More on Question 39
I was thinking about Question 39 earlier; the whole "Who am I" thing. I got stuck on two lines of thought:
~Are we who we think we are?
~Do we change ourselves to fit in with who we think others want us to be?
I decided the answers are "No" and "Yes" respectively. That's about as far as I got. The thing is, how much are we able to change ourselves to fit what we think we should be? How much should we change ourselves, if at all? I know changing yourself to make another happier can be a good thing, for both parties. But, likewise, it can be very bad. *sigh* I will add to this when I've thought more. Comments are welcome.
posted by titch @ 11:20 PM
4 Comments:
Emmie, I am going to answer your questions, but with very different approaches for each. Forgive my conflation of ideas. Also, all opinions expressed are only my own.
Are we who we think we are? In many cases, no. People have a tendency to identify themselves with their body, their personality, or their memories. These are transient, impermanent, and in a state of flux, and so they cannot constitute self. This is the Buddhist doctrine of Anatta. Furthermore they are functional. True self is the subjective existence that experiences and controls such phenomena, or in other words your consciousness. Being an irreducibly first-person subjective entity, this 'I' that you are is intangible to our standard methods of enquiry, and so is often neglected.
Do we change ourselves to fit with who we think others want us to be? Of course we do. Society is not a collection of individuals, but of projections of individuals. Humans are adaptable, and so modify their behaviour to adapt to different social situations. It makes evolutionary sense. Humans are social animals. Their survival depends on cooperation within a group. Hence, an individual's innate egocentric instincts of feeding, sex, and aggression, or what Freud termed the "primary processes", are not adequate for its survival, because in a social setting, these can be detrimental. Hence, through social conditioning, the individual learns not only how to cooperate, but how to suppress these primary processes whenever appropriate. This, Freud termed the "secondary processes". Of course, there are different degrees to which this conformity to social norms can occur in individuals, and some are healthier than others. A healthy individual does not feign behaviour, but possesses a core set of idiosyncratic principles, and expresses different aspects of this core character in different social situations. Many individuals who do not adapt to different social situations at all may fall into the set of developmental or personality disorders, such as autism, antisocial disorder, and schizoid disorder. Many individuals who feign different behaviours in different social contexts but lack a sense of a core character may fall into the set of personality disorders, such as histrionic disorder, narcissitic disorder, and dependent disorder.
We only see ourselves as reflections in others. We only see others by how they are reflected in our thoughts.
And I'm impressed that Hane managed to write all of that without plugging his book :P
I wouldn't say we *only* see ourselves as reflections in others. Not everyone, anyway. Some may. But some aspects of ourselves, I think, develop in solitude. At least for some.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: read my book!
Post a Comment
<< Home