Personhood beyond personalization

The best parenting advice I ever received was: “When a child is acting up, give her your undivided attention.” For my daughters, an off-kilter moment can be turned by going on a walk around the neighborhood, listening for a few undistracted blocks about whatever is on their mind. Something about that focused “being with” addresses what they need most. It is, in fact, what we all need most: relationship and recognition.

In his new book, Andy Crouch writes that “recognition is the first human quest.” From the moment we are born, we begin to search the room for faces, looking for the eyes that are looking back at us. From that seeing and being seen, Crouch argues, personhood begins. But we also soon learn that such recognition is not always forthcoming. The world often resists our hunger for recognition.

This is where the danger begins, for we increasingly have an alternative to recognition, a smooth substitute for authentic relationships. When the infant looking for a face cries, it is now all too tempting to quiet her with a screen, a personalized device that reflects back her every want. “But all that will come at the expense of what she was looking for the day she was born, what we were all looking for,” writes Crouch, “because before we knew to look for a mirror, we were looking for another person’s face.”