Last week, I wrote about how I recently reassessed my priorities, and argued that, for me, a major key was differentiating between human beings and material things.

HOWEVER!

The more I thought about it the more I realized that in this day and age, the line between human beings and material things (i.e. people and objects) has become increasingly blurry.

And frankly, it has me worried.

Because a person is someone you connect with.

An object is something you use, consume, and/or control.

They are not interchangeable.

At all.

And yet!

From what I can see, we are increasingly confusing people with objects and treating them–and even ourselves!–accordingly.

This is a no good, very bad thing.

Bad for you.

Bad for me.

Bad for everybody.

So today, I want to talk about the three main ways objectification manifests in our society nowadays so that you can see them for what they are and run the heck away.

#1 “Market Yourself!”

I recently had the pleasure of writing a cover letter!

Said absolutely no one ever.

Seriously.

I am convinced that if Dante could write a postscript to Inferno, he’d add cover letter writing to at least one of Hell’s circles.

They are, quite possibly, the worst.

Writing them physically hurts.

And the advice I routinely see on how to write a “great” cover letter does absolutely nothing to make them more appealing to me.

“You have to sell yourself!” they say.

“Know how to market yourself!” others proclaim.

Oy vey.

Friends, in Kant’s Foundations of The Metaphysics of Morals, he states,

“In the realm of ends, everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced with something else as its equivalent, but whatever is above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity.”

Selling or marketing yourself seems, to me, to be very, very at odds with the notion of human dignity.

You are not a thing.

You are not meant to be marketed or sold.

Human beings are priceless, and using language that strongly implies otherwise makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable.

And listen, I get it.

Most of the time when we’re hunched over our laptops, pounding out resumes and cover letters slightly desperately because we realize that soon we’ll be graduating with a liberal arts degree and the future is in robots and Elon Musk’s fever dreams and chanting “market yourself-market yourself-market yourself” inside our insomnia-addled brains…

What we’re trying to do is communicate how useful we can be, but I’m afraid that all too often what we communicate is

“Use me.”

And again!

You are not an object—a thing.

You are a human being.

You are not meant to be used.

You’re meant to be connected with.

The two are extraordinarily different.

One extorts your gifts.

The other uplifts.

I mean, I know which one I’d pick.

#2 “You’re A Snack!”

It was the spring semester of my sophomore year, and I was sitting in my Culture & Politics class having just watched a presentation about how women are treated within and objectified by the fashion industry.

There was a lot of skin on display, and I felt confident I knew the path the subsequent discussion would take.

“Objectification is bad.”

Which, I mean, while not the most in depth analysis, is one I wholeheartedly agree with, so I was game.

HOWEVER!

That is not what was said.

Instead, one by one the objection was raised that the women being objectified all looked the same.

Friends, I about fell out of my seat.

Here we had just watched women be trussed up and spit out like slabs of meat, and the main issue for the class was that there wasn’t a greater variety?

One of the girls in the class said something to the effect that it bothered her that women who looked like her were largely absent, and another concurred, saying,

“You’re a snack!”

Everyone laughed.

But I wanted to scream.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs,

“YOU ARE NOT A ‘SNACK!’”

“You are so much more than that.”

“Can’t you see?”

“You are so much more than a piece of meat.”

“Why would you even want to compete?”

I just… I just don’t get it.

The issue, to me, is not whether the ham is honey-baked, browned, or blanched… whether it’s the size of a house or the size of my hand…

It’s that it’s a freaking ham.

Friends, honest question:

Are you ham?

I am not a ham.

I am a person, Sam, I am.

And so too are you.

And listen, I get it.

I’ve written about vanity before, and I’ve struggled with comparing myself to store mannequins and billboards.

But friends.

I think we’ve spent so much time and energy worrying about whether we and the people we see are considered fit for consumption that we’ve forgotten that what we’re meant for is connection.

So, again.

You are not a snack.

You are a person.

Please, please don’t forget.

#3 “You’re A Machine!”

I got a new laptop recently, and it has everything…

Touch screen.

PC.

Decent memory and battery.

Minimal holes for water to get in and nuke the thing, which, if you read my post last week, you will know is very, very important to me.

HOWEVER!

I almost didn’t buy it.

Why?

Because midway through his pitch, the friendly Best Buy guy said,

“And it has Alexa built in.”

Full stop.

Reverse course.

Why he thought that was a selling point I do not know.

All I can say is some people never saw The Disney Original Movie Smart House growing up and it shows.

Friendly Best Buy guy must’ve seen the look on my face and sensed his sale slipping away because he quickly said,

“She can be disabled. Easily.”

Not it.

She.

Friends.

We have humanized a machine–a thing–giving it a name, a British accent, and a personality.

Personally, I find this creepy, but what really, seriously worries me is that while we are busy humanizing machines, I think we are simultaneously mechanizing human beings.

What do I mean?

Well, from what I can tell the things that make machines like Alexa valuable are 1) how easy they are to control and 2) how much added efficiency and/or productivity they bring to the table.

Now, that’s all well and good in a machine (even if the CCP is totally listening).

But that’s not what we should value in human beings.

And yet!

I regularly hear people say,

“S/he’s a machine!” as if that’s a great, good thing.

I’d argue it’s incredibly devaluing.

Because what you’re lauding is someone’s ability to take commands.

To be efficient.

Productive.

A machine can do that.

I don’t see it as a compliment.

And if you do…

If you derive your value from your ability to execute commands and be efficient and productive…

What you are sacrificing in order to accomplish that?

If I had to guess, I’d say human connection is probably on that list because if you see yourself as a machine, you aren’t meant to be connected with.

You’re meant to be controlled.

So…

Are you working yourself to the bone under the thumb of someone else’s demands and control?

Or is it self-imposed?

Do you see your efficiency and productivity as be all end alls?

Are you striving to be a machine or are you content with being a human being?

The former has definitely been me, but I can happily say that that’s no longer the case!

I have taken myself out of the mechanization race, and I’m going at a human pace, making time for friends, family, and faith.

So!

Let’s rehash 🙂

The three main ways objectification manifests today are:

1. “Market Yourself!”
2. “You’re A Snack!”
3. “You’re A Machine!”

Friend, you are not a thing.

You are a human being.

Priceless.

Precious.

Made in God’s Image.

And the amazing thing is even if your cover letters stink…

Even if you’re never considered fit for snacking…

Even if your efficiency and productivity are lagging…

Your humanity–your worth–will never change.

You will always be worthy of connection, love, and affection.

And that–that–is a great, good thing.

That’s all for this week!

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