Topical Guide 653
Mark Dorset
Character, Personality, The Self
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 6:
I was just a kid, content to be defined by my context rather than my self, and she was beginning to try to think of herself as someone, as a personality that was portable, strong enough to resist its surroundings and remain almost constant wherever she might take it. Just what that personality might be, who that someone might be, she wasn’t sure. At that time, I think, she was trying to become a sophisticated young woman. She watched the movies to discover potential selves,
Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind:
Self-presentation is distinguished from self-display by the active and conscious choice of the image shown; self-display has no choice but to show whatever properties a living being possesses. Self-presentation would not be possible without a degree of self-awareness—a capability inherent in the reflexive character of mental activities and clearly transcending mere consciousness, which we probably share with the higher animals. Only self-presentation is open to hypocrisy and pretense, properly speaking, and the only way to tell pretense and make-believe from reality and truth is the former’s failure to endure and remain consistent. It has been said that hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue, but this is not quite true. All virtue begins with a compliment paid to it, by which I express my being pleased with it. The compliment implies a promise to the world, to those to whom I appear, to act in accordance with my pleasure, and it is the breaking of the implied promise that characterizes the hypocrite. In other words, the hypocrite is not a villain who is pleased with vice and hides his pleasure from his surroundings. The test applying to the hypocrite is indeed the old Socratic “Be as you wish to appear,” which means appear always as you wish to appear to others even if it happens that you are alone and appear to no one but yourself. When I make such a decision, I am not merely reacting to whatever qualities may be given me; I am making an act of deliberate choice among the various potentialities of conduct with which the world has presented me. Out of such acts arises finally what we call character or personality, the conglomeration of a number of identifiable qualities gathered together into a comprehensible and reliably identifiable whole, and imprinted, as it were, on an unchangeable substratum of gifts and defects peculiar to our soul and body structure. Because of the undeniable relevance of these self-chosen properties to our appearance and role in the world, modern philosophy, starting with Hegel, has succumbed to the strange illusion that man, in distinction from other things, has created himself.
The question of whether others define us or we define ourselves is a complex and philosophical one. It involves elements of social identity, self-perception, and the interplay between individual agency and external influence. From a psychological perspective, both internal and external factors contribute to how we define ourselves. While our self-concept is influenced by our own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, it is also shaped by the feedback and perceptions of others. Social interactions, cultural norms, and societal expectations can all play a role in how we see ourselves. Ultimately, the process of self-definition is a dynamic and ongoing one, influenced by both internal and external factors. Individuals have the capacity to shape their own identities, but they are also influenced by the perceptions and expectations of others.
Ariane Lodkochnikov, in the first edition of Making My Self — and Dinner:
My contempt for my mother took many forms. Pity was one of them. I don’t pity her now. I’ve accepted many of her ideas. If she were alive, I’d tell her so. I understand now that she had elevated motives for pursuing mundane goals. I understand now that the quotidian is an element of the eternal, that small steps make a journey. My mother was out to make a transcendent chowder, and she was willing to work at it day after day, making her tiny steps toward something sublime.
Following her example, I’m going to feed my soul with a project that fires my imagination, a project that is immense and eternal, or at least large enough to fill a lifetime. I’m taking up my mother’s project.
Making a chowder is enough, I now think, to allow for understanding the world and myself in it. However, to make the task a little more significant, or challenging, or worthy, I’m adding the making of a self, my self. I think that making a self will turn out to be a daily undertaking, like making the day’s dinner, but it will have a larger ultimate goal than the making of a day’s dinner, or even making the day’s dinner as well as it can be made—at least I assume that it will.
I think that some endeavors are baser than others and some are nobler than others.
Examples of baser endeavors are making a chowder to please a customer, or making a self to please a lover; “making” a chowder from a can, or making a self out of the ideas and attitudes that society sells like soap; making a chowder by sticking to a recipe, or making a self to match the requirements of a calcified system of beliefs.
Examples of nobler endeavors are making a chowder that is better than yesterday’s, or making a self who will find a way to make herself better tomorrow than she is today.
That is my motivation, my transcendent goal, my grand conception. Don’t laugh at me. This is what I’m going to do.
See also:
Self-Presentation (or Presentation of the Self) TG 427, TG 508; Voice of Reason, Man of Action, Madman, the Engagé and the Dégagé TG 430; Altruist TG 443; Devil-May-Care Bon-Vivants, Self-Denying Elder, and Outspoken Rebel TG 446; Self-Sacrifice versus Self-Indulgence TG 522; Self-Congratulation TG 522; Self: Re-invention or Renovation TG 529; The Compulsion to Express Oneself, the Difficulty of Doing So, Especially Under Conditions of Repression or Suppression, and the Rush of Release When Self-Expression Is Achieved TG 614
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