I was taught that it is wrong to objectify others, that to do so was to abase a person to the status of a mere object, like a stone. But given our finitude, our limited duration, our surface area, our position, like the stone, we are mere objects nonetheless.

As an experiment I’ve begun to objectify others, not to degrade them to a mere object, but to elevate the “mere object” to a higher value in my own thinking. I’ve tried this because when I look at a loved-one I need not refer to my own thoughts and evaluations. I need not abstract her, posit within her, or at any rate fold into this object a series of inferences about inner lives, minds and spirits in order to value her. Everything I love emanates from, and is secondary to, her, this object.

This is perhaps easy to say of a loved one, but more difficult in practice with those I do not know. When considering a stranger as an object I find myself “othering” him, or otherwise relying on assumptions about his inner life and thoughts, seeking my own mind for value.

But I know that this stranger, this particular object, is an original, something that has never existed nor will ever exist beyond it’s boundary and duration. The rarity of this object is profound to me. And here it sits close by, mostly unnoticed by everyone else. In pushing aside my assumptions I’ve come to see a certain beauty and nobility in this object, an object worthy of consideration, as the weight of the universe closes around him.

My thinking is that if we can come to value the objectivity of a thing, we are less likely to destroy it, exploit it, which is paradoxically the reason we refuse to abase a person to a mere object today. Perhaps into the future we can learn to not “subjectify” objects for the same reason we do not “objectify” subjects.

Any thoughts?