ABSTRACT
We have characterized the incomplete person as particularly dependent on a social reality insofar as there is an effort to gather acknowledgement following a disruption of the self-definition. One might therefore think that the incomplete person would be a more civilized, ready-to-communicate individual, prepared to attend to others’ perspectives in an attempt to win back a lost sense of completeness. However, this is to miss a vital point concerning the relation of the self-symbolizer to the audience. Rather than treating the audience in a sensitive, communicative, and perspective-taking manner, the person involved in self-symbolizing is instead oriented toward reducing the other to the status of a marker. The goal of being acknowledged is all that is important.
