We can see each other better when no screen is involved – Times Union

Michael Brannigan.

Michael Brannigan.

Michael Brannigan.

Michael Brannigan.

We can see each other better when no screen is involved

"One is unable to notice something because it is always before one's eyes."

Ludwig Wittgenstein

There are no mirrors in hell. At least, that's the case in philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's powerfully intense drama "No Exit." Estelle, one of three characters confined in hell to a stifling, brightly lit room, desires to wear makeup. Inez offers to be Estelle's mirror. And so, peering at her reflection in Inez's eyes, Estelle smudges her mouth with lipstick.

The lesson? A logic of self-flagellation: We create our own hell when others are our only mirror. The room's third inhabitant Garcin later utters the famous line "Hell is other people," which now makes sense in this wider context of Estelle's narcissism.

Though not your uplifting holiday missive, the moral is painfully pertinent. These days, we pretty much see everything. It's all right there on some screen, always occupying center position. The screen's two-dimensionality offers "reality" without texture, a flattening that reduces as it seduces. No depth, only breadth philosopher Jean Baudrillard's "triumph of superficial form."

We not only see, but are seen. Unrelenting. And our self-imposed hell occurs the moment we define who we are according to others' gaze. In doing so, we remain vassals in the kingdom of digital utopia, drowning in images devoid of imagination, struggling to master unreality, anything to escape the gravity of time and flesh. Obsessed with self-presentation, caged by what we think others think, deploying crutches to not only fit in but stand out in the process, like wearing makeup in hell, we create our own suffocating abyss.

There's a mockery in all this however. Under the rule of others' gaze, we are faceless. Faceless? Even though we are submerged in Facebook, Facetime, selfies, Instagram, happy-face emoji? We look at each other, but do we really see? Do we truly behold, eye to eye, without a device?

During this sacred season that beckons being-with, being-for and opening our hearts, can we recover depth and meaning? I believe we can. The secret lies right in front of us the face of the other. Not some pixilated, edited version, but the real tangible living face that we can only encounter in embodied physical interaction, unmediated.

Face-to-face conversation is what we desperately need more of. It is indeed a ballet, not always pleasant, of embodied humanness, a dance of spoken and unspoken signals, a slight nod, spark in the eye, thin frown, give-and-take, a tangible connecting that far surpasses connectivity through emotionless tools. Because it is real, reaching out in this way is what makes us human. When you think about it, looking into another's face really looking fractures our visual routine of simply noticing. Only face-to-face can we rediscover the other's peerless singularity, one that can never be captured by a gaze.

Remember this as we break bread and celebrate together with loved ones or see that same person at the same corner with the same sign. As philosopher Emmanuel Levinas puts it, the face is a window to the other's mystery. Stuck in my bubble, I habitually peer out of a shut window, the window frame enclosing all that I see in front of me. The trick is to see without framing, outside the window.

Here are two face-rules for this season and beyond. First, during our face-to-face moments, conversations, dinners, etc., don't just turn off your phones. Put them away. They'll steal your soul. Next, never forget that when we meet each other face-to-face, as we all know but somehow forget, the moment is all the more divine because it will never come again.

Michael C. Brannigan is a philosopher, author and speaker. His email and website: mcbrannigan64@gmail.com; http://www.michaelcbrannigan.com.

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We can see each other better when no screen is involved - Times Union