SOCIO 10: MIDTERMS

WEEK 3: SELFHOOD; PROBLEMATIZING THE SELF

SELF IN VARIOUS PERIODS the Self and continuously shifting

Pre-Modern Period
In this lesson, we are problematizing or
Intellectual Religious-Theological questioning our own self.
Tendency Tradition THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF MODERN SOCIETY
● It is a metaphor of a narrative, meaning it
Conception of Pre-determined; Divinely cannot be pre-determined
the Self Revealed ● The quest for self-authenticity
● It is the period that freed the self from the
limits brought by tradition
Modern Period ● The self is autonomous and it is freely
chosen.
Intellectual Rationalism (actions based
Tendency on reason);
● ROUSSEAUEAN PROBLEM
Essentialism (something
○ The same freedom we give to
having innate and are
yourself gives infinite possibilities
inherent and unchanging)
that SOLELY threatens the
Humanism (way of living
authenticity of the self.
based human interest and
■ Alienation and
values)
objectification of the human
Conception of Self with a core; Self free from body
the Self definition of religion and
tradition (COGITO ERGO THE SELF AS A NECESSARY FICTION
SUM), An authentic and freely ● Philosophers argued on the metaphysical
chosen self composition of the self
● Friedrich Nietzsche proposed the artistics
cultivation of self.
○ The self is just like any substance, it
Post Modern Period is the sum of all its effects - our
actions, thoughts, and feelings
Intellectual Existentialism (responsible of ● The preoccupation of defining ‘the core’ of
Tendency creating our own life) the self (as a unified entity) is an attempt
Postmodernism (experience to define human action and experiences
and human perspective over ● The self is a necessary fiction without
abstract ideas) which social life is impossible
Social Constructionism
(learning and development THE POSTMODERN PROBLEM OF THE SELF
are derived from one’s ● The self is seen as a product of modern
interaction) discourse that is socially and historically
conditioned (FOUCAULT, 1970)
Conception of An on-going project, multiple
 ● It is a text written and rewritten from SELF-CREATION AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
moment to moment according to the ● Self-creation is framed with time and
demands of multitude of social contexts space. Heidegger in his concept of Dasein
(BLUR, 1999) or being there, described us as ‘thrown
● In advent of globalisation, technological into the world’
advancement and massive migration ● The self is a body moving in space and
creates hybridized and multicultural time (Kempen, 1998)
identity - such as the transnational Filipino ● Self-creation is grounded in collective
family. solidarities
● The protean selves; saturated self
(Gergen) and pluralized self (Rappoport, BEYOND SELF-CREATION
Baumgardner, and Boone, 1999) ● The self, as a social construct and as a
product of socialization, remains a
"if the modern problem of identity. was how to necessary fiction, as postmodernists point
construct an identity and keep it solid and out, to enable individuals to live sensibly in
stable, the 'postmodern problem of identity' is a civilized society
primarily how to avoid fixation and keep the
options open. In the case of identity .. . the KEY POINTS TO PONDER
catchword of modernity was creation; the ● The self is socially constructed. It is not
catch-word of postmodernity is recycling” divinely revealed, but aesthetically
(Bauman, 1996:18) created
● The self as narrative is implicated in
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF historical narratives and traditions of the
- Selves are CARTESIAN EGOS, the nation
inexpenenceable subjects of all subjective ● The self is weaving its own narrative but
predictions, manifested, in the unified becomes unsettling due to postmodern
organization of perceptions, feelings, and conditions
beliefs of each human being; with regards
to their own experience of themselves
(Harre, 1 989-388)

- For George Herbert Mead (1962), the self is

REWRITING THE SELF AS AN ARTISTIC CREATION