alienation generated by the Other’s look. He assures us that
“these considerations do not exclude the possibility ofan ethics of deliver-
ance and salvation. But this can be achieved only after aradical conversion
which we can not discuss here” (BN 412 ,n. 14 , emphasis added).
“Being-with (Mitsein) and the We”
Sartre concludes the “social” ontology he is undertaking in partiiiof the
book by considering the “collective” object and subject, the Us and
the We. I place “social” and “collective” in scare quotes because
I believe we shall discover when we reach theCritiquethat both expres-
sions are used in an accommodated sense. To put it bluntly, the Sartrean
“Us” enjoys ontological status as the object of the Other’s gaze. It is a
kind of being-in-itself, as much as any for-itself can be reduced to an
object. But the We, on the contrary, is “a purely subjectiveErlebnis
[experience]” (BN 420 ). This is a position that has been categorized as
“ontological individualism,” where the collective subject is reduced to
a psychological phenomenon without ontological status beyond that
of an attitude or an idea. In fact, Sartre’s erstwhile friend Raymond
Aron continued to list Sartre among the ontological individualists even
after the appearance of theCritique.^23 Sartre, in this text, is not denying
that we have an experience of the We, for example that we experience
the other subjects with whom we share the audience at a theatrical
(^22) This is precisely the role of the “mediating third” in the fusing group described in the
Critique(CDRi: 363 – 404 ). The “Third” that Sartre introduces inBNshould be considered
23 an objectifying and alienating Third. This form will continue to function in theCritique.
Raymond Aron,History and the Dialectic of Violence, trans. Barry Cooper (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1975 ), 200.
214 Bad faith in human life:Being and Nothingness