SELF AS PRODUCT OF  Once the individual realizes the “true”

MODERN SOCIETY and “authentic” part of himself, he can

now then plan how to freely reach his
 Modernization – destruction of the potentials.
traditional way of life “delocalized” self
[Self is dislocated form its traditional
attachment to community] SELF AS A NECESSARY
FICTION
 Delocalization of self unleashed the
 Friedrich Nietzsche proposed an
entire modern quest for self-
artistic cultivation of the self.
authenticity. The self is now free to seek
its own identity and chart its own
trajectory  For Nietzsche, the self is the
individual’s actions, thoughts, and
feelings.
 Self is a thinking intelligent being that
has reason and reflection and can
 Self is nothing more than a metaphor
consider itself as itself, the same thing
that is invoked to understand the cause
in different times and places.
of human action.
 In modern societies, self is no longer
 EGO – substance behind the action to
anchored on pregiven tradition-bound
impute moral responsibility to actors
definition. It is freely chosen.

 A true, given self is not what unifies

 Modern man: free and his own master
 Rousseauean problem: the modern
world for all its infinite possibilities,
stifled and repressed and destroyed the
self in its own distinctive ways.
 Unhappy condition: alienation: human
beings gradually found themselves
dominated and haunted by the images of
the objects they have created.
 It is the threat of dehumanization that
compelled some modern philosophers to
presuppose that there is an essential
“core” that lurks behind the individual
self.
these diverse experiences, but it is the
presumed unity of these experiences
that gives rise to our conception of a
unified self.
 Self: NECESSARY FICTION without
which social life is impossible
POSTMODERN PROBLEM OF
THE SELF
 The modern humanistic concept of self
as possessing an “essential core” is
under fire from postmodernists and
social constructionists.
  Postmodernists take their cue from
Nietzsche
 In the postmodern view, the self is not
the creator of meaning, nor the center or
starting point of sociological inquiry.
 Self – product of modern discourse that
is socially and historically conditioned.
 Self – written and rewritten from
moment to moment according to the
demands of a multitude of social
contexts
 Postmodern self is a “protean self” that
assumes multiple and continuously
shifting identities (“saturated self” or
“pluralized self”)
 Protean Self – a mutable or changeable
form of human personality that changes
fluidly from situation to situation. Our
self changes in a manner that it can
adapt to change crisis.
SELF AS ARTISTIC CREATION
 Unity of the self is not pregiven to
individuals. It is something they must
accomplish through conscious effort.
 Individuals must fashion, and cultivate
their selves, in order to transform them
into a beautiful work of art.
 “First Nature” – acquired through
process of education
 “Second Nature” – can be superimposed
 There are certain aspects of ourselves
that we cannot change
 All one can do is to conceal the “ugly”
by REINTERPRETING it within the
overall aesthetic contours of the self.
 For those aspects we can change,
“second nature” can be effectively
superimposed.
 The more repertoire of autobiographical
metaphors an individual has, the larger
is the possibility to redescribe the self
 An ironist (or strong poet) tells her story
by using existing metaphors in a new,
radically different way. In this process,
the person incessantly weaves and
reweaves the diverse mini-narratives
and stories she acquires from the
“significant others” into coherent whole
or narrative called autobiography.
 Individuals use narratives to express
their self creation and to embed their
selves in a symbolic world.
 Redescribing is just a way of
reinterpreting and redescribing one’s
past.
 Nietzsche: although we cannot change
our past, we can recreate it in an artistic
way.
 This empowers us to forgive our past,
get hold of the present, and willfully
plan the future.
SELF-CREATION AND
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
 Historical dimension of self-creation is
sequestered in memory traces.

 Memory is embedded in places,

photographs, and other artifacts.

 Self-creation is necessarily formed

within the “imagined community” of
interacting embodied selves.

 Self: BODIES MOVING IN SPACE

 The collective narratives provide a

reservoir for the project of self-creation

 The project of self-creation entails the

right of the self to be accorded due
respect and autonomy to pursue its
notion of a worthy life.