“Objects in Non-places[1], or a Critique of Empathy”
Is it possible for one subject to actually experience the filth of another? I’m consistently oscillating between the sense that I’m a tourist in the lives of others and a feeling of autonomy, which is consistently interrupted by a mutual exchange of unknown particles occurring during collisions with other beings. I try to maintain this autonomy by trying not to absorb too much of the others when I’m with them. I really have no interest in becoming the other because of the inherent quality of the other, which directs it to an awareness of my becoming them before my becoming them is complete.
Also, most of what we feel when we feel others is already our own anyway. Empathy has a role in the function of perception. We turn our attention to a particular thing[2]. We are attracted to a thing. We perceive something in that thing, something in a thing that maybe resembles our self, or something relating to the self, etc…
But what would be the experience of simultaneously feeling the other and feeling empathy for a thing? What happens to the thing, through these exchanges of hideousness amongst subjects? What happens when the thing, is the catalyst for the coming together of these hideousness-exchanging subjects? Does the filth of the subjects permeate, contaminate, the thing? Does the thing we are subjecting to this exchange, become somehow corrupted, imbued, with this hideousness as if intercepting the exchange? What is the role of the of the other– simultaneous transmitter and receiver of its own filth– in the circuit? Are we even interested in the thing, or the other, or merely the experience of ourselves as we participate in the lie of empathy?
[1] The non-place here refers to a place of transition or a place one might pass through, but would never stay. For an in depth discussion of ‘Non-places,’ see: Augé, Marc, Non-Places, An Introduction to Supermodernity, trans. John Howe, (London; New York: Verso, 1995).
[2] “Thing,” can be defined as an object, text, or abstract perception.
