"It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is"
About this Quote
Against the modern fantasy that intimacy means total merger, Hesse draws a hard boundary: love, friendship, even citizenship aren’t advanced by becoming interchangeable. The sentence is built like a quiet rebuke. First, it rejects a “purpose” that sounds virtuous - to become each other - but is really a refined form of possession. Then it offers a more difficult ethic: recognition. Not agreement. Not absorption. Seeing.
The subtext is psychological and political at once. Hesse, writing out of a Europe bruised by mass ideology and the pressure to conform, treats the self as something fragile that can be flattened by romantic projection as easily as by nationalism. “Learn to see” implies that our default mode is blindness: we look at people and immediately fill them with our needs, fears, and narratives. The other becomes a screen. Recognition is discipline, not sentiment.
Even the gendered “honor him” carries its era’s imprint: a slightly formal, almost chivalric vocabulary that frames respect as an active duty rather than a warm feeling. Honor here isn’t praise; it’s restraint. It’s the choice not to edit someone into a more convenient version of themselves.
Hesse’s intent, then, isn’t to cool intimacy but to rescue it from coercion. He’s arguing for a relationship model where difference isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to safeguard - because real connection starts when the other person stops being raw material for your self-improvement story.
The subtext is psychological and political at once. Hesse, writing out of a Europe bruised by mass ideology and the pressure to conform, treats the self as something fragile that can be flattened by romantic projection as easily as by nationalism. “Learn to see” implies that our default mode is blindness: we look at people and immediately fill them with our needs, fears, and narratives. The other becomes a screen. Recognition is discipline, not sentiment.
Even the gendered “honor him” carries its era’s imprint: a slightly formal, almost chivalric vocabulary that frames respect as an active duty rather than a warm feeling. Honor here isn’t praise; it’s restraint. It’s the choice not to edit someone into a more convenient version of themselves.
Hesse’s intent, then, isn’t to cool intimacy but to rescue it from coercion. He’s arguing for a relationship model where difference isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to safeguard - because real connection starts when the other person stops being raw material for your self-improvement story.
Quote Details
| Topic | Respect |
|---|
More Quotes by Hermann
Add to List
