On the oogle.

Regarding the ogle. ( or: oogle ).

An essay. Kaj Genell 2007.

OF the human looking, the glance, le "regard"..., is very very much written, - indeed so very very much, that there haply could be need for any further investigations on this subject. But regarding the special form of glance which generally is called "ogle" ( or "oogle"), i.e. when someone is looking from aside at something or someone, there is not much written at all . To my knowledge. And it is queer, since so very much of our looking is not straight looking, but … ogling, and if you think of it yourself you will find out, that you have learnt more about life by ogling than by looking straight at something, yes, you have learnt more about a person by ogling at him or her than by looking that person right in the eyes.

This is often something we do not want to admit, since we have grown up with theories about the Other and being "seen" and being persons born in meeting other people. And of course, those theories are very beautiful - and in some cases and to some degree true too - but they are quite unsatisfactory. Because - as you know - when it comes to human beings, things are not black and white and everything is not possible to catch in ONE formula. Thus the old formula about the Other and the formula of being seen is incomplete, inasmuch as it does not contain the ogle.
The ogle - familiar to everyone - but often denied ( "I did not see you do that!") is underestimated and neglected and furthermore and more important: it is wrongly interpretated in our common anthropology. The ogle does not necessarily have to be something less valuable than the look. It is not a mean thing, to ogle. It really can be a generous thing, but this is - as I have indicated already, all neglected. One does not want to see that the ogle is the primary source to deeper knowledge - the ogle, undisturbed and pensative.
And first of all: the ogle is not at all limited to looking at somebody or something by stealth. Far from that … the truth is - I think - that we all most of the time are living in the corner of someone else´ eye, in the corner of our own eye to ( it is certainly more than possible to ogle at oneself … ) and that the others are doing the reverse, whether we are talking about the physical eye or the Mind's eye ….

II.

The human looking (watching ) is a looking everybody ( like animals too ) learns naturally, and one is quite early clear about the fact that other people - as well as oneself - are pretty clever onlookers.
The glance, the on look, thus is either A.): one's own, but it is one's own looking, that is perceived either from within or from without…, or, it is B.) the looking of someone else, the Other, and we either notice that the Other is looking straight at us, or we are observing (!) his or hers looking from aside. We often observe that another person is observing something, and by this we are just as often likely to look in the direction of the Other's glance.
Sometimes we are more than two people together. We are three or we are seven people together in one room, and there is a number of occasions when we - each one of us - has plenty of time to observe the looking of another person, the other person's intense interest in looking upon something else than my eyes..
And we could easily, randomly, without any supporting statistics, but out of sheer logic (?) determine that the diverted look is the most common look that each and everyone is observing.
Thus, it is NOT the case, that we are walking around being seen in such a manner that we are looked straight in the eye, and thus we are not most of the time verified by such looks. We are NOT most of the time SEEN as the one's we are in a dialogical sense.(Which has been a very popular sense since long … but much too simplified outlook on human behaviour and human individuation. Yes a naïve outlook , naïve and idealistic, I might add.)
("All theory is grey." Goethe once claimed, but we can easily - most of us - remember an amusing article, essay or book dealing with abstract things in a very pleasant manner. I hope to hold my nose above the surface in this ocean of dull …simplified theory.)
The diverted look is more common than the straight, but in the vast literature regarding the glance the authors nearly always is trying to cope with the direct look. We have a philosophical tradition and a psychological such - built upon the former - that intensely is preoccupied with the interplay between the looking upon each other of two people.
We are thought much about the glance. We are - for instance - told that the eye is the mirror of the soul.( It is common around the world.) And this presupposes that we are favoured so that we may look into everybody's eyes if we want to look into his or hers soul, - because the picture of the mirror means this. The eyes of a person is a picture of the soul of this very person. We are also aware of that it takes a certain amount of courage to get a look in one's eyes. If we are too afraid, our eyes does not show anything but fear, they show no soul, they just show fear, and we often make the interpretation: this person has a soul of fear.
We are also naturally comforted by a warm look and in the deep of our hearts we are all carrying pictures of these, and we were - I am certain - nearly lost without these pictures.
But let us proceed to the diverted look, the glance aside, the ogle, and investigate the importance or non-importance of this kind of looking, - since it is our subject.

III.

Since a glance cannot per se be lying, cannot in itself tell a lie,( but used to lye with ) but be directed, be curious, be tender, be evasive, be serious, be by a deep nature - in the eye of the beholder ( the onlooker ) - I want to assert - that SEEING, which is ONE, is a solid ground for humanity in it's beginning. Quite like we are looking upon language, when we have a language (i.e. when we are talking about it, the language ), when I am hearing it, listening to it, perceiving all the twitches and turns, the pitches and delays, order and chaos behind, and so on - this is -quite elementary put - a parallel to seeing, to the glance.
Nobody needs to be ashamed of the stupidity in his or her glance or the stupidity of his or her remarks upon something. Everybody has exactly the unique cleverness and stupidity everybody has. And it is more than important not to try to hide away, to try to cover this stupidity. It tends to show even more then … It is hard to protect oneself from observation by looking at somebody, unless you don't have a menacing look, and there are few things people forget more seldom than a menacing look. The menacing look is not pleasant, and it is not much of a look, since it is related to the glance of fear.
However, the glance of the stupid is very important since it opens up the glance of the clever even more. There is few things in this world that is more important than the (direct or diverted ) glance of the stupid.
It is important to observe a human ,who does not dare to see. It is likely that the order and mess are fighting an open battle to the observer.
What you are perceiving is, I ought to have declared this fact from the start, always - if you don't use mirrors - always in front of you.
What you can see around you is seen by turning head and eyeballs. This you know, and it can also be seen.( It is quite interesting to discuss this, don't you think. One never know where it will end. In a sceptic outlook, in a new philosophy, in a religious faith, or in a whimper … )
-----------------------

IV.
Let us take some examples:

a.) Little Man.

Somebody in front of the ruling power.
A person is inquired by the ruling power. (A teacher is wondering about his pupil. Looking at him asking him over and over again difficult questions just to get to know his pupil… To get to know … )
Someone else is inquiring regarding this power. That is : this event is regarded by a third person (me).
If we look around we can see the Little Man turning his face away from the curious person, me, turning away from our look in the same way as this person earlier turned away from the look of the ruling power. In short, let us say: the normal behaviour of a Small Man is that he is observed by the ruling power as well as his neighbours and friends. And the observed person is glancing away, ogling, but still trying to put up with the state of being observed.
But he ogles, and is certainly not staring the ruling power in the midst of its face. It is not common for the Little Man to have the strength to look the power straight in the eye.
It is all a mess and it is too much for both parties. Even the ruling power blushes all over and suddenly says: "Bah, it is all of no importance. It is really nothing to make a fuzz about. You being a free man. Let's get along better. Where were we?"
But the free man is stuck in his ogle, in the position of turning his face away and ogling at the power.
( He sings slowly- half conscious -: "I am the current and you the resistance. You are the current and I the resistance. Will it always change….." - Thus he is aware of the nature of subordination and is trying to "master the situation" .)
Who wants to face an just power questioning oneself. It is not quite right to admit this questioning. Thus we turn our face aside, while we keep our looking at the questioner put. To justify and show our courage we are still looking at the unjust.
The outside observer of this situation - me - is looking on ( glancing at ) the glance of the Small Man and learning something about the human being. To turn away glancing, ogling, is a way of survival. The Little Man does not give in, but he is definitely not looking straight at the ruling power. You would not show your young clean innocent face to the ruling unjust power. But you would not want to lower your head either. So the solution is to turn your head aside and glance, ogle at the unjust, inquiring teacher.

b.) The thieves.
When two men has been arrested by the police, suspected of having tried to rob a store.
When these two have been secured from the street by the locals of power ( the district police ) who have found them outside of a robbed store and the question arises from the questioner at the station:
"Who threw the rock?" ( without any biblical reference ), when the two of them ogle at each other, both being suspects, both in denial, then this very ogle, in this reciprocity, helps them in a pure physiological way to keep the remaining parts of their faces immobile….
Only the ogle is alive. Not by any move at all they betray each other. Because, if one of them are betraying the other, then both are betrayed.
They are - seen from outside - quite pale persons. And of course, the two suspects are in a secret communion. In short: the one , who utters the first word is in fact worse than a rat! ( So to say.) The only thing in this room alive is the oogle. Not by a single sign any of the two suspects is betraying the other. They don't even blush. They are both in an important pact, isolated from the outside world.

VI.
Nobody sees me!
In this (!) situation, what a shame…., when you - of all things - not want to be seen, and just because of that, just because of an ogle, you are noticed … is the greatest of all ogles on earth! It is the worst of all ogles and it usually leads to disaster. Of all ogles not this one! Not this!

VII.
Yes, now we are slowly becoming aware of the importance of the ogle. I know, and that is important, that the ogle most common of ogles and the ogling ,which is allowed and never shameful is the one ,that is most frequent and natural of all, i.e. (id est ) the one which we use when competing in a race or something in an Olympic game and the like ….
Sometimes…even in an Olympic game … you can lose by ogling, sometimes you can win by doing so. In adrenalin. Certain people, that is true, are apt to lose after having ogled. Others tend to win by doing so. (We do not recommend ogling if a record is at stake… ) It is a question of survival. Ogling is often about survival. But, sometimes it is devastating to be ogling. Think of a real nasty ogle back from a competitor! You could be stiff from fright in the midst of a run. Thus, it is recommendable that one - before the race - determines weather to ogle or not.
This is a very simple kind of ogling. Still more simple is

VIII.
And ogle for food. Or

IX.
An ogle for beauty. " How extraordinary beautiful that girl is!!!"" Her hair is like golden rye. Heavy and swelling, falling down below her knees, when she loosens it, but nobody still calls her a beauty." "Her face has nothing beautiful except the eyes, and strictly seen not even the eyes - they are small and nearly grey - but the glance, this enigmatic glance, which at the same time was courageous and happy-go-lucky and sometimes heavy and pensative. It had a special tinge even when she sat talking of the smallest tings …" ( from Ivan Turgenyev Fathers and sons, 1862. )

All of us, we can probably not learn anything at all if we do not ogle. It is like being able to talk without ever having listened. If we think about it: is not all man coming out of an ogle ?
When it really comes about….
The immeasurable, the undeterminable, the utopical …. human being …..
Where from appears such a strange creature but from an ogle ?
If you are astonished by this fact and says to yourself: "But this is yet another impoverish thought, a grotesque psychological nonsense theory !"And simultaneously you are not completely sure.
You are apt to be ogling at it. And then you are ogling around :"Nobody sees me?!" Maybe ….
(You know, you have to ogle before you can squint! Because the philosopher, the crown of the species, is a person with his thought askew, a person skewing at reality… )
Now, maybe you are getting fooled now, in the midst of the psychology of the ogle. We are reminded of a way of looking ( this is a´la Dickens ) , that eyes are there to be looked at, too.
You, me and all of us are in need of eyes, that are seeing, and are seen , and when they are seen, they are supported by our entire body. It is not unusual that our body is supporting a way of looking, our glance, or even that our way of behaving strengthens our looking, often without us being aware of it at all.
Sometimes eyes are in need to be seen, either they are looking or not, and sometimes they are together with its body a glance in such degree, that we need not look at all to make people say: "Such strong look she had in her eyes!" or "She had no strength in her eyes!" And this is here no talk from an ophthalmologist. It is human intercourse, and it is an unwritten law: You do not look upon the eyes of another human being like you are looking at things, like looking the external surfaces of globes… The one who brakes this rule is regarded as a monster!
But this you already know. ( Wittgenstein once wrote: "You shall never write things that a person can figure out for himself.")
This is essential when we are looking upon the ogle. I am reduplicating, i.e. I am looking at the ogle in ( the act of )ogling myself. Certain people do not permit themselves to ogle. ( Many animals do ogle. Some animals cannot. An ant cannot possibly ogle at another ant. By this we can say that the ant is living in another way than we. Because we know, that they cannot ogle. )
Generally people do ogle and for many reasons. Consciously and unconsciously. I do think that you yourself already have ogled today….

XI.
The ogle, though, is a complex thing. It is a double phenomenon. We can easily discover the learning ogle, but we must proceed and we have now come to the ogle which is an ogle not to look at outward things but inner … an inward look. Some persons do ogle when they try to think hard or recollect a memory or solve a problem or make an artistic expression in music or something.
It is an interesting thing to look at the ogle that does not discover an outer fact, but an inner truth. We are sometimes looking at the eyes of our teacher when our teacher recollects what he knows.
What is the importance of looking at an ogle ? Why is it important to be looking at somebody's eyes when we know that this somebody does not discern anything with this look in the outer world. What is the meaning of this ogle. It is certainly more than an empty look!
One could say, that the teacher or Master (?) once has seen the truth and now he or she recollects the memory of this "truth" once more while I am present. I am allowed to be present in a moment of recollection and creation, and to we is forwarded this truth by listening to and looking upon this other human being.
( What on earth then, is this talk about a "Master" some making of idols, some belief in authorities, or even the making of a God ?? Is this author trying to start a cult, some sectic movement or something ? No, naturally not. The Master is not important other than a person to 1.) respect and to 2.) someone by whom we can find the way to the great Art . )
If this Master once has done the same, then I am part of a golden chain. I feel my hand shaking and a drop of sweat on my upper lip. The Master has interiorised this knowledge. And by order and unordered he or she is taking another step towards another truth while I am looking upon his or her eyes. Ogling inwards.
We can see This Master daily. There the Master goes. When he or she walks around and about in town The M. is not extraordinary: Only when the M. is ogling. When the M. is ogling the M. is looking kind of round a corner. The M. is looking far, and squinting in his ogling.
In a decision every M. evolves and alone, but ogling is social, it is no meaning in ogling alone. Nobody ogles alone unless he is a lune. And the main treat with every Master ( who is quite normal ) is that he or she finds his or hers greatest joy and happiness in exploiting the mastery itself, in practice. Art has the strange quality that the artist never plays the last note, makes the last stroke with his pencil, is writing the last line… Because he is always being interrupted once, by his own death. The fate of every artist is to be interrupted.
A dead master has quite a lot of unwritten, not yet played, and unpainted in front of him, ahead.
The Master is an ongoing miracle and an historical creator of a new norm in the Hegelian history of the Eternal Spirit. The norm can not be decontructed due to the process that cannot be stopped and not analyzed , it is a process of something in the making. Due to the living blood of art. This is also true in the smaller masters, the masters in spe, the ones who will follow the greater masters by breaking one or two rules and carrying this art one step further, not forgetting about the origin of this art in the great ogle of the greatest of Masters.
This is probably not quite true, but there is something in it, that is.
The meaning of an ogle is: You must not get impressed by what you see around you. You have to - in a way - just reversely be overwhelmed by what you do not ever see, what you cannot discover by way of using your eye sight. Try not to be blinded by what you see & not getting deaf by hearing what you do hear from outside.
The meaning of the great Ogle is to listen and to in a Socratic manner bring forth the knowledge of Art.

XII.
The statue.
Shaping of an ogling man in bronze.
Maybe somebody is making a statue, showing someone ogling. And when I am looking upon this statue I feel like looking at something … holy.
But when I am looking at this statue, at the ogle, how can I see that it is an ogle? It is easy: the man in bronze seems to contradict himself! The movement of the torso and head and the expression of the face in general says something else than what is expressed in his looking, his ogling.
Someone, maybe a cousin, has made this statue, cleverly and with taste, with artmanship. He has composed this statue according to the "laws" discovered by Polykleitos, the ancient Greek sculptor. And he has also been able to put a kind a sanctity in it.
The statue is radiating holiness, without asking for worship. The eyes is really fantastic. My cousin ( or someone ) has managed to catch the ogle and the contradiction. This imago has an air like the blind Homeros.
It is eternity in bronze. It is statue that will work, that will mediate. It is between me and the Art.
I do not think it is really holy. But I feel something like it.
I want to share my experience with others. But then I must explain - like this - and some other person maybe do not want to buy my explanation.

XIII.
Imagine a human being, a person, that cannot ogle. He can see but not ogle. His eyes are fixed so that he must turn his head all the time towards what he wants to look at. A terrible situation, a terrible predicament. And it would be something puppetlike. And the expressions of getting an idea from heaven, or giving it away to somebody, those expressions are not available for this person. He can see but not pass a message to anybody concerning his reaction upon what he sees. He can not deliver a sense of that looking is important or that he has something to say about the future and Art. He has no glance, no gaze but only the perceptual faculty.
To be an intermediaire you must be ogling. To ogle is sometimes to give some hope.

Kaj Genell 2007.