Ego Apologia
Jean Paul Sartre's writing is a paragon of writing for peer review. It is declarative, spare, lucid, adaptable to any subject. Copied at random, a few examples from Sartre's dissertation, Being and Nothingness:
“The appearances which manifest the existent are neither interior nor exterior; they are all, they all refer to other appearances, and none of them is privileged.”
“The self is individual; it is the individual completion of the self which haunts the for-itself.”
“The multiplicity of consciousnesses appears to us as a synthesis and not as a collection, but it is a synthesis whose totality is inconceivable.”
“The sacred object is an object which is in the world and which points to a transcendence beyond the world.”
“The Future is the continual possibilization of possibles—as the meaning of the present For-itself in so far as this meaning is problematic and as such radically escapes the present For-itself.”
These sentences, as everything in Being and Nothingness, are nothing but blunt opinion, without substance (e.g., “nothingness”), dictated, as if by imperial decree, executive order or papal bull. However...if Sartre can be faulted for obscurity, the forcefulness with which he writes it is commendable. Everything he says about philosophy has been said before. What is outstanding is how Sartre says it.
Not to be biased, but it's my standard for objective writing. Subjective- and objective- are opposite extremes of the same spectrum. Artistically, the completely objective painting is completely about the subject of the painting. It is, so to speak, real. An example of the opposite extreme of subjectivity in painting is, perhaps, the generic, absolutely abstract painting, the subject of which is the painter, himself. Most art falls somewhere in between. It is the essential condition of objectivity to be without bias. My argument is it is the essential condition of subjectivity to be the frank disclosure of the subject's inner state.
Bias does not make for good reporting—which is what a good art review is. An editor once said, “Put yourself in the background.” Indeed, bias is an admission of interest, which in turn, calls for disclosure. When writing critical art reviews I did not conceal my commitment to art, as an artist, but neither did I make myself the review's subject. If this sounds disingenuous, I was not then active as an artist, dazzled, as I was at the time, by the phenomenon of writing and seeing my name in print. It is exhibiting that's in the artist's interest, and while I was not paid to write art reviews, no advantage was taken other than personal satisfaction.
Journalism is not a good standard of writing. After the novelty of journalism had worn-off, I returned to my art. I had to decide between artistic self-expression and objective writing. I quit writing reviews. I didn't quit writing. My writing improved with experience. Despite reservations, writing about art by artists is indispensable to understanding art, particularly when dealing with non-objective, abstract art. Articulation is what constitutes art as a liberal art—and artists as more than decorators.
Avoiding writing in the first person had become such a habit as to require a conscious effort to relax my inhibition. The first person, singular, is like an “avoid note” in music. Every key has a "wrong" note, one that doesn't belong—doesn't sound "right." In another key it is right at home. By analogy, rules of writing cannot be so strict as not to make exceptions. Self-expression is necessarily subjective. To write objectively about one's inner being is absurd, or worse, pathological.
Madhouse inmates, for whom the separation between inner and outer states has become confused, may imagine being an illustrious historical figure. The personality then refers to itself in the third person. As the personality dissociates from itself, it is at liberty to costume itself as any role it may please. Napoleon seems to be a favored figure for the alter ego. The alter ego eventually comes to rule the personality.
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