The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life; Kenneth J. Gergen, Pt. 3

Pg 128 – “If any act, situation, or object is subject to multiple descriptions or perspectives, any given perspective can only be validated by reverting to still other perspectives. Not only does this undermine a rational foundation for any single position, but it suggests that the term rationality is a rhetorical device for the valorization of one’s favored position. A statement or a behavior is “rational” if it is favored by “our kind.” Such terms as unreasonable and irrational thus become means of social control and possible oppression.”

~ We need many perspectives just to understand a single perspective. This means that doing the rational thing only comes after thinking through other rational things to do, making the entire process slightly irrational. Therefore, calling something unreasonable or irrational is just for social control of other groups.

Pg 133 – “With the demise of rational coherence, a longstanding demarcation of self-identity also recedes from view. For it is the sense of continuity – that I know I am I by virtue of my sense of continuous sameness – that for centuries has served as the chief criterion by which a self is to be identified.”

~ So without rational thought self-identity is hard to have because nothing remains the same. This is what I am trying to solve.

Pg 137 – “More important here, however, is the effect of reflexivity on the traditional commitment to individual selves. If one lives within the confines of a single reality – coherent through time and space – the objectivity of self seem unassailable. Yet when lived reality is continuously punctuated by consciousness of its limitations and artifice, commitment becomes arduous. When one’s being as a professional, a spouse, or an American for example, is constantly being doubted – its constructed and contingent character made evident through other standpoints – then daily existence as an objectively given self is threatened.”

~ With doubt comes the self’s inability to remain objective. Instead it must become irrational to maintain its self-hood.

Pg 140 – “Objectivity about such matters was replaced by a perspectivism; the concept of “individual persons” could not be a single reflection of what there is, but a communal creation – derived from discourse, objectified within relationships, and serving to rationalize certain institutions while prohibiting others…To appreciate the possibility, two preliminary steps are useful: first bid adieu to the concrete entity of the self, and then to trace the reconstruction of self as relationship.”

~ Interesting to think that there is no point to mention the concrete self because the self is based entirely on relationships. This is kind of what I am currently writing about, though. The self is not concrete, but constantly changing through social situations and cultural affiliations.

Pg 140 – “Under modernism, the individual seemed an isolated, machinelike entity – reliable, predictable, and authentic, propelled by a core mechanism embedded not too deeply within the interior.”

~ Good explanation of the modernist view of the self.

Pg 145 – “Gender is but one of the traditional categories of self-identification that now deteriorates. Categories of race, age, religion, and nationality are similarly suspect. As the boundaries of definition give way, so does the assumption of self-identity.”

~ It is hard to relate/self-identify if the category is disintegrating. But, the disintegrating category could be a redistribution of the gender culture.

Pg 145 – “Although it grows increasingly difficult to be certain of who or what one is, social life proceeds. And in one’s interactions one continues to identify oneself as this or that sort of person…As these public characterizations of self are found effective in meeting the challenges of a complex social world, a new consciousness begins to develop. This is the consciousness of construction…For what is true of a culture’s history (chapter 4) and of the national reality (chapter 5) is no less true of persons’. That is (146) attempts to define or describe oneself inevitably proceed from a perspective, and different perspectives have different implications for how a person is treated.”

~ Again talking about how we view ourselves in certain perspectives because we are inherently social beings. I really like the part that culture, national reality, and personal identity basically function in the same manner.

Pg 146 – “For good or ill, it is the individual as socially constructed that finally informs people’s patterns of action. And in the end, there is no means of moving past the constructions to locate the real.”

~ Social construction shapes our actions through our working self-concepts. We are nothing without his, therefore the “real” is the social.

Pg 147 – “In the traditional community, where relationships were reliable, continuous, and face-to-face, a firm sense of self was favored. One’s sense of identity was broadly and continuously supported. Further, there was strong agreement on patterns of “right” and “wrong” behavior. One could simply and unself-consciously be, for there was little question of being otherwise. With social saturation, the traditional pattern is distrupted. One is increasingly thrust into new and different relationships – as the network of associates expands in the workplace, the neighborhood is suffused with new and different voices, one visits and receives visitors from abroad, organizations spread across geographical locales, and so on. The result is that one cannot depend on a solid confirmation of identity, nor on a comfortable patterns of authentic action. One confronts scores of new and different demands.

~ Good explanation of traditional community versus new way of looking at community as socially built.

Pg 148 – “…Social saturation also multiplies the standards available for self-comparison. As one interacts with persons from diverse backgrounds, and is exposed to various media representations of “good persons,” the range of self-evaluative criteria expands manifold. It is not simply the local community that dictates the nature of the good, but virtually any visible community.”

~ The social environment we live in as it relates to social saturation really consists of any visible/reachable community.

Pg 150 – “The pastiche personality is a social chameleon, constantly borrowing bits and pieces of identity from whatever sources are available and constructing them as useful or desirable in a given situation. If one’s identity is properly managed, the rewards can be substantial…”

~ So this is kind of like the working self-concept using various info and then piecing all of the self-representations together in different circumstances. It creates the pastiche personality.

Pg 151 – “…Self-monitoring – masters at self-presentation, sensitive to their public image and to situational cues of appropriateness, who are able to control or modify their appearance – with a contrasting group who are much less concerned or capable in these respects. The differences between the high and low self-monitoring individuals recall David Riesman’s celebrated distinction between inner-directed (or self-determining) and other-directed (or socially malleable) personality types…”

~ Good information on those who can monitor their working self-concept better than others. Continues with more information on other studies that might come in handy.

Pg 156 – In describing the final change of the self in the saturated social world says, “…Self is replaced by the reality of relatedness – or the transformation of “you” and “I” to “us.””

~ So as one realizes that oneself is completely interconnected there becomes no individual, just an intravidiual who shares everything with others.

Pg 157 – “And because there is no self outside of a system of meaning, it may be said that relations precede and are more fundamental then self. Without relationship there is no language with which to conceptualize the emotions, thoughts, or intentions of the self.”

~ There is no self without relationships, therefore relationships are more important than the actual self. Without our social relationships we would have no language, and therefore no way in which to create self-knowledge and self-definition.

Pg 163 – “Yet one’s personal history is not a cultural possession only in the sense of story forms. Indeed, the very content of such stories also depends on social relationships.”

~ So, technically personal history is partially cultural due to the connection of everyone having been through the same experience, the only thing that keeps it from becoming completely cultural is the individual story form that an event takes place in.

Pg 163 – “…Scholars have coined the term communal memory to refer to the process of social negotiation that occurs among persons in deciding “what happened.” Thus family members may discuss at length what counts as an accurate memory of family history; vacationing friends will energetically negotiate over the “right way” to report their adventures. Memory, then, becomes a social possession.”

~ Memory as a social possession relates back to how personal identity and cultural identity are formed and function in extremely similar ways. Just as an individual has a personal heritage/history, so too does a culture have heritage and history that it draw information from. Cultural memories are a social process because it takes many people to work out the details of cultural experience.