On what makes people valuable, and feeling objectified
It took a while for me to be able to articulate what annoyed me about arguments along the lines of “everyone is smart/talented/skilled/ beautiful in their own way,” but I eventually recognized that the thing that bothered me about those kinds of statements was their underlying logic—that everyone needs to be X or have X in order to have value. I think that trying to justify/prove those types of statements is a trap that a lot of people fall into in an attempt to be politically correct. I believe that it’s important to treat a human being’s value as an intrinsic and holistic quality, rather than something that is contingent on some quality they possess or don’t possess. The reason why I bring this up is that I’ve been feeling objectified recently. This is part of the Wikipedia definition : “[Objectification] is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others.” When I feel like people are—consciously or subconsciously—“valuing” me only for my external appearance, I