Subject-Object Dichotomy

One of the key arguments presented by McIntosh and Sarkeesian is something called the subject-object dichotomy. However, the pair never quite conceptualize this issue. Instead, they leave the reader to assume that it is bad.

The nature of objects and subjects has roots in two schools of philosophy. Ontology deals with the questions concerning what can exist and what does exist, how existence can be grouped, and how it can be divided. It can also be thought of as the conceptualization of existence, objects, and their ties to reality. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Locke, and Sartre are all major figures in ontology.

So what are some arguments of ontology? You may have heard of some and not known it. The argument for the existence of God based upon irreducible parts. It is also called Intelligent Design. Sartre argued that the nature of being is perceived through a subject who observes objects in the world that the subject wants to inhabit as a desire to experience novel being. Descartes argued that cognitive thought processes including doubt substantiated the existence of man in relation to other things in the universe — cogito ergo sum or the original je pense donc je suis.

The other school of being is epistemology or the school of knowing. How does one know they exist? Whereas ontology argues for or against existence, epistemology argues for or against the nature of knowledge. Subject-object can fit here due to the knowledge of subjects and objects, experience, and knowledge of experience.

So as you can tell, the subject-object dichotomy straddles two concepts: existence and knowledge. So what exactly is the subject-object dichotomy? Buckle up, we’re going full philosophy.

Source for this can be found in the Sartre piece linked above.

People are subjects. They observe the world. They experience the world. They exist and as a result of existence in the world, they perceive the world. Our perception of the world is thus our existence in the world and our knowledge of the world. If something is perceived by us, it exists in some part due to our perception of it.

Everything that is NOT you is an object. Let’s start small. Your keyboard is an object because it is independent of you. It exists in space regardless of you. Your house is an object because it’s not part of you. It is outside of you. Now, stepping back to the actual argument philosophy makes…people are objects. Your mother is an object. Your father is an object. Any entity, consciousness, item, or thing outside of your existence is an object.

So if you walk outside and someone’s walking across the street, you are the subject for you and they are the object. However, they are the subject for THEM and you are the object for them. Perception of the world is thus divided upon two things: subjects and objects.

So take for example the car outside. Does it exist? How do you know? Are you sure? You have to check it to make sure it’s there. You are the subject of your world. Without your perception of the world in any manner, the world may not exist for you. You must perceive it for it to exist.

This is the essence of the subject-object dichotomy. How can one understand the external world in abject reality if reality is filtered through the subject? How can subjects know that objects exist outside of the experience of the subject? What is the nature of the brain as a physiological organ and the mind that keeps track of reality? How can one separate the subjective state of existence from the objective nature of reality?

The argument is the very basis of postmodernism and cognitive bias. In no way can such a complex argument be reduced to “subjects act, objects are acted upon” due to the relative nature of subjects and objects. This relative nature of subjects and objects are never accounted.

The subject-object dichotomy orienting to gender with one gender as uniformly substrate, not shockingly, come from a field of philosophy that is incredibly new called feminist philosophy. Feminist philosophy is both young and criticized in the world of philosophy as it is inherently sexist in stating women have unique views of knowledge because they are women.

In the argument, McIntosh and Sarkeesian present that the protagonist is the subject, the person the game is centered upon. The damsel trope, the pair argue, makes men the subject because men must be the protagonist (men rescuing women). However, this does not account for women being the protagonist, multiple protagonists, or choice of protagonist. The assumption is that men are the default character and women will always be saved.

Unfortunately for the pair, video games use many narrative and plot devices. They have many protagonists, and protagonists are not always the character that is controlled by the player. So McIntosh and Sarkeesian misrepresent the subject-object dilemma, call it a dichotomy (meaning two opposed concepts), and slide in gender.

In my original research, which will be published at a later date, 1,460 games up to the Nintendo era do not have a gendered main character. This includes sports game and games that used figures without gender. This is 70% of identified games. This means that of the games period examined by the pair, most games were not gendered in protagonist. They were actually quite androgynous. I fully expect this number to change once I get into more modern games. The current correlation seems to put more gendering as the technology became more advanced to represent more complex shapes and show gender.