Is it ever possible for an external relatedness (objectiveness) to entirely replace the internal relatedness (subjectiveness)?

I would say as a human that complete objectiveness (Spock like) is entirely impossisble and that happiness is always a personal matter that never exists in any external relationships, only what we sometimes consider to be external (related to others) but it is still related to our perception of others and their interactions with us that enables us to find happiness or not.

I read the web article, watched the video, and it seemed pretty darned clear to me what was meant by Erich’s quote even if it wasn’t included in what I read or saw. It’s a simple matter of connecting the dots. All the behavioral categories indicated how the behaviors affected social interaction, how the subject perceived others, and/or how the subject was perceived by others. The subjects’ relationships with their parents, siblings, spouses, were all significant not only because of how the subjects represented them, but also because of the similarity or lack thereof between the subjects’ descriptions and the reports from outside observers.

Yes, the word “thing” can be a fairly generic one, and can be applied to both tangible and intangible, um,things. Relationship can describe a correlation, a commonality; it can be between a living being and an object or concept that has great importance to that being; it can be a mutual connection of any degree between two or more living beings and encompass a range of emotions, level of connectedness, or magnitude of importance between/among the related beings.

The study quite clearly includes both tangibles and intangibles in its lists of “things” that contribute to the various end results. There’s no point in arguing about that word. Really.

However, the relationships that are the most important of these things are clearly interpersonal. Between the subject and his family, friends, peers, etc. The article and video also addressed the apparent correlations between alcohol use, smoking, and exercise in the subjects’ lives, but most certainly did not describe the subjects as having relationships with booze or cigarettes or situps. To infer that anything other than relationships with other human beings was addressed when that word was used is to project a personal agenda onto this study that simply doesn’t exist.

This is a BLOG! We’re supposed to use as many words as we can! And leave room for confusion so we can keep the thread alive!

I still think that thing is a relevant choice — the problem is when one disallows common categorizations without stating the rationale for imposing such category limitations. In doing such one is the instigator of another thread where all we do is spew semantics at each other for a few (dozen) comments.

Oh goody!

Again! Again!

If you consider any semantic entity to be a thing, then a relationship certainly qualifies as a thing. But a “thing” does not imply a physical object with independent existence.

A relationship is a dependent thing that requires two other things for it to exist, like a tightrope or a conversation. A tightrope is a relationship between two or more objects. Without at least two other objects, it semantically disintegrates into just a rope. A one man conversation is just babbling to oneself. Much like me, here.

When, for example, we’re talking about two people who are having a relationship, sometimes we’ll refer to them as “having a thing.” It’s a euphemism, usually for a specific type of relationship (romance, sexual) which we try to be coy about. In the context of a given conversation, we know exactly what is being referred to, and I doubt any intention to denigrate or demote the importance (or lack thereof) of the relationship exists. It’s just code, if you will.

In the other direction, however, we must admit that people do develop relationships—in a very full sense of the word—with objects. For example, musical instruments. Any musician will know at once what I’m talking about. You learn an instrument, become familiar with it, develop rituals around it, it acquires meaning often in the same sense (if not to the same reciprocal degree) as a relationship with a person. Artists develop relationships with their art form that is, for all intents and purposes, fully emotional and sentient.

That is one of the things people do—we personify “things.” Just the same, we objectify people. It goes both ways. Should or shouldn’t has no meaning here—it’s what we do. The only question is if one or both practices, in a given instance, becomes unhealthy.

As a writer of fiction I can tell you without a moment’s hesitation or embarrassment that my work is as much a relationship as my life with my wife. We recognized that early on, that the nature of engagement with a demanding art form (or for that matter nearly any discipline requiring a tremendous amount of commitment, even obsession) takes on all the attributes of another partner. I believe one of the chief reasons that many, many artists have such difficulty in their relationships with spouses or lovers is a result of not recognizing that the Art, the Work, is as much a partner in the relationship as another person.

We end up with a spectrum, then, that is partly defined by our own assignation of status to whatever we may be discussing at the moment. The fact that a guitar, a car, a house, a boat, what have you can have status almost on par with another human being says less about the object (which has no real say in the matter) than it does about the individual assigning that status. Such assignation becomes a manifestation of an externalized personality, a external component to identity.

Likewise, the fact that disregard to fellow humans is common shows how such status can be withheld or never assigned to begin with, so that strangers, people in other towns or countries, end of objectified simply because there is no personal reason to subjectify them.

But the language, as I said, tends to allow us to move through these choices without a lot of thought.

I consider a part of a person’s identity to be directly connected to the relationship people have with both other people and the values (altruistic or not) that they adhere to.

I believe it is fair to say that many people treat other people the way they do because of the relationship they have with their internalized values.

Some people grab for personal gain/greed/profit at the expense of other people and will only consider using their personal wealth to help others when forced to do so. Some will even do all they can to hide their wealth from others for the same reasons.

Some willingly decide to relinquish gain/greed/profit and return some of the value of their personal possessions to help others.

No matter which category one finds oneself in, these are definite significant values that are totally dependent upon the individuals relationships with other people and/or their material wealth.

Sorry to have to say that I still do not wish to call relationships “things,” this permits too many people to consider relationships of an equal or lesser value than their possessions.