UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
LESSON 2: THE SELF, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE b. Self is Self-contained and independent
(SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE)
Over time, SELF has been debated, discussed & fruitfully
conceptualized by different philosophers. But eventually, the
Sociological perspectives paved the way and gave a new paradigm
to reexamine the true nature of the self.
The analysis of the relationship between the self and the external
world became the core of the sociological perspective.
TARZAN STORY: Left & grew up in the middle of the forest.
No human interaction & eventually grew up acting like
apes and in effect became animals.
Disappointedly, human persons will not develop as humans
without interventions. The Tarzan Story challenges the long-
standing notion of human persons being special and being a
particular kind of being in the spectrum of being entities.
 Ourselves are not special because of the soul that is
infused into us.
 We may be gifted with intellect and the capacity to
rationalize things but at the end of the day, our growth and
development and ourselves are truly products of our
interaction with the external reality.
WHAT IS THE SELF?
 Commonly defined by the following characteristics:
a. Self is Separate
- meaning the self is distinct from other-selves.
- It is always unique & has its own identity
- One cannot be another person. That even twins are
distinct from each other
- Because in itself it can exist
- Its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its
own thoughts, characteristics & volition
-It does not require any other self for it to exist.
c. Self is Consistent
- Because it has a personality that is enduring and
therefore can be expected to persist for quite some
time.
- Its consistency allows it to be studied, described, and
measured.
- Consistency also means that a particular self’s traits,
characteristics, tendencies, and potentialities are
more or less the same
d. Self is Unitary
- Because it is the center of all experiences and
thoughts that run through a certain person
- It is like a chief command post in an individual where
all processes, emotions, & thoughts converge.
-
e. Self is Private
- Each person sorts out information, feelings &
emotions, and thought processes within the self
- This whole process is never accessible to anyone but
the self alone.
- Being private, it also suggests that the self is isolated
from the external world
- It lives within its own world
 But we see that this potential clash between self &
external reality is the reason for the self to clearly
 understand what it might be, what it can be, and
what it will be.
 From this perspective, one can see that the self is
always at the mercy of the external circumstances
that bump & collide with it.
 It is ever-changing and dynamic, allowing external
influences to take part in its shaping
 THE CONCERN THEN OF THIS LESSON IS IN
UNDERSTANDING THE VIBRANT RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE EXTERNAL REALITY
(SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE)
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISTS argue for a merged
view of “the person” and “their social context”
where the boundaries of one cannot easily be
separated from the boundaries of the other.
 Social constructivists argue that the self should not
be seen as a static entity that stays constant
through and through
 But the self has to be seen as something that is in
unceasing flux, in a constant struggle with external
reality, and is malleable (capable) in its dealings
with society.
 The self is always in participation with social life and
its identity is subjected to influences here and
there.
 With this perspective, one should conclude that the
self is truly multifaceted (or has different features
or elements/roles).
THE SELF & CULTURE
According to the French Anthropologist Marcel Mauss, every self
has 2 faces: PERSONNE & MOI
 MOI refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his
body, & his basic identity, his biological givenness
 It is a person’s basic identity
 PERSONNE is composed of the social concepts of
what it means to be who he is
 PERSONNE has much to do with what it means to
live in a particular institution, in a particular family,
a particular religion, a particular nationality, and
how to behave given expectations and influences
from others.
 Story of Jon:
 Math prof at Catholic University (more than
a decade)
 Has a beautiful wife Joan his 1 st & last
girlfriend whom he met in college
 Has 2 kids, a son & a daughter
 Sometimes serves in the church as lector &
commentator
 Jon must have a Moi but certainly, he has to shift
Personne from time to time to adapt to his social
situation.
 He knows who he is, & he is confident that he has a
unified, coherent self.
 But at some point, he has to sport his professional
look, be a strict father, or be a playful husband to
his wife….
 These dynamics and capacity for different personne
can be illustrated better cross-culturally
 Example: OFW –adjusting to the culture & practices
of other countries. Yet when they are in the
Philippines they cannot even follow the simple
traffic rules.
 Filipinos tend to consider their territory as part of
who they are – just as they consider their
surroundings as part of them (tapat ko, linis ko)
 Language (another aspect of social constructivism)
 The Filipino language is very interesting to talk
about
 Mahal (love or expensive)
  Gender-neutral
 We have seen how language has something to do
with culture
 It is a salient part of culture and has a tremendous
effect on our crafting of the self
 This might also be one of the reasons why cultural
divide spells out differences in how one regards
oneself
THE SELF AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL WORLD
George Mead & Lev Vygotsky
 For them, the way that human persons develop is with the
use of language acquisition and interaction with others
 The way that we process information is normally a form of
internal dialogue in our head
 Those who deliberate about moral dilemmas undergo this
internal dialogue
o Should I do this or that?
o But if I do this, it will be like this
o Don’t I want the other option?
 So cognitive and emotional development of
a child is always a mimicry of how it is done
in the social world, in the external reality
where he is in.
 Vygotsky and Mead treat the human mind as something
that is made, constituted through language as experienced
in the external world and as encountered in dialogues with
others.
 A young child internalizes values, norms, practices, and
social beliefs and more through exposure to these
dialogues that will eventually become part of this
individual world
 For Mead, this takes place as a child assumes the “other”
through language and role-play.
 A child conceptualizes his notion of “self” through this.
o Children are fond of playing role-play with their
toys
o They make scripts and dialogues for their toys as
they play with them.
o According to Mead (symbolic interactionism) it is
through that the child delineates the “I” from the
rest
o For Vygotsky a child internalizes real-life dialogues
that he has had with others, with his family, his
primary caregiver, or his playmates.
o They apply this to their mental and practical
problems along with the social and cultural
infusions brought about by the said dialogues.
 Can you notice how children eventually
become what they watch?
 How children can easily adapt to ways of
cartoon characters they are exposed to?
SELF IN FAMILIES
 SOCIOLOGICAL Perspectives struggled to understand the
real connection between the self and the social world.
 So sociologists focus on the different institutions and
powers at play in the society including the FAMILY.
 While every child is born with certain givenness, and
disposition coming from his parents’ genes and general
condition of life, the impact of one’s family is still deemed
as a given in understanding the self.
 The kind of family that we are born in, the resources
available to us (human, spiritual, economic), and the kind
of development that we will have will certainly affect us as
we go through life.
 Human persons are one of those beings whose importance
of family cannot be denied.
  Human beings are born helpless and the baby’s
dependency on his parents for nurturing is relatively longer
than most other animals.
 Learning therefore is critical in our capacity to actualize our
potential of becoming humans.
 In trying to achieve the goal of becoming a fully realized
human, a child enters a system of relationships, most
important of which is the FAMILY.
 Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore their
selfhood by being in a family
 It is what a family initiates a person to become that serves
as the basis for the person’s progress
o By imitating, babies learn the language of its
primary care giver or primary agents of rearing its
family.
o They also behave the way the members of the
family behave
o Respect, table manners
 Without a family, biologically and sociologically, a person
may not even survive or become a human person
GENDER AND THE SELF
 Gender is another important aspect of self that is subject
to alteration, change, and development
 In today’s generation, there are movements that fight for
the rights of those in the LGBTQIA+ sector – trying to fight
for their rights for equality like self-expression, and rights
for validation of gender expressions.
 However, there are still a lot of conservatives who do not
give them the chance they are asking.
 Because for these people there are only 2 genders: male &
female which is based on biological perspective.
 But in the point of view of Social Sciences and the Self, it is
important to give one the freedom to find his identity
 And this forms part of selfhood
 There are women who would see themselves as no worth,
miserable, and useless
 This illustrates that our gender partly determines how we
see ourselves in the world.
 Most of the time, society forces a particular identity into us
depending on our sex and/or gender.
 In the Philippines, husband should be the one working and
providing for the family and the wife should be the one
taking care of the children
 But there is a slight modification on this view due to
feminism and LGBTQIA+ activism.
 The Magna Carta for Women (RA 9710) provides the call
for gender equality – that women have also the right in the
society.
 NANCY CHODOROW, A Feminist, argues that because
mothers are given the role of taking care of children, there
is a tendency for girls to imitate the same and reproduce
the same kind of mentality of women as care providers of
the family.
o Little girls are given dolls instead of guns or cars;
makeshift kitchen to reinforce their supposed roles
to take
o Girls and young ladies are encouraged to act like
fine ladies, trained to behave in fashion that befits
their being a woman in the society.
o Men are also taught early on how to behave like a
man
o They have to be tough, fatalistic, and not worry
about danger – thus they need to hold their
emotions
o In the Philippines, circumcision shows the social
role by initiating boys into manhood.