The Gaze and the Modern Subject: From Nietzsche to Foucault

Panopticon

Introduction

What happens when the self is no longer master of itself? Across the twentieth century, philosophers and theorists repeatedly confronted this unsettling question. Whether through existential anxiety, psychological fragmentation, or mechanisms of institutional control, thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault each explore how subjectivity unravels when exposed to forces beyond comprehension or mastery. This article traces how these figures—each in his distinct idiom—articulate the destabilization of identity in the presence of what is alien, indifferent, or watchful. From Nietzsche’s abyss to Foucault’s surveillance machine, a shared insight emerges: the self is not a sealed interiority, but something shaped, split, or constructed through its encounter with the Other.

Nietzsche: Gazing into the Abyss

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche famously warns: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”¹ The abyss here is no inert void but a potent force—a kind of metaphysical mirror—that reflects and potentially transforms the observer. Nietzsche’s imagery dramatizes the risk inherent in confronting chaos: in resisting destruction, one may absorb its form. The passage resonates with his broader critique of morality and his imperative of self-overcoming. Identity, in Nietzsche’s thought, is neither stable nor sacrosanct; it is plastic, prone to mutation when exposed to the extremes of existence. The abyss thus becomes a threshold—where agency wavers, and the self risks dissolution.

Camus: The Absurd as Existential Void

Albert Camus situates the abyss not in the moral realm, but in the existential one. In The Myth of Sisyphus, he describes the absurd as arising from “the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”² Unlike Nietzsche’s abyss, which stares back with force, Camus’s void remains indifferent. Yet the effect is no less destabilizing. The absurd fractures the link between human longing and cosmic intelligibility. In the face of this void, the subject must choose: denial, surrender, or revolt. Camus's Sisyphus embraces rebellion—not by escaping absurdity, but by confronting it with lucidity and without appeal to transcendent meaning. Here, identity is not anchored in certainty or salvation, but forged in the ongoing act of affirmation without hope. The abyss becomes not a danger to avoid, but the terrain on which to construct freedom.

Sartre: The Intersubjective Gaze

Jean-Paul Sartre shifts the site of destabilization from metaphysics to intersubjectivity. In Being and Nothingness, he explores how the self is transformed under the gaze of the Other: “The Other is the one who looks at me and judges me.”³ This gaze is not a casual glance but a phenomenological rupture—it exposes the self to external evaluation and reveals the subject as object. Sartre’s celebrated example of the voyeur at the keyhole illustrates this dynamic: shame does not arise from the act of watching, but from being caught—being seen.⁴ Elsewhere, Sartre writes: “I am ashamed of myself as I appear to the Other.”⁵ In this moment, consciousness is alienated; it encounters itself not in solitude, but in the reflection cast by another’s judgment. Subjectivity is revealed as contingent, constantly negotiated in a field of social visibility.

Lacan: The Symbolic Gaze and the Return of the Real

Jacques Lacan extends Sartre’s analysis by embedding the gaze in the symbolic order—the field of language, law, and desire. In Seminar XI, Lacan recounts an anecdote from his youth: while on a fishing trip, a fellow fisherman pointed to a sardine can floating on the water and said, “You see that can? Well, it doesn’t see you!”⁶ Yet Lacan confesses that he felt watched all the same. The object, seemingly inert, becomes the locus of a disturbing realization: one is always, in some sense, visible. For Lacan, the gaze is not empirical vision but a function of the symbolic: it marks the intrusion of a field that precedes and exceeds the subject. We are “looked at” from a place we cannot locate. Subjectivity, in this account, is not autonomous—it is split, caught in a web of signifiers, and animated by a desire structured by lack.

Foucault: Surveillance, Discipline, and the Docile Self

Michel Foucault translates the dynamics of the gaze into the architecture of modern power. In Discipline and Punish, he analyzes Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon—a prison designed so that a single guard may observe all inmates without being seen. The brilliance of the design lies not in constant observation, but in the uncertainty: the mere possibility of being watched induces self-regulation. “Visibility is a trap,” Foucault writes.⁷ Under these conditions, power becomes more effective precisely because it is internalized. Individuals come to monitor and shape their own behavior, producing what Foucault calls “docile bodies.” Unlike Sartre’s interpersonal gaze or Lacan’s symbolic one, Foucault’s vision of power is diffuse, embedded in institutions, practices, and routines. The abyss here is no longer cosmic or psychic—it is bureaucratic, woven into the very design of modern life.

Conclusion

From Nietzsche’s warning against becoming what one opposes, to Camus’s affirmation in the face of absurdity; from Sartre’s alienation under the eyes of others, to Lacan’s unsettling encounter with the symbolic gaze; and finally to Foucault’s model of institutional control—a common thread runs through these accounts: the self is not self-sufficient. Whether destabilized by chaos, indifference, judgment, desire, or surveillance, subjectivity appears as a fragile construction, constantly exposed to forces that exceed its grasp. In each case, the abyss or gaze does not simply destroy, but reveals the constructedness of identity. In the age of algorithmic monitoring and digital transparency, these insights remain not only philosophically relevant but politically urgent.

Notes

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), §146.
2. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Vintage International, 1991), 28.
3. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992), 340.
4. Ibid., 352–53.
5. Ibid., 353.
6. Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 95–96.
7. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 200.