A Respectful World - Merleau-Ponty and the Experience of Depth

7/21/2019 A Respectful World - Merleau-Ponty and the Experience of Depth

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/a-respectful-world-merleau-ponty-and-the-experience-of-depth 1/13

T H E O R E T I C A L P A P E R

A Respectful World: Merleau-Ponty

and the Experience of Depth

Susan M. Bredlau

Published online: 22 February 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract The everyday experience of someone, or something, getting in one’s

face reveals a depth that is the difference between a world that is intrusive and a

world that is respectful. This depth, I argue, should be conceived, not in feet and

inches, but in terms of violation and honor. I explore three factors that contribute to

this depth’s emergence. First, I examine our body’s capacity, at the level of sense

experience, for giving the world a figure/ground structure; this structure insures that

most of the world we are in constant contact with, nonetheless, keeps its distance asbackground. I demonstrate the importance of this figure/ground structure to the

depth of our world by considering the experience of people with autism; for those

with autism, this structure seems to be, if not entirely missing, at least substantially

less robust than our own. Next, I examine our body’s ability, at the level of more

personal experience, to handle the world; our handling of the world, which rests on

the acquisition of specific skills, transforms things that could easily assault us into

the usually motionless objects we tend to take for granted. I demonstrate the

importance of these skills to the depth of our world by considering the experience of

Gregg Mozgalla; until recently, Mozgalla, who has cerebral palsy, could only‘‘lurch,’’ rather than walk, through the world. Finally, I draw on the work of the

artist Mierle Ukeles to examine the maintenance work that other people, at a broader

social level, perform; other’s maintenance work keeps in good condition a world

that, by falling into bad condition, could easily intrude on us.

Keywords Merleau-Ponty Depth Phenomenology Autism

Cerebral palsy Maintenance Art

S. M. Bredlau (&)

Department of Philosophy, Northern Arizona University, P.O. Box 6011, Flagstaff,

AZ 86001-6011, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

1 3

Hum Stud (2010) 33:411–423

DOI 10.1007/s10746-011-9173-1



What protects the sane man against delirium or hallucination, is not his critical

powers, but the structure of his space: objects remain before him, keeping their

distance and, as Malebranche said speaking of Adam, touching him only with

respect (Merleau-Ponty 1967: 291).

Each day, we encounter hundreds of people and many, many more things. We

move around our homes, travel through our cities, and work at our jobs. And yet,

with all of the things around us, only rarely does one of them, so to speak, get in our

faces.1 To experience the world as in our faces is, however, to immediately notice

the loss of a certain depth; what once stood back from us is now right on top of us.

This depth is the difference between a world that is intrusive and a world that is

respectful, a depth where the near and the far are conceived, not in feet and inches,

but in terms of violation and honor.

Since the world usually treats us with respect, we tend not to notice this respect.

We may even resist describing our relation to objects as one of respect, reserving the

word for our relation to other people. So long as the world is not in our faces, we can

easily think that the depth of our world is simply given; that is, we can think that we

experience the world as at distance because it just is at a distance. Yet when this

depth disappears, and the world is, suddenly, uncomfortably, encroaching on us, we

can see our usual relation with the world for what it is; as privilege, not a right; a

realized possibility rather than a given. The world is not distant; to stress Merleau-

Ponty’s (1967) remark, it keeps its distance. Though the world could intrude, it

usually does not; the depth of our world is a mark of the world’s restraint, rather

than its indifference, toward us.Moreover, by recognizing the distance between the world and us as achieved

rather than given, we can also recognize our own contribution to this achievement.

Far from reflecting a lack of engagement, our usual experience of the world reflects

our very active engagement with the world. The world keeps its distance because of

our ability to give space the structure that makes this possible. The distance between

us is the manifestation of a positive bond; the world shows us a courtesy that we

demand.

As Merleau-Ponty notes in the Phenomenology of Perception, we often try to

understand space as if we were as indifferent to the things around us as they are toone another. Yet our own experience of depth reveals the inadequacy of such an

account. After all, someone or something is ‘‘in my face’’ in a very different way

than towels are in a closet or water is in a glass. Whether something is ‘‘in my face’’

cannot be gauged simply by the presence of contact between my head and

something else. Likewise, whether or not something is ‘‘in my face’’ cannot be

determined through measurements in inches or feet. After all, my glasses, which sit

on my nose and are barely an inch from my eyes, are not experienced as ‘‘in my

face’’. Similarly, the touch of a stranger who barely brushes against me can be

experienced as invasive while the deep embrace of a friend is respectful. The depth

1 Though we usually use this expression in reference to people, it also seems appropriate to use it in

reference to objects; particularly in the case of objects, however, it might very well be other parts of our

body besides our faces that the world ‘‘gets in’’.

412 S. M. Bredlau

1 3



that is present when the world keeps its distance and that is missing when something

is in my face necessarily involves a subject.

Depth, Merleau-Ponty writes: ‘‘is, so to speak the most ‘existential’ of all

dimensions, because… it quite clearly belongs to the perspective and not to things…

It announces a certain indissoluble link between things and myself by which I amplaced in front of them’’ (1967: 256) Though we can, of course, abstract from our

lived experience of space and treat space as if it were independent of us, this

abstraction is only possible because we are already deeply implicated in space.

Moreover, this implication is corporeal and not simply at the level of consciousness.

Depth cannot be adequately described by treating the human body as if it were an

object; after all, a body that was merely an object could not have the sense of self

necessary for feeling violated. Instead, our experience of depth demands that we

recognize our bodily interactions with the world as critical to this world’s

dimensions.Thus if we can now think of ourselves as separated from the world around us, this

thought is only possible because we have been, and continue to be, intimately

involved with the world around us. It is our bodies’ capacity for structuring space

that insures that the world keeps its distance. For the world to treat us with respect,

we must engage with it in a way that generates respect.

In the following paper, I will explore the accomplishment of this depth whose

dimensions are measured by honor and violation, respect and intrusion.2 After

indicating the existence of this depth, Merleau-Ponty does not himself investigate it

much further; his earlier discussion of depth in the Phenomenology of Perceptionis focused on a more strictly visual perception of depth in relation to breadth

and width.3 Rather than concentrating on Merleau-Ponty’s analyses of depth,

therefore, I will draw more broadly on his analyses of space and perception

throughout the Phenomenology of Perception to examine how this depth of respect

and intrusion comes into being. We are not, I will argue, automatically worthy of the

world’s respect. Respect must be earned and, once earned, this respect can still be

lost. We thus put a great deal of effort into achieving, and then preserving, a

distance between ourselves and the world.

My paper has three sections, each of which examines a different contributing

factor to the depth of our world. In discussing these three factors, I am not trying to

give an exhaustive account of how the depth of our world comes into being, though

these three factors do reflect the three levels—biological, figurative and cultural—

that Merleau-Ponty mentions when discussing our relation to the world (1967: 146).

My intent is, instead, to draw attention to the achieved character of the depth of our

world and to begin examining what this achievement reveals about our relation to

the world and to others.

2 I will discuss this depth primarily as a spatial phenomenon; yet it also has, I would argue, a temporaldimension. A meeting with an unhappy colleague a few days from now may feel so close as to be stifling

while getting lunch with my friend in an hour may barely weigh on me. For a discussion of Merleau-

Ponty’s own conception of the relation between time and depth, see Mazis (2010).3 For a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s own analyses of depth, both in the Phenomenology of Perception

and in his later writings, see Steinbock (1987).

A respectful world 413

1 3



In the first section, I will examine our body’s capacity, at the level of sense

experience, for giving the world a figure/ground structure; this structure insures that

most of the world we are in constant contact with, nonetheless, keeps its distance as

background. In the next section, I will examine our body’s ability, at the level of

more personal experience, to handle the world; our handling of the world, whichrests on the acquisition of specific skills, transforms things that could easily assault

us into the usually motionless objects we tend to take for granted. In the final

section, I will draw on the work of the artist Mierle Ukeles to examine the

maintenance work that other people, at a broader social level, perform; other’s

maintenance work keeps in good condition a world that, by falling into bad

condition, could easily intrude on us.

Sense Experience and the Figure/Ground Structure

We tend to think that sense experience simply represents an already existing world.

What I see is what is there to be seen; what I hear is what is there to be heard. Yet

if we describe sense experience carefully, we can see that our experience is not so

simple. When I open my eyes, for example, not all of what I see is seen in the same

way. Rather than simply seeing objects, I see certain objects as figures against a

ground of other objects.4 Likewise, what I hear is similarly organized into sounds

I actively listen to and ambient noise that I barely notice. Furthermore, though my

sense experience usually takes several forms at once, one or more of these forms areusually inconspicuous. Though my clothes, the couch I sit on, and the floor under

my feet all touch me, I hardly feel them; they, too, are in the background.

Though we may speak of light waves striking my eyes or of sound waves striking

my body, what is remarkable is that, despite being in constant contact with the

world, I do not usually feel that I am being struck by it. Indeed, far from being

overwhelming, my constant contact with the world is generally quite supportive,

allowing me to navigate it successfully. Yet if this constant contact with the world is

not overwhelming, this is due, at least in part, to the figure/ground structure of

normal sense experience. The figure/ground structure gives depth to our world by

insuring that most of what makes contact with us stands back from us rather than

standing out at us. Thus although I am immersed in the world, most of this world is

not at all invasive.

This figure/ground structure of sense experience, however, cannot be ascribed to

the world itself. Figure and ground are not characteristics of objects themselves;

certain objects are not inherently figures and others ground. Figure and ground also

do not correspond to distances measurable in feet and inches; the TV across the

room may be more a figure than all of the furniture positioned in front of it. Thus if

major portions of the world stand back from me, this is only because I demand

such restraint from the world; as Merleau-Ponty writes, ‘‘As far as spatiality is

concerned…one’s own body is the third term, always tacitly understood, in the

figure-background structure…’’ (1967: 101). Our bodies, far from passively

4 Insights like this one form the basis for Gestalt psychology. See, for example, Kohler (1940).

414 S. M. Bredlau

1 3



recording an already given world, instead actively participate in the world’s

appearance.5 Our bodies’ capacity for giving the world a figure/ground structure is

so fundamental, though, that it is probably best, following Merleau-Ponty, to

describe it as a capacity, not of my body, but of the human body, as pre-personal

rather than personal.6

In my contact with the world at the level of sense experience, then, I am already

involved with the world in a way that generates respect. In making the world assume

a figure/ground structure, my body transforms an otherwise rowdy jumble into a

settled landscape. My body, in a sense, brings the world to order like an experienced

teacher does her class or a good judge does her court. Moreover, since not all of the

world I am in contact with presses on me, I am often able to deal with the parts of

the world that do stand out in a way that makes their presence comfortable rather

than stifling. Since I do not have to deal with everything at once, what I do deal with

can receive my full attention. As a result, it is much more likely that I encounterthese things as approaching me respectfully.

The importance of this figure/ground structure to the depth of our world becomes

especially apparent after considering the experience of those for whom this structure

is, if not entirely missing, at least substantially less robust than our own. For

example, Temple Grandin (1995), who is autistic, describes feeling bombarded by

sounds that barely affect others; ‘‘When I was in college, my roommate’s hair dryer

sounded like a jet plane taking off’’ (67). She also finds it difficult to follow a

conversation when other people are also talking; ‘‘My ears are like microphones

picking up all sounds with equal intensity…

.In a noisy place, I can’t understandspeech, because I cannot screen out the background noise’’ (68). Reporting on the

experience of other autistic people, Grandin writes ‘‘One person said that rain

sounded like gunfire; others claim they hear blood whooshing through their veins or

every sound in an entire school building’’ (70); she also notes that, ‘‘Echoes in

school gymnasiums and bathrooms are difficult for people with autism to tolerate’’

(67). Rather than experiencing most sounds as a background against which only a

few other sounds stand out, Grandin and others with autism seem to experience all

sounds as pressing on them intrusively.7

Grandin describes similar experiences with respect to touch, vision, smell, and

taste. She explains that as a child, ‘‘When I got accustomed to pants, I could not bear

the feeling of bare legs when I wore a skirt. After I became accustomed to wearing

shorts in the summer, I couldn’t tolerate long pants…. New underwear is a scratchy

horror….Even today I prefer to wear…[bras] inside out, because the stitching often

feels like pins pricking my skin’’ (67).8 Perhaps because Grandin herself has fewer

5 For further discussion of the implications of the figure/ground structure for our understanding of

perception, see Bredlau (2007).6 See for example, Merleau-Ponty (1967: 254): ‘‘My personal existence must be the resumption of a

prepersonal tradition’’.7 People who, having been deaf, receive cochlear ear implants, report similar experiences. After some

time, though, their aural experience often comes to have a quite normal figure/ground structure. See

Weisberg (2002).8 Donna Williams (1993), who is also autistic, describes touch in the following way: ‘‘There was

something overwhelming about giving into physical touch. It was the threat of losing all sense of


1 3



problems with vision, her descriptions of visual experience are less vivid than her

discussions of aural and tactile experience. Grandin does note, however, that many

people with autism do have problems with vision and may ‘‘may act as though they

are blind when they are in a strange place’’ (73).9 Summarizing an autistic’s

person’s overall experience of the world, Grandin quotes Therese Joliffe, who isalso autistic; Joliffe states:

Reality to an autistic person is a confusing interacting mass of events, people,

places, sounds and sights. There seem to be no clear boundaries, order or

meaning to anything. A large part of my life is spent trying to work out the

pattern behind everything (76).

These descriptions suggest that those with autism are much less capable, at the

level of sense experience, for bringing the world to order, and, therefore, experience

the world as a dangerously invasive place that they must vigilantly protectthemselves against.10 As Grandin notes: ‘‘Therapists have observed that autistic

children often lash out when they stand close to other children while waiting in line.

They become tense when other children invade their personal space. Having another

child accidentally brush up against them can cause them to withdraw with fear like a

frightened animal’’. (147) Moreover, Grandin states that she, like many others with

autism, experiences fear as her main emotion (144), and she interprets the tendency

of many with autism to follow strict routines and to resist any chang e to these

routines as attempts to keep an otherwise overwhelming world in check.11

Personal Experience and Handling the World

Simply by virtue of having eyes and ears and skin, we are in contact with the world,

and at the level of sense experience, this contact is primarily initiated by the world.

So long as my eyes are open, for example, the world will appear. Most of us,

however, can make the world assume a figure/ground structure, thereby helping to

insure that this world is respectful rather than invasive. Furthermore, our more

receptive stance toward the world at the level of sense experience is, for most of us,

balanced with a more active stance toward the world at the level of what I,

following Merleau-Ponty, will call personal experience.12 If our eyes are open, we

Footnote 8 continued

separateness between myself and the other person. Like being eaten up, or drowned by a tidal wave, fear

of touch was the same as fear of death’’ (130).9 Others, Grandin writes, ‘‘…have problems with visual tuneouts and whiteouts, where vision completely

shuts down’’ (1995: 73).10 Grandin compares autistic people with prey species, like cattle, who are constantly on the watch for

predators; see Grandin (1995: 142–150).11 See also Grandin (1995: 88–89 and 92–95).12 The difficulty that many of those with autism have in engaging in even simple activities shows,

I would argue, how important the capacity for giving the world a figure/ground structure is for moving

beyond sense experience, where our contact with the world is largely initiated by the world, to more

personal experiences, where our contact with the world is largely initiated by us. Someone who is

416 S. M. Bredlau

1 3



will, of course, see the world. Yet if we, for example, see the television, this is

usually because we have sat down in front of it and turned it on. Likewise, so long

as our ears are not stopped up, we will hear the world, and yet if we hear a live jazz

quartet, this is likely because we have gone out to a show. At the level of personal

experience, our contact with the world is primarily initiated by us.Before continuing, I want to acknowledge that the levels of sense experience and

personal experience may not be truly separable. The contract initiated by the world

at the level of sense experience may come to increasingly reflect the contact

initiated by me at the level of personal experience. Nonetheless, my very ability to

choose the way I am involved with the world rests on an involvement with the world

about which I have no choice. For this reason, I think that distinguishing between

sense experience and personal experience is defensible.

As we move about and interact with the world, the world generally does not

attack us. Usually doors do not hit us in the face, the transition between the tiledfloor of a kitchen to the carpeted floor of a living room does not send us reeling into

an armchair, cups do not slip from our hands onto our feet, and chairs do not tip over

unto us. Yet, all of these experiences are possible; one has only to follow a toddler

around for a few hours to notice, if not exactly these, than many similar experiences.

If the world is at a distance, then, this is because, in addition to giving the world a

figure/ground structure, my body can also handle the world.

To say that I can handle the world is, first of all, to indicate that, just as at the

level of sense experience, my relation to the world at the level of more personal

experience is one of bodily involvement. I do not stand apart from the world andsimply observe it, and if I can think of myself as standing apart from the world, this

is only possible because I actually actively involve myself in it. That is, if almost all

of the things that surround me are now motionless and do not impinge on me, this is

because I am handling, or have handled, many of them.

The way our bodies should engage with the world so as to keep the world out of

our face is usually so obvious to us that we may not even think of the world as

needing to be handled. As adults, we have become so adept at handling the world

that we often do not notice ourselves doing do. Yet this handling enables us to

experience the world as the rather inanimate place we take for granted. Without

such handling the things we involved ourselves with would cease to be inert and,

instead, begin to leap out at us. The glass beside us, for example, would roll off the

table if we did not set it down on its bottom rather than side. The computer before us

would slide off the desk if we did not place it squarely in the middle of the desktop.

The books on the bookshelf above us would topple onto us if we had not stacked

them neatly.

Of course, not all of our handling of the world consists of actually putting our

hands, or some other body part, on the world. Indeed, we often handle the world by

preventing much of whatever makes contact with us at the level of sense experience

Footnote 12 continued

assaulted by the touch of her own clothing will likely find it difficult to read a book, cook a meal, or even

take a walk. It is only because we can command the world’s respect at the level of sense experience that

we are able to a progress to a level at which contact with the world takes place more on our own terms.


1 3



from making further contact. As we approach a door, for example, our bodies center

themselves between the two edges of the doorframe so that we can walk through the

door rather than bumping into the wall. To handle the world, we both seek out

certain forms of direct contact and actively avoid others.

To say that we can handle the world is also to indicate that we can involveourselves in the world in a very particular way. To ask someone if they can handle

something is not to ask them whether they can interact with the world but whether

they can interact with it in such a way that they will not be overwhelmed by it. Our

handling of the world, in other words, reflects a certain ability on our parts, an

ability that cannot be taken for granted. Nothing in the world, after all, is inherently

handleable. Even the knob on a door, for example, is only given as a handle to a

person who wraps her hand around it and twists. For a person whose hands are

paralyzed or amputated, though, or for the person who, having never encountered a

doorknob before, does not know to twist it, this knob is not a handle, and the doormay very well be experienced as intrusive.

What we can handle, then, depends on the particular skills our bodies possess.

For a body that has never acquired, or has lost, certain skills, a world that others

experience as keeping its distance will be experienced as intrusive, and sometimes

painfully so. The world is, after all, capable of mauling us. It has surfaces that can

cut us, trip us up, impale us, and bruise us. The skills we develop help insure that a

world that could well be wild and potentially quite damaging to us is, instead, so

tame and supportive that we generally do not even think of it as capable of attack.

We can see the importance of our skills to the depth of the world when someoneis missing a specific skill that others have acquired. Consider, for example, the

experience of Gregg Mozgalla, who has cerebral palsy. Although Mozgalla had

12 years of physical therapy when he was a child, he was never able to move

through the world in the same way as other people; he moved, he says, like ‘‘a

human velociraptor…My knees were going in, my hips were totally rotated inward.

Gravity was just taking me down. So my upper body—arms and chest—

overcompensated, curling back and up’’ (Genzlinger 2009: 1). He has come to

describe this gait as ‘‘The lurch’’ (Genzlinger 2009: 2).

For a person who lurches rather than walks, however, the world is quite

treacherous. For a person who walks, slightly uneven surfaces will still be

supportive. For a person who lurches, however, these same surfaces may very well

throw her off balance. Mozgalla says that he fell down so often, he developed ‘‘a

comic routine he would employ when he fell (‘‘falling with style,’’ he called it) as a

defense mechanism, to get people on his side’’ (Genzlinger 2009: 2).

Yet by working with a choreographer, Tamar Rogoff, Mozgalla was able to

develop new bodily skills. At first, Rogoff says, ‘‘We were just interested in getting

his heels down so that he could balance…’’ (‘‘Against All Odds 2010’’). Over

8 months of training with Rogoff, though, Mozgalla slowly developed command, not

just over his heels, but over his entire body. As a result, he can now dance, as well as

walk, through the world, and the world, quite literally, no longer trips him up.13

13 For a more thorough discussion of how the development of new ways of moving inaugurates new

relations with the world, see Morris (2004) on the infant learning to walk.

418 S. M. Bredlau

1 3



We can also see the importance of our skills to the depth of our world when

someone’s skills have, as a whole, not been developed to the extent that other’s

have. Simone de Beauvoir (1989), for example, argues that when girls, because they

are not allowed to engage actively with the world, fail to develop the skills

necessary for overcoming obstacles, they increasingly experience the world asbeyond their control; ‘‘…in thus accepting her passive role, the girl also agrees to

submit unresistingly to a destiny that is going to be imposed upon her from without,

and this calamity frightens her’’ (298). Similarly, Iris Marion Young (1998) argues

that women, who tend not to acquire the bodily skills necessary for actualizing their

strength and motility to the extent that men do, also tend to experience the world as

a more threatening place than men do. Women are likely, Young writes, to ‘‘respond

to the motion of a ball coming toward us as though it were coming at us, and our

immediately bodily impulse is to flee, duck or otherwise protect ourselves from its

flight’’ (263). Women also, Young notes, often ‘‘have a latent and sometimesconscious fear of getting hurt, which…[they] bring to a motion’’ (266).

Those who lack certain bodily skills or whose skills are, as a whole,

underdeveloped, find it difficult to interact with the world in a way that will insure

it is respectful towards them. Unlike the inability to give the world a figure/ground

organization, however, the inability to handle the world or parts of the world

impacts a person at a more personal level. That is, a person whose bodily skills are,

in some respect, inadequate, is precluded, not from perceiving the world as ordered,

but from perceiving the world as ordered in a way that is conducive to her own

projects. Mozgalla, for example, was able to maintain enough distance betweenhimself and the world such that he could at least attempt to take the initiative in his

interactions with the world. Until he learned to walk rather than lurch, however, he

was unable to maintain enough distance between himself and the world such that his

initiatives would generally be successful.

The world we interact with at the level of personal experience is generally at a

distance because we can handle it; our bodies’ skills help to insure that the world,

rather than barging in on us or flying at us, keeps its distance and touches us only

with respect.14 If we think, then, of our bodies as objects among other objects and of

space as the container in which objects are located, this very thought is possible only

because our bodies are not objects and space does not contain them. Our bodies are,

instead, our capacity for structuring and handling the world, a capacity that, when

well-developed, functions so competently that it can go unnoticed. It is our body’s

own reliability, to echo Heidegger’s (1962) discussion of the ready-to-hand, at the

14 Though I have focused on our handling of objects, our bodies also possess many skills for handling

other people. These interpersonal skills are bodily, yet they handle the world through language or gesturesrather than through physical contact. Being able to speak the language of the people around us, for

example, is extremely important to our experience of a respectful world. Nonetheless, not all of the skills

we develop may contribute to our handling of the world; indeed, some skills may actually impede our

handling of the world. See for example, Russon (2003) on how the skills we develop as children, for

example, for earning the respect of our family members may be quite unsuccessful at garnering the

respect of the new people we encounter as adults.


1 3



levels of both sense experience and personal experience, that allows us to believe

that the world just is, independently of us, at a distance.15

Social Experience and Maintenance Work

In the previous two sections, I examined the important contribution made by our

own bodies to the depth of our world. Yet the depth of our world is not an entirely

private achievement. If we were left to ourselves, the world would likely still be

quite invasive. To begin thinking about the contribution others make to the depth of

our world, I will turn to the work of the artist Mierle Ukeles.

In 1969, Ukeles wrote the ‘‘Maintenance Manifesto,’’ articulating the idea of

‘‘Maintenance Art,’’ art that consisted, at least in part, of performing the kind of

everyday activities that keep our world running. In the ‘‘Maintenance Manifesto,’’Ukeles proposed a three-part exhibition called ‘‘CARE’’. The first part consisted of

moving her family into a museum and taking responsibility for the maintenance of

the museum and its visitors; Ukeles writes that she would ‘‘clean it…change the

lightbulbs, whatever was necessary to keep this place operating. The museum’s life

processes would become visible. That would be the art-work’’ (Finkelpearl 2000:

35). The second part consisted of asking different people what they did to keep

alive, and the third part consisted of ‘‘constructing an image of the earth (outside) as

a needy and finite place’’ (Finkelpearl 2000: 305).

In 1976, Ukeles created a work titled ‘‘I Make Maintenance Art One Hour EveryDay’’ for the Whitney Museum of Art’s branch at 55 Water Street in New York

City. 55 Water Street was a large office building, of which the Whitney Branch was

only a small part. For her work, Ukeles wrote to 300 of the building’s maintenance

workers and invited them to contribute to an artwork by selecting 1 hour of their

regular work and thinking of that 1 hour of work as art. Then, over 7 weeks, Ukeles

joined the workers on their shifts. As she traveled through the building, she asked

the workers she met if she could photograph them; they always, she remarks, said

yes (Finkelpearl 2000: 309). She then asked whether she had met them during the

hour when they were making art. The Polaroid pictures she took of the workers,

labeled, according to the worker’s answers, as ‘‘Maintenance Work’’ or ‘‘Mainte-

nance Art’’ were placed in her exhibit space at the Whitney branch; in the end, there

were over 700 pictures on the wall.

Shortly after exhibiting ‘‘I Make Maintenance Art One Hour Every Day,’’ Ukeles

began collaborating with the New York City Department of Sanitation; she

continues to be the department’s official artist-in-residence (Finkelpearl 2000: 295).

Her first work, ‘‘Touch Sanitation Performance’’ consisted of Ukeles, over a period

of 11 months, shaking hands with every one of the Sanitation Department’s 8,500

workers and saying to each, ‘‘Thank you for keeping New York City alive’’

(Finkelpearl 2000: 314). In 1984, she presented ‘‘Touch Sanitation Show,’’ which

15 In Section 16 of Being and Time, for example, Heidegger contrasts the conspicuousness,

obtrusiveness, and obstinacy of what is present-at-hand with the inconspicuousness, unobtrusiveness

and non-obstinacy of what is ready-at-hand.

420 S. M. Bredlau

1 3





Ukeles work, on the other hand, reveals that the depth of our world is achieved,

not only through the effort of our own bodies but also through the efforts of others’

bodies; there is, one might say, a social dimension to the depth of our world. Were it

not for the maintenance work of many other people, the world would press on us

much more insistently. Without trash collection, for example, we would beassaulted by unpleasant smells and find our normal routines disrupted by ever-

growing piles of garbage. Without road repair we would be constantly jarred by

potholes and perhaps even crushed by failing bridges and tunnels. We are able to

experience the world as keeping its distance, in part, because many other people are

preventing it from collapsing in on us.

Although Ukele’s work draws our attention to the social dimension of the depth

of our world by focusing on maintenance work, maintenance work is not the only

kind of work by others that our sense of depth relies upon; the work of soldiers a nd

police officers, for example, is also critical to our experience of an orderly world.17

Moreover, since others’ work is informed by the particular culture and historical

period to which they belong, this work may take very different forms at different

times or in different places. Thus while every sane person likely shares a general

sense of the world as respectful, the exact parameters of this sense of depth will

depend on the community that contributes to it.18

So long as we take work like maintenance work for granted, however, we fail to

appreciate the importance of other people’s efforts to the depth of our world. We

also fail to evaluate whether these efforts should take the particular forms that they

are taking. Describing her collaboration with the Department of Sanitation, Ukelessays, ‘‘When I first got here, people said that the way things were—the terrible

way—was the way things would always be….Hundreds of people said that to me in

great sorrow’’ (Finkelpearl 2000: 322). Yet, Ukeles continues, ‘‘It’s simply not true.

I learned in Sanitation that vision and will can change just about anything. Didn’t

Art always know that?’’ (Finkelpearl 2000: 322). While maintenance work, as such,

certainly necessary, this does not mean that any particular form of this work is

necessary. While we will always, for example, need to deal with building

maintenance, we can certainly change the way that we maintain them so that such

maintenance is more equitable and sustainable. These changes could take place on

an individual level, affecting how single buildings are maintained, but they could

also take place on a broader political level, affecting how new buildings are

constructed and even how workers, in general, are valued.

In the previous sections of this paper, I discussed the depth of our world as a

beneficial development; if we could not structure space in such a way that the world

keeps its distance and touches us with respect, we would find it difficult to have a

fulfilling life. Ukele’s work suggests, however, that the distance between the world

17 I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer from Human Studies for suggesting these examples.18 Guy Deutscher (2009) provides an example of how a person’s culture, through its language, can affect

her experience of space. A person whose culture uses egocentric coordinates, like ‘right’ and ‘left’, to

give directions develops a sense of orientation that is easily disrupted in situations where she can no

longer see recognizable landmarks. A person whose culture uses geographic coordinates, like ‘north’ and

‘south’ to give directions, however, develops a sense of orientation that remains intact even when she is,

for example, blindfolded or in the dark.

422 S. M. Bredlau

1 3



and us should not always be viewed so positively. The depth of our world is

sometimes achieved at the expense of others, either because we do not properly

value, and even demean, their maintenance work or because we allow this work to

be unacceptably dangerous. Likewise, the depth of our world is sometimes achieved

through grave environmental destruction. We should, in other words, sometimes betroubled when the world is not in our faces. The distance we presently enjoy

between the world and us may be premised on others’ oppression.

Thus in failing to notice others’ contribution to the depth of our world, we often,

implicitly, treat others in ways that we would, explicitly, reject. Although a distance

between the world and us is, as such, absolutely critical, certain realizations of this

distance are rightly open to criticism. Rather than taking the depth of our world for

granted, therefore, we must recognize it, not just as an achievement, but as a

communal achievement. To experience the world as keeping its distance is, in fact,

to be engaged with others. Much of this present distance, however, is the result of very unfair and degrading ways of engaging with others. In other words, though we

may experience the world as respectful, this experience, when it is achieved through

oppressive, rather than respectful, relations with others, is not really justified. For

our experience of a respectful world to be justified, then, we must take responsibility

for these relations and insure that the depth of our world is rightfully earned and not

brutally imposed.

References

Against all odds: Dancing with cerebral palsy. Good morning America: America’s health. ABC. Katie

Bosland and Jake Whitman. January 19, 2010, October 16, 2010. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/

HealthyLiving/odds-dancing-cerebral-palsy/story?id=9596192&page=1.

Bredlau, S. (2007). Learning to see: Merleau-Ponty and the navigation of terrains. Chiasmi International, 9.

de Beauvoir, S. (1989). The second sex (H. M. Parshley, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books.

Deutscher, G. (2009, August 28). Does your language shape how you think? The New York Times

Magazine, pp. 42–46.

Finkelpearl, T. (2000). Interview: Mierle Laderman Ukeles on maintenance and sanitation art. Dialogues

in public art (pp. 295–322). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Genzlinger, N. (2009, November 29, 2010, October 16). Learning his body, learning to dance. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/arts/dance/25palsy.html?scp=1&sq=dance%

20therapy&st=cse.

Grandin, T. (1995). Thinking in pictures. New York: Vintage Books.

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York: Harper and

Row.

Kohler, W. (1940). Dynamics in psychology. New York: Liverright Publishing Co.

Mazis, G. (2010). Time at the depth of the world. In K. Semonovitch & N. DeRoo (Eds.), Merleau-Ponty

at the limits of art, religion, and perception. New York: Continuum Press.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1967). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). New York: Routledge.

Morris, D. (2004). The sense of space. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Russon, J. (2003). Human experience: Philosophy, neurosis, and the elements of everyday life. Albany:

State University of New York Press.Steinbock, A. J. (1987). Merleau-Ponty’s concept of depth. Winter: Philosophy Today.

Weisberg, R. (Producer). (2002). Sound and fury [DVD]. New York: New Video Group.

Williams, D. (1993). Nobody nowhere. Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited.

Young, I. M. (1998). Throwing like a girl. In D. Welton (Ed.), Body and flesh: A philosophical reader .

Malden, MA: Blackwell.


1 3

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HealthyLiving/odds-dancing-cerebral-palsy/story?id=9596192&page=1


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/arts/dance/25palsy.html?scp=1&sq=dance%20therapy&st=cse






Documents

A Respectful World - Merleau-Ponty and the Experience of Depth