SOCIOLOGICAL

VIEW OF THE ‘SELF’

*THE SOCIAL CREATIVITY OF THE
EMERGENT SELF
*A CONTRAST OF INDIVIDUALISTIC
AND SOCIAL THEORIES OF THE

SELF
THE GOOD SAMARITAN LK. 10:30-37
 30In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked
by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat
him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A
priest happened to be going down the same road,
and when he saw the man, he passed by on the
other side. 32 So too a Levite, when he came to
the place and saw him, passed by on the other
side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came
where the man was; and when he saw him, he
took pity on him. 34 He went to him and
bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought
him to an inn and took care of him.
THE GOSPEL

 35The next day he took out two dinarii and gave

them to the innkeeper. “look after him’ he said,
‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any
extra you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do
you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into
the hands of robbers?”
 36 The expert of the law replied,”The one who
had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do
likewise.”
ON MEMBERSHIP TO NEIGHBORHOOD
 Reflection questions
 Who is the ‘good neighbor’?

 Similar situation occurs in our communities, how

do you respond?
 What impact does the story leave unto you? Unto
your community?
THE SOCIAL CREATIVITY OF THE
EMERGENT SELF

 The “I” and the “Me”

 The “me” is essentially a member of a social
group, represents the value of the group
 Values that call out the sacrifice of the self for
the whole

 The “I” responding with adaptation affecting not

only the self but the social environment that
helps constitute the self, an evolution whereby
the individual affects its own environment and
being affected by the environment too.
THE SOCIAL CREATIVITY OF THE
EMERGENT SELF
 The ‘self’ that is not passive but is a determinant
of its environment.
 There is action and reaction, and adaptation that
changes the form to change the environment.
 There is always a mutual relationship of the
individual and the community in which the
individual lives.
 In a community, there may be ‘religious genius’
such as Jesus or Buddha, or the ‘reflective
type’such as Socrates
 There are members who espouse the ‘principle of
rationality’ while others the ‘principle of complete
neighborliness.’
INTEGRATION
 The response of the “I” may be a process which
involves a degradation of the social state as well
as one which involves higher integration.
 The whole community is doing the same thing.

 Manners provide a way in which we keep people

at a distance, people that we do not know and do
not want to know. We make use of processes.
IMPLICATIONS
 We decry the attitude of hostility as a means of
carrying interralations between nations. We feel
we should go beyond methods of warfare and
diplomacy, and reach poitical relation sharing
common values.
 The value of an ordered society is essential to our
existence, but we desire room for expression.
 No individual has a mind that operates simply in
itself, in isolation from the social life –process in
which it has emerged. Pattern of organized social
behavior is impressed upon.
 The behavior of a genius is socially conditioned,
his actions are responses to social stimuli.
A CONTRAST OF INDIVIDUALISTIC AND
SOCIAL THEORIES OF THE SELF

 Assumptions:
 -type 1: a social process or social order as the
logical and biological precondition of the
appearance of the selves of the individuals
belonging to that order.
 - type 2: individual selves are presuppositions,
logically and biologically, of the social process or
order within which they interact.
INDIVIDUALISTIC

 -individuals and their individual experiencing –

individual minds and selves- as logically prior to
the social process in which they are involved,
explains the existence of that social process in
terms of them
 Substantive or entitive view to the nature of the
self
SOCIAL THEORY
 Social process or experience or behavior as logically
prior to the individuals and their individual
experiencing which are involved in it and explains
their existence in terms of that social process.
 The mind develops and has its being only in and by
virtue of the social process of existence and activity.
 The social process presupposes progression and
evolution
 The individual enters into his own experience only
as an object, not as subject, on the basis of social
relations and interactions (experiential transactions
with other individuals in an organized social
environment)
INTEGRATION
 Both the rationalist and the empiricist are
committed to the interpretation of experience in
terms of the individual
 “as much as we are there, to be a self requires
other selves”
 “As much as we are here, our experience is in the
thing as much as it is in us”
 Social theory of the mind – the field of the mind
must be co-extensive with, and include all the
components of, the field of the social process of
experience and behavior
 The content of experience is entirely individual,
the setting or context is a social one.
POINTS TO REFLECT FURTHER
 In instances where you need to make decision,
which is of foremost consideration for you, your
good (self first) over others; or the good of the
community over your own? Why?