What Do We Mean by “Subjectivity”?

Introduction

In recent years, “subjectivity” has become a frequent term on the Chinese internet.

We are urged to be ourselves, reclaim agency, establish boundaries, attend to our feelings, and not surrender our choices to other people’s judgments. “Become yourself” has become a difficult instruction to oppose.

But the question begins here. The idea of subjectivity developed with modern society, in part to describe our capacity to step back, reflect on ourselves, and recognize ourselves as subjects.

In everyday use, however, it can become a prescription for a particular lifestyle. People who claim agency for themselves may deny it to others whose choices differ. An image of self-assertion and independence comes to stand in for the concept.

What do we mean when we say “be yourself,” or emphasize subjectivity?

For centuries, subjectivity has been central to modern philosophical debate, rather than simply a matter of self-love or clear-headed living.

From Descartes’ thinking self to Kant’s judging, self-legislating subject; from Hegel’s self-consciousness formed through recognition to Sartre’s freedom realized in choices; from Beauvoir’s subject and other to Foucault’s more unsettling question: might the self we take as our own already be formed by society, power, and discourse?

The question concerns freedom and responsibility, choice and the desires that precede it, resisting others’ definitions and recognizing ourselves through them.

In this Conversations Elsewhere session, we will put aside standard advice on being oneself and return to the concept. Before asking how to reclaim subjectivity, we ask: who is the subject, and can we be the subjects of our own lives?

If a true self untouched by others, society, or history never existed, in what sense can we say: this is my life, my choice, the person I want to become?