Friday, August 06, 2004

Radio Noone

There is a great deal (of world-historical insight) in this little apercu from Sartre (courtesy of here via here):

'If he listens to the radio every Saturday and if he can afford to buy every week's No. 1 record he will end up with the record collection of the Other, that is to say, the collection of no-one ... Ultimately, the record collection which is no one's becomes everyone's collection - though without ceasing to be no one's.'

cf Heidegger's They. Although Sartre's example is hypothetical and a limit case, it is probably, today, not too far from being the default setting of our subjectivity. I envisage meeting Sartre's 'he' and asking 'so, is this your record collection?' to which he replies, 'technically, yes. but in a more ontological sense, it belongs to the Other.'