Yeah, the current phrase feels confusing to me. If a human takes something else as a subject that… feels like it has some different connotations. In my mind the two opposing phrases are “being subject to” (passive) and “taking as object” (active).
There’s some complexity here because English offers two words here, “subject” and “object” that can be used somewhat interchangeably in some situations but in most situations we have some notion that “subject” is on the left/upstream side of the causal arrow and “object” is on the right/downstream side. However Ben’s reuse of “subject” by shifting it from actor (“subject to”) to the acted upon (“as subject”) seems mostly poetic and a reasonable alternative to talking about object.
Of course, because English is noun-focused, it’s rather nice to have two different nouns for these concepts rather than having to point to them by using two different verb phrases as Ben does here.
I have my own mild preferences around using standard phrasing to trigger in people associations with that common body of work built around those standards, but regardless I don’t think anything in the post is actually at odds with standard phrasing, just different and, to my ear, equally clear, even if I have no intention of ever copying it.
Yeah, the current phrase feels confusing to me. If a human takes something else as a subject that… feels like it has some different connotations. In my mind the two opposing phrases are “being subject to” (passive) and “taking as object” (active).
There’s some complexity here because English offers two words here, “subject” and “object” that can be used somewhat interchangeably in some situations but in most situations we have some notion that “subject” is on the left/upstream side of the causal arrow and “object” is on the right/downstream side. However Ben’s reuse of “subject” by shifting it from actor (“subject to”) to the acted upon (“as subject”) seems mostly poetic and a reasonable alternative to talking about object.
Of course, because English is noun-focused, it’s rather nice to have two different nouns for these concepts rather than having to point to them by using two different verb phrases as Ben does here.
I have my own mild preferences around using standard phrasing to trigger in people associations with that common body of work built around those standards, but regardless I don’t think anything in the post is actually at odds with standard phrasing, just different and, to my ear, equally clear, even if I have no intention of ever copying it.