The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life; Kenneth J. Gergen, Pt. 4

Pg 165 – Talking about University of Massachusetts psychologist James Averill, “He concludes that what we call emotions are essentially cultural performances, learned and enacted on appropriate occasions. We are not drive by forces bottled up within us, rather, we perform emotions much as we would act a part on stage.”

~ If emotions are cultural performances, it is because we learn how to express emotions through our cultural connections and, in turn, decide which emotions are appropriate also through our cultural connections. Therefore, when we show emotions we are really showing our connection to certain cultures.

Pg 166 – “If we recognize that cultural rules govern when and where an emotional performance can occur, as well as others’ reactions to these performances, the expresser’s responses to these reactions, and so on, we can begin to see emotional performances as single movements within an elaborate dance or emotional scenario.”

~ Technically, if we can relate emotions back to culture we could almost trace one’s cultural background and personal heritage through one’s emotional displays. The more emotions we see and the more we see others interact with the person the better we would understand their background.

Pg 170 – “We realize increasingly that who and what we are is not so much the result of our “personal essence” (real feelings, deep beliefs, and the like), but of how we are constructed in various social groups.

~ We are social creatures and our selves are all based and formed and redistributed, etc. off of our social relationships with others.

Pg 170 – “Relationships make possible the concept of the self. Previous possessions of the individual self – autobiography, emotions, and morality – become possessions of relationships. We appear to stand alone, but we are manifestations of relatedness.”

~ What we think of as being related to individuals is actually part of the relationships one has with others. All of our identity-related possessions are really socially related possessions.

Pg 173 – “…Because each fragment we incorporate from others is also an acquisition of value (a small voice of “ought”), the “we” may indeed seek the inchoate any stabilized pattern of being treads on the sensibilities of myriad ghosts within.”

~ I feel like this is important, and I looked up the word inchoate, because I’ve never heard of it before, and I just can’t seem to make this sentence make sense.

Pg 177 – “One pays the price of self-population, for each new fragment of the self has the capacity to generate a self-debilitating array of judgmental criteria. With each attempt “to be,” one finds another voice within that is scornful. This same multiplicity in evaluative criteria affects one’s perception of others…Each aspect of self raises new hurdles of acceptability for the other. The likelihood of a fully successful leap, at least for anyone of human scale, is small. And the result is an inevitable leadenness of “just settling,” compromising for the sake of a commitment in name alone.”

~ The more selves one has the more one can judge situations and the more that happens the greater the doubt that can cripple one’s ability to make decisions.

Pg 178 – “In effect, with the disappearance of the true self, the stage is set for the fractional relationship, a relationship built around a limited aspect of one’s being.” Goes on to say that the technology that helps populate the self also helps create fractured relationships.

~ So by breaking into so many identities one opens him or herself up to the world of relationships and social situations that limit one to only being part of themselves at once (working self-concept).

Pg 183 – “In this sophistication in forms of relatedness that sets the stage for ersatz being, that is, the capacity for entering immediately into identities or relationships of widely varying forms. In ersatz being, the traditional forms are sustained; in the postmodern world, however, such forms may be ripped out of customary contexts and played out wherever time and circumstance permit.”

~ Not really sure where to go with this, it just seemed kind of interesting.

Pg 184 – “…Because no concept of fixed or deep identity anchors one’s choice, there is no powerful necessity to select on form of pursuit over another. And if identities are essentially forms of social construction, then one can be anything at any time so long as the roles, costumes, and settings have been commodiously arranged.”

~ With the onslaught of media showing people more possible selves that they could be, it allows them to change roles and shape and reshape self-representations quickly and easily.

Pg 184 – “The possibility of ersatz being has also encouraged the development of industries for identity production.”

~ I am in the career field of identity production. But, this is where people see an end goal possible self and try to generate the relationships necessary to be that self. They go to tennis lessons to be a tennis player, etc.

Pg 212 – “Perhaps the most common form of deterioration may be characterized as the collage community, a community in which homogeneity in life patterns gives way to a multiplicity of disjunctive modes of living.”

~ This is where a community is no longer people all pretty much in the same cultures, but people with extremely different cultures living in the same area. This leads to greater interaction with others and, in turn, creates more possible selves and gives more information to the working self-concept on how to act and react in various situations.

Pg 214 – “Finally, the deterioration of the traditional community is hastened by the emergence of symbolic community. Symbolic communities are linked primarily by the capacity of their members for symbolic exchange – of words, images, information – mostly through electronic means. Physical immediacy and geographic closeness disappear as criteria of community.”

~ Symbolic community is kind of like a collective group that shares ideas and ideals, but not space. Like an internet group of people who have the same experience of being online and reading the same information, but no actual space to have relationships in.

Pg 228 – “The social saturations brought about by the technologies of the twentieth century, and the accompanying immersion in multiple perspectives, have brought about a new consciousness: postmodern.”

~ Kind of good summary of the postmodern perspective.

Pg 241 – “Others write of how individualism lends itself to a sense of isolation, loneliness, and anomie; promotes forms of economic exploitation; champions a competitive as opposed to a cooperative view of international relations; and leads to a relentless plundering of natural resources in the service of competition and self-gratification. As individualism gains ascendance, social life begins to approximate a Hobbesian condition of all against all.”

~ Another explanations of the downside of individualism.

Pg 249 – “The protean style is characterized by a continuous flow of being, without obvious coherence through time.” Goes into more detail.

~ So the individual constantly is changing without regard to having a coordinating self over time. Interesting, but not exactly the way I think.

Pg 253 – “The present pluralism of expression seems most appropriately attributed to the century’s explosion of the technologies of social saturation. As these technologies have seeped into the practices of everyday life, patterns of information exchange have become relatively uncontrollable. Citizens exposed to an ever-expanding array of perspectives may on short notice join in symbolic communities with others from around the globe…”

~ Why people join symbolic communities and how the technologies we have can change the way we are. This happens because the technologies change our patterns of life, and therefore change our habits, thoughts, and actions about those patterns.