Objectwise versus Subjectwise

— Cornelis de Bondt

Objectwise versus Subjectwise

When virtue appears in the open, it is no longer virtue, although it may still be useful as organized charity or an act of solidarity. […] Virtue can exist only when it is not perceived as such, not even by the one articulating it. […] Virtue must always remain into absolute hiding and flee all possible public appearance if it is not to be destroyed.


This paraphrase of Hannah Arendt’s statement on ‘goodness’ [from The Human Condition] can be used as guideline for distinguishing the concepts of ‘objectwise’ and ‘subjectwise’. By ‘virtue’, I do not mean something as banal as ‘civilized behavior’, but, following Aristotle, excellence [aretē].


Aristotle considered virtue as a ‘quality’ at first, but he ultimately concludes that virtue is an ‘action’. Virtue takes place in the act. This leads to another pair of concepts, namely the contrast between objectwise and subjectwise. The subjectwise also takes place in an act, among subjects. When I speak in a conversation about one of the present individuals in the third person, instead of addressing him or her directly, that subject becomes an object. In a subjectwise action, such as a conversation, a lesson, a concert, or the preparation of a meal, that act is central. In an objectwise action, the end result is primary; the consumed meal serves to satisfy hunger, the concert must lead to a good review and ultimately, preferably, immortal fame, and for the lesson, predetermined information must be conveyed that leads to a report or diploma. In an objectwise action, a person, subject, or process is made into an ‘object’. In the worst case, this can lead to a form of dehumanization.

A good example of how a subjectwise practice was transformed into an objectwise label is the concept of the ‘Haagse School’ (‘The Hague School’). Roughly from the 1960s to the 1980s, the Royal Conservatory in The Hague experienced an exceptionally lively and creative period, with composers, musicians, and theorists such as Louis Andriessen, Kees van Baaren, Gilius van Bergeijk, Jan Boerman, Frans Brüggen, Hein and Ineke Kien, Reinbert de Leeuw, Misha Mengelberg, Dick Raaijmakers, Jan van Vlijmen, and the groups Hoketus and LOOS. The theory education was drastically revised, Raaijmakers and Boerman designed an extensive electronic studio, the department of Early Music was established, and the Institute of Sonology was brought in the school. They experimented with all sorts of things; it was an adventure all around. By introducing the name ‘Haagse School’ in the mid-1980s, the end of that subjectwise praxis was announced. The name was intended to politically and economically frame the practice, also to put the composers of that school on the international map. The coining of the term ‘Haagse School’ is also certainly a consequence of neoliberal practice, objectifying a practice is good for business.
^*)

There seems to be some natural law at play here; every subjectwise act or practice is eventually objectified into a frame that is presumably intended to protect that practice, or at least to have more control over it. The tragedy of this is that this objectification ultimately leads to the end of that practice; every subjectwise element of it is smothered in its infancy, placed on the Procrustean bed of the objectwise. Objectification is the all too comfortable refuge of mediocrity. It is risk-free.

— Cornelis de Bondt, Loosduinen, March 17, 2024

*) See also: The Myth of the Hague School