Stanley Cavell and The Responsibility of Pictures of Skyscrapers taken from Parks

We see seeing as seeing the sublime and never just seeing. In every seeing there is something of a seeing-beneath, a certain thinking-through, a certain uncovering that goes into the very process. I look at a skyscraper and never just see a building but rather something beneath a skyscraper. Not a basement, not a skeleton of steel. But something else. Something at the bottom of things. When we see a picture of a skyscraper we never just see a skyscraper, which would be superfluous. We divine the world like it's buried beneath layer after layer of soot. This highlights our separateness of ourselves from the world. A break between ourselves and the rest. We see a picture of a skyscraper and we see ourselves—this “and” that we bring to bear brings our very selves into focus. A destabilization occurs. We see ourselves unanswered in the picture of the skyscraper—a lifeless thing. We see Manhattan from far away and see only a lifeless entity devoid of people. Artifacts, things, buildings. We're no longer subjective entities focused on this world; rather, we're horrified at our very real objectivity. This objectivity is perpetual and continual. We can't call ourselves human because there's nothing human about this “and”; once we've been destabilized we're mere objects, we think, maybe with relations to other objects but not with other humans. This is the horror of the skyscraper. The skyscraper will not answer us as we answer each other. In each instance of instability, of difference between ourselves and the skyscraper, we find a possible illumination. The “and” between us, that brings both the unanswerable unfamiliar to bear and the objective self, which is no self at all, illuminates something else. Through reflection on this “and” we come to reflect on ourselves and find ourselves outside of ourselves. By seeing ourselves outside of this relation—by reflecting on the relation itself—we become awakened to the possibility of the possibility of relations and the possibility of renewal. This renewal is a coming back to where we left, home. When we leave home we find possibility. In renewal we find freedom. In freedom we find that we ourselves are that which must be reevaluated. In this way we recreate ourselves and the world. The picture of the skyscraper is no longer unfamiliar or horrifying: rather, it becomes answerable and renewable. In short, we become responsible for it.  In this way, we find home again.