Culture and the IndividualCulture, Anthropology and Psychology

The SelfHistorical Background

Augustine• Single UNIFIED narrative of a life• Inner fragmentation and spiritual reconstruction of self• View of humans as pilgrims seeking salvation for

individual souls• Egalitarian morality, natural rights,

personal liberty• Shift from pagan to Christian• Shift from individual as pawn of society• Shift to individuals as shapers of society• FIRST EVIDENCE in historic writings of self

discovery, self description, self assessment

The Self

Historical Background

Greece & Rome• Identity embedded in ancestry• Self defined by family and kinship relationships• Humanness defined by participation in

community• Privacy and personal gain indicated failure of the

person to be fully human• Greek word that comes closest to self is

“psyche”, which translates as mind or soul that leaves the body at death – no word for self.

The Self

Historical Background

Plato• Introversion as basis for self• Expanded introversion to include lower

and higher parts of the self• Reason and intelligence are higher parts• Passion and emotion are lower parts• Humankind as capable of self-mastery and

actions based on internal reasoning so that reason controls passion and emotion.

The Self

Historical Background

The Renaissance• Move away from individual as a pawn in the

feudal system over which individuals had no control

• Worship of creative genius and independent scholarship as individual accomplishment

• Shift from marriage as a role and duty in a larger family context to romantic love

• Beginning of scientific view of nature as knowable and controllable by humans

The Self

Historical Background

Multiple Perspectives on Self• Montaigne – contradictory nature of self• Hobbes – self pursuing power through

competition and conflict• Descartes – the power of self to think correctly,

to control the self through thought• Hume – self as a non-entity, unbounded,

contradictory, ruled by habit, sensation and desire

• Kant – rationality within self leads to morality

The Self

Historical Background

Protestant and Capitalist Persectives

• Protestant rejection of group oriented, patriarchal church in favor of religious autonomy

• Capitalism based on individual competition

• Entrepreneurism with focus on individual effort

The SelfHistorical Background

Rousseau• Noble Savages

The individual is self sufficient, self-evaluative, self-loving, living in harmony with nature, childlike and pure

With the Division of Labor transformed into• Civilized Humans

Individual is a slave to the power of others, an imitator of fashion who only knows the self through the eyes of others – all self

reflection comes through others

The Self

Historical Background

Hegel’s Spiral (relational) Thesis . . To . . Antithesis . . To . .Synthesis• People want to be autonomous and unique • People only exist in social interaction and are

therefore not either autonomous nor unique• The self is thus socially constructed• The individual is a fleeting moment in the

opposition between personal uniqueness and cultural construction

The Self

Historical Background

Marx (relational)• Materialism, not idealism, is the real focus

of individual identity

• Social class determines individual

• When the proletariat overthrows the capitalists, then “humanity” (not individual humans) will reach its pinacle

The Self as Autonomous Vs Relational

AutonomousRousseau – humans decay when they focus on the relational selfNietzsche – the selves of individuals are struggling to break free from the

controls of othersRelationalUtilitarianism – individuals must yield their own selves for the good of the

groupBentham – athe self is continually exchanging with others to maximize

pleasure and minimize pain.Hegel – People only exist as they struggle between personal uniqueness

and cultural constructionMarx – individuals are a reflection of their social class, based on control

of resourcesWeber – selves learn from their society how to view the worldDurkheim – individuals only exist as part of a superorganic society and

collective consciousnessFreur – self is sexually and aggressively defined by relationships with

others.