"A person's identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor-important though this is-in the reactions of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going. The individual's biography, if she is to maintain regular interaction with others in the day-to-day world, cannot be wholly fictive. It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort them into the ongoing 'story' about the self."
Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity (p. 54)
When everything feels like the movies,
Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive.
I don't want the world to see me,
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand.
When everything's made to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am.
Iris
"Individuality is born in the eccentricities and unexpected shadow tendencies of the soul, more so than in normality and conformity. One who cares for the soul becomes someone at ease with idiosyncrasies and the unexpected."
Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul (p. 17)
 |
So, human beings are social animals but can experience freedom and individuality. Think about other social entities for a minute, like ants and bees. Other than humans, ants and bees are probably the most social of all creatures. Yet there is no individuality or freedom for the ants and bees. That's because they are driven by instincts and nature. A worker bee does what a worker bee does because, well, it's a worker bee! It is its nature to do what it does. But, as we've already seen, humans are not instinctually determined. Human society is not based on genetics, as it is with bees and ants, but it is based on the existence of symbols. For example, our society is based on us being Americans. We act like Americans, talk like Americans, feel like Americans, and believe in America. But what is "America"? It's a symbol that only exists because we say it does.
Think of it this way: An ant exists because an ant exists. If humans never existed or if they ceased to exist, the ant would still be what it is. That isn't the case for America. Take away humans and it doesn't exist anymore. That's because its existence is symbolic. And, that symbolic existence changes. (Remember? That's one of the intrinsic characteristics of symbolic meaning: it isn't the thing-in-itself.) Being an American today is different than it was 200 years ago; and it is different now than it will be in 200 more years. America may not even exist in 200 years! And the same is true with everything else about us. Race exists symbolically; gender exists symbolically; and they both may not exist at all in 200 years, or if they do they will be quite different.
And that's how humans can be social yet experience individuality and freedom: our entire existence is symbolic and the meanings of symbols are arbitrary and can change! Let's take gender as an example (again!). Let's say you want to be a woman. (For some of you this won't be hard to imagine because you already think you are one.) Now, what is a woman? A woman is emotionally caring and sensitive, socially connected, nurturing, and expressive, and she uses make-up, dresses, high heels, tight fitting pants, halter tops, jewelry, bras, pantyhose, and on and on and on. I don't have to tell you. But, wait! What if you didn't want to be all that and still be a woman! Could you do it? Could you say, "I want to be a woman and not wear tight fitting pants and a halter top"? Sure, no problem. But the only reason you can do that is because gender is not genetically determined, it's symbolic; so you have choices, you have freedom. And the real truth is that you can choose anything! Because it's symbolic. However, my choices are circumscribed. For example, you wouldn't like it much if I wore makeup with a dress, pantyhose, and high heels! You wouldn't like it because I'm supposed to be a guy and guys don't do that!! But check it out: it's YOU that would stop me, not genetics, YOU acting as society. But the important thing for us to see here is that the freedom is almost absolute and it exists because of symbols. (For an entertaining movie that makes you think about gendered dress, see The Dress Code , staring Alex Linz, Shirley MacLaine, Gary Sinise.)
There are two important things that come along with the existence of symbols: the mind and the self. Remember George Herbert Mead and symbolic interactionism? Well, for Mead, the mind is not something that resides in the physical brain or in the nervous system, nor is it something that is unavailable for sociological investigation. The mind is behavior; it is something we do, not something we have. According to Mead, the mind involves at least five different behaviors: the mind has the ability to use symbols to denote objects (it can use language), to use symbols as its own stimulus (it can talk to itself), to read and interpret another's gestures and use them as further stimuli, to suspend response (not act out of impulse), and to imaginatively rehearse one's own behaviors before actually behaving. These last two are pretty important. Have you ever gotten so mad at someone that you wanted to hit them? What stopped you? Your mind did: you stopped your impulse and considered what might happen if you acted on it. So, as you can see, society couldn't exist without the mind. It stops people from acting on impulse (perhaps a more instinctual, animalistic response) and allows them to consider what would be socially responsible. It's important to note the since the mind is seen as behavior rather than a thing, people can just as easily be mindless as mindful. And the mind, because it is behavior, is something that can be observed.
 |
Mead also argues that the mind is a result of social interaction. The mind is based on language, and language is acquired through social interaction. Human babies are completely dependent upon their parents for survival. They are thus forced to interact with others in already organized social environments. But when babies are hungry or tired or wet, they send out what Mead would call "unconventional gestures," gestures that do not mean the same to the sender and hearer. In other words, they cry. The caregivers must figure out what the baby needs. And when they do, parents tend to vocalize their behaviors. ("Oh, did Timmy need a ba-ba?") Babies eventually discover that if they mimic the parents and send out a significant gesture ("ba-ba") that they get their needs met sooner. This is the beginning of language acquisition; babies begin to understand that their environment is symbolized. Eventually a baby will understand that he has a symbol as well: "Timmy." This language acquisition allows the child to symbolize and symbolically manipulate its environment through the mind. As we will see, this environment includes self and others.
There are a number of ways in which scholars talk about the self, but all of them are based on the understanding of the self-as-perspective. What I mean here is that what is implied when we talk about the self is that we are able to take a position from which to view our own behaviors as if someone else were performing them. A good example of this is when you say to yourself, "I can't believe I'm doing this." At that moment you are looking at your own behaviors as if "the inner you" wasn't doing them, as if someone else was acting. It almost like there is two of you! The actor and the observer--part of us is living in the moment but part of us is living outside of the moment. That internal perspective, that place from which to view our actions, is an important part of what we mean by the self. But how is it that we get this almost multiple personality thing going on inside of us? This is the question that drove the bulk of Mead's work.
|
