Self and Other

The Other is an individual who is perceived by the group as not belonging, as being different in some fundamental way. ... Perceived as lacking essential characteristics possessed by the group, the Other is almost always seen as a lesser or inferior being and is treated accordingly

The binary of self and other is perhaps one of the most basic theories of human consciousness and identity, claiming, in short, that the existence of an other, a not-self, allows the possibility or recognition of a self. In other words: I see you. I do not control your body or hear your thoughts. You are separate.

Othering a natural human reaction – but how we respond to that anxiety is social. When societies experience big and rapid change, a frequent response is for people to narrowly define who qualifies as a full member of society – a process I call “Othering”

In philosophy, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; hence, the Other is dissimilar to and the opposite of the Self, of Us, and of the Same. 

The term Othering describes the reductive action of labelling and defining another person as being different and inferior, as someone who belongs to the socially subordinate category of the Other. The practice of Othering excludes persons who do not fit the norm of the inner social group, which is a greater version of the Self; likewise, in human geography, the practice of othering persons means to exclude and displace them from the social group to the margins of society, where mainstream social norms do not apply to them, for being the Other. 

Mikhail Bakhtin and Concepts of the Dialogical Self and the Other [Self and Other in Constant Dialogue]

I am conscious of myself and become myself only while revealing myself for another, through another, and with the help of another.  The most important acts constituting self-consciousness are determined by a relationship toward another consciousness . . . . The very being of man (both internal and external) is the deepest communion.  To be means to communicate . . . .  A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary: looking inside himself, he looks into the eyes of another or with the eyes of another . . . . I cannot manage without another, I cannot become myself without another; I find myself in another by finding another in myself.

“I” can realize itself only on the basis of “we.”

Meaning, then, in its most significant form as Truth, is created in dialogue, on the borders where two consciousnesses meet.  It is realized at the intersections of the self and the other.

In dialogism, the very capacity to have a consciousness is based on otherness.

Otherness takes many forms. The Other may be someone who is of...

• a different race (White vs. non-White),
• a different nationality (Anglo Saxon vs. Italian),
• a different religion (Protestant vs. Catholic or Christian vs. Jew),
• a different social class (aristocrat vs. serf),
• a different political ideology (capitalism vs. communism),
• a different sexual orientation (heterosexual vs. homosexual),
• a different origin (native born vs. immigrant).

The Other is not necessarily a numerical minority. In a country defeated by an imperial power, the far more numerous natives become the Other, for example, the British rule in India where Indians outnumbered the British 4,000 to 1. Similarly, women are defined and judged by men, the dominant group, in relationship to themselves, so that they become the Other. Hence Aristotle says: "The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities; we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness."

The group which is defining the Other may be an entire society, a social class or a community within a society, a family, or even a high school clique or a neighborhood gang.

The Other and the Outsider

The outsider frequently overlaps with the Other, but they are not identical. The outsider has the possibility of being accepted by and incorporated into the group; offspring are very likely to be accepted into the group. The Other, however, is perceived as different in kind, as lacking in some essential trait or traits that the group has; offspring will inherit the same deficient nature and be the Other also. Therefore the Other and the offspring of the Other may be doomed forever to remain separate, never to become part of the group--in other words, to be the Other forever.