Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century : Psychological, Sociological, and Political Perspectives 9781107290082, 9781107007550

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subjectivity in the twenty-­first ­century What is it like to be a person today? To think, feel, and act as an individual in a time of accelerated social, cultural, technological, and political change? This question is inspired by the double meaning of subjectivity as both the “first­personness” of consciousness (being a subject of experience) and the conditioning of that consciousness within society (being subject to power, authority, or influence). The contributors to this volume explore ­the perils and promise of the self in today’s world, describing where we stand and what is at stake as we move ahead in the twenty-­first century. They do so by interrogating the historical moment as a predicament of the subject. Their shared focus is on subjectivity as a dialectic of self and other, or individual and society, and how the defining tensions of subjectivity are reflected in contemporary forms of individualism, identity, autonomy, social connection, and political consciousness. Romin W. Tafarodi earned his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994. He is currently Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. Professor Tafarodi has published in the areas of self, identity, and culture and has taught courses on topics ranging from statistics to philosophy to anthropology to media studies. He is a strong proponent of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship in an age of increasing academic specialization.

culture and ­psychology Series Editor

David Matsumoto, San Francisco State University As an increasing number of social scientists come to recognize the pervasive influence of culture on individual human behavior, it has become imperative for culture to be included as an important variable in all aspects of psychological research, theory, and practice. Culture and Psychology is an evolving series of works that brings together the study of culture and psychology under a single, unified concept. Ute Schönpflug,   Cultural Transmission: Psychological, Developmental, Social, and Methodological ­Aspects Evert van de Vliert,   Climate, Affluence, and Culture David Matsumoto and Fons van de Vijver,   Cross-­Cultural Research Methods in Psychology Angela K.-­y. Leung, Chi-­yue Chiu, and Ying-yi Hong,   Cultural Processes: A Social Psychological Perspective

Subjectivity in the Twenty-­First ­Century psychological, sociological, and political perspectives Edited by

Romin W. Tafarodi University of Toronto

32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013–2473, USA Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107007550 © Cambridge University Press 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory e­ xception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Subjectivity in the twenty-first century : psychological, sociological, and political perspectives / [edited by] Romin W. Tafarodi, University of Toronto. pages  cm. – (Culture and psychology) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-107-00755-0 (hardback) 1.  Subjectivity.  2.  Intersubjectivity.  3.  Civilization, Modern – 21st century. I.  Tafarodi, Romin W., 1966– BD222.S8147  2013 126–dc23    2013009970 ISBN 978-­1-­107-­00755-­0 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-­party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

­C ontents

Contributors

page ix

Introduction Romin W. Tafarodi

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Part I  Relationality 1. Subjectivity and Strong Relationality Frank C. Richardson and Robert L. Woolfolk 2. A Multivoiced and Dialogical Self and the Challenge of Social Power in a Globalizing World Hubert J. M. Hermans 3. Technology and the Tributaries of Relational Being Kenneth J. Gergen

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Part II  Emotional Life 4. Melancholic Subjectivity Stephen Frosh

87

5. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: Self-­Consciousness in the Twenty-­First Century John Hewitt

111

6. New Kinds of Subjective Uncertainty? Technologies of Art, ‘Self ’ and Confusions of Memory in the Twenty-­First Century Ciarán Benson

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viii Part III 

­Content

Political and Institutional Perspectives

7. Radical Subjectivity and the N-­Row Wampum: A General Model for Autonomous Relations Against and Beyond the Dominant Global Order? Richard J. F. Day and Adam Lewis

169

8. The Theory of New Individualism Anthony Elliott

190

9. Feminism, Foucault, and Globalized Subjectivity Margaret A. McLaren

210

Index

245

­C ontributors

Ciarán Benson, University College Dublin Richard J. F. Day, Queen’s University Anthony Elliott, University of South Australia Stephen Frosh, Birbeck College, University of London Kenneth J. Gergen, Swarthmore College Hubert J. M. Hermans, Radboud University of Nijmegen John Hewitt, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Adam Lewis, Queen’s University Margaret A. McLaren, Rollins College Frank C. Richardson, University of Texas at Austin Romin W. Tafarodi, University of ­Toronto Robert L. Woolfolk, Princeton University

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­Introduction Romin W. Tafarodi

A key aspect of culture, argued Raymond Williams in The Long Revolution (1961), is the characteristic “structure of feeling” that defines what it is like to live in a particular place and time. This emotional tone and sensibi­lity cannot be reduced to social character and way of life, as it involves the ­creative response of individuals to that very social reality. “Everyone living through a period would have something which…no later individual can wholly recover,” claimed Williams (1961, p. 50), prefiguring in a curious ­way the later doubts of philosophers such as Thomas Nagel (1974) and Frank Jackson (1982) about the sufficiency of physicalist accounts of mind and consciousness. This book is about the structure of feeling in our time. Its impulse is characteristic of “reflexive modernity,” a time when the task of coming to critical grips with the changing textures of private and public life has become central to engaged and informed citizenship. Whether to evaluate the present in relation to the past, or to guide ourselves into an uncertain future, the need to diagnose and evaluate a world of shared risks, challenges, opportunities, and social transformations is as pressing now as ever. The rapid advancement and spread of science, technology, bureaucratic rationality, liberal democracy, and market capitalism over the past two centuries has created a fast-­moving world of human migration; transnational flows of goods, services, and information; industrial development; cultural integration (and resistance); and, more broadly, a remarkable degree of time–space compression. Our planet has never felt so small or seemed so densely animated. Alexander the Great, it is said, broke down and wept when there were no nations left to conquer. Our own disenchantment comes from there being none left to know. All lie within reach, real or virtual. From the standpoint of social theory, how do we reposition the human subject in this brave new world? 1

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Regardless of how one chooses to thematize our age – as “late modernity,” “high modernity,” “postmodernity,” “advanced capitalism,” “the third wave,” “the information age,” “risk society,” “network society,” or even the “end of history” – there is a growing sense that the conditions of subjectivity are changing. Those born in the twenty-­first century enter a world unlike that of their predecessors. Liberal democracies now include more than half of the world’s population. Consumer capitalism, firmly entrenched in ­the West, has achieved unprecedented consolidation and global penetration. Few areas of personal or public life escape commodification. Advanced information and communications networks circle the globe, collapsing distance and creating new forms of mediated identity, symbolic exchange, and community. A third of the world’s population has accessed the Internet; more than 70 percent use mobile phones. Urbanization has packed more than half of humanity into cities, more than two dozen of which teem with over 10 million inhabitants. Mass society, with its atomized public and deracinated, competitive individual, has naturalized into a pandemic reality. Economic inequality continues to widen even as the global poverty rate declines. North America, Europe, and a handful of high-­income Asian­Pacific countries now account for 90 percent of world household wealth. Globally, the richest 1 percent of adults own more than 40 percent of the world’s assets. This, together with the increasing agglomeration and globalization of the culture industries, has brought the poor into intimate contact with the spectacle of wealth and privilege, intensifying old social tensions and creating new ones. The flow of cultural products from the developed to the developing world and hegemonic reproduction of the economic systems, social institutions, and practices that define late modernity have created a dizzying array of hybridized cultural forms, the dynamics of which overrun the boundaries of the nation-­state and demand new political and topographical perspectives. When power is unbound and fluid, diffused across shifting global networks rather than localized in sovereign and official bodies, to what interpellation does the individual answer? To whose judgement are we required to give an account of ourselves? To what do we conform and what creative resistance is possible within and beyond this conformity? And can culture, when in flux and “at large” (Appadurai, 1996), inscribe individual and collective identities solid enough to serve as moral horizons for thought and action? In a world in which experience itself is routinely bought and sold, and representations eclipse occurrences, how do we distinguish reality from the technicolor projections of our own fears and fantasies? How do we divide self from non-­self? Public from private? What consequences does

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this existential blurring have for social and political agency? The possibi­ lity of sustained personal and collective commitments? The meaning and structure of community? More generally, we must face up with Williams’ cultural question. What is it like to be a person today? To think, feel, and act as an individual in a time of accelerated social, cultural, technological, and political ­change? This question is inspired by the double meaning of subjectivity as both the “first-­personness” of consciousness (being a subject of experience) and the conditioning of that consciousness by our society, culture, and time (being subject to power, authority, or influence). This duality recognizes the historicity of subjectivity and the need to articulate its changing character and contingencies across time and place. The contributors to this volume explore the perils and promise of the self in today’s world. Their shared aim is to describe where we stand and what is at stake as we move ahead in the twenty-­first century. They do so by interrogating the historical moment as a predicament of the subject. Their shared focus is on subjectivity as a dialectic of self and other, or individual and society, and how its tensions are reflected in contemporary forms of individua­ lism, identity, autonomy, social connection, and political consciousness. The authors of the chapters that follow work within a range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Their distinctive voices and varied sensibilities were not pressed into a forced harmony. They were left free to identify and interpret the predicament of the subject in their own manner and on their own terms. The resulting spectrum of viewpoints revealed affinities and connections that were spontaneous rather than bought through the imposition of a totalizing vision. Part I offers an examination of contemporary relationality. In Chapter 1, Frank Richardson and Robert Woolfolk diagnose our era as suffering under the modernist conceit of disengaged individualism. We are exposed as never before, they argue, to liberal democratic pluralism and its vertiginous flux of values, commitments, and beliefs. This shifting multiplicity injects considerable uncertainty, insecurity, and alienation into private and public life. Challenging the modern notion of an autonomous, self-­contained ­subject  – a self “conceived in opposition” to its own cultural and social context (Trilling, 1955) – the authors see only limited freedom in a collective self-­understanding that fails to acknowledge the “deep relationality” of human existence. In a time of “real or threatened disintegration,” they look to restore to subjectivity a coherent “relational ontology” that recognizes and embraces our dialogical and hermeneutic dependence on others. Only by respecting the mutual constitution of self, other, and the world, they argue,

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can we reverse the reifying excesses of hyperindividualism and give back to subjectivity a genuine sense of community and transcendent meaning. In Chapter  2, Hubert Hermans amplifies and expands on Richardson and Woolfolk’s theme of dialogue to argue that the accelerated flows of globalization have brought individuals into welcome or unwelcome proxi­ mity with a greater range of competing standpoints or “voices” than ever ­before. Recalling the sociogenetical accounts of consciousness offered by Vygotsky and Mead, and the dialogism of Bakhtin, Hermans argues that the contradictions, tensions, and oppositions that define the global polyphony become interiorized to form a consciousness that is best thought of as a “society of mind.” Thought, on this account, becomes a multilateral dialogue among “I-­positions,” each representing particular investments in the world and differential power relations with other positions. In an age of widespread cultural hybridity and reinvention, diasporic and migrant communities, and multicultural interaction, this complexity increases the risk of fragmentation and confusion in the psychic life of the individual. Today, argues Hermans, our “dialogical capacities are challenged to the utmost,” increasing the attraction to the “securitizing” certainties offered by “monological” fundamentalisms of all sorts. Both across and within selves, the contemporary challenge becomes how best to promote and support egalitarian forms of dialogue that allow for competing voices to understand and enrich, rather than suppress or override, each other. In Chapter 3, Kenneth Gergen surveys the landscape of cultural life to argue for several trajectories of contemporary relationality. He sees these trajectories as calling into question modernism’s “individualist tradition” and its central notion of a territorialized, centered, autonomous, separate, and self-­contained subject of experience. First, he argues, advanced information and communication technologies have ushered in an “unbounded self ” that is constituted within shifting global networks of social connection. This allows for “continuous expansion in the dimensions of relational engagement,” which thereby become decentered and diffused. Second, these same technologies allow for greater “encapsulation” within affinity groups, fragmenting the public sphere into self-­selected sphericules that insulate members from dissenting viewpoints and dissimilar sensibilities. The social tethering that defines this encapsulation, enabled largely by mobile technologies, tends to breed new insecurities and dependencies. Chief among these is a need for constant social affirmation on the part of our digital youth. Third, the marriage of digital technologies and entertainment culture has brought about a “cultural shift toward play” with its attendant pleasures, projection of “second-­order selves,” and highly contextualized social

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logics. Although the psychological and moral futures of all three trajectories remain unclear, Gergen sees hope in a common movement toward “a greater appreciation and investment in relationship.” Echoing Ulrich Beck (1992), he see the possibility of new solidarities and collaboration ­toward effectively addressing the global risks and shared challenges we face today. The changing textures of emotional life are taken up in Part II. In Chapter  4, Stephen Frosh reads modern social life, the mixed effects of global capitalism, and the political and cultural challenges faced by postcolonial, post-­authoritarian, and diasporic societies as spawning forms of subjectivity characterized by uncertainty, insecurity, ambivalence, rootlessness, and most important, a deep sense of loss and longing for a fantasized past. The latter is often expressed as a false “nostalgia for more certain times.” This in turn motivates the invention of traditions (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983), antagonistic and even violent demands for recognition (Taylor, 1994), racism, and a variety of fundamentalisms. The prevailing social pathology here is “melancholic” in the psychoanalytic sense, claims Frosh, in that it involves the failure to satisfactorily recognize, mourn, and integrate any “lost object” or essence from the past. The failure is due to the perceived loss in fact masking an emptiness or insufficiency – a “lack.” Rather than languish in the “stuckness” of melancholic attachments, denials, and accusations, Frosh recommends that we strive to understand and integrate the past, whether at the level of individual or collective history. Integration of the past requires constructive mediation with our present circumstances. It is only through such open-­ended and ongoing hermeneutic construction that genuine “resistance and renewal” becomes possible. John Hewitt, in Chapter  5, explores one expression of contemporary melancholia in American society – the tradition of academic and popular hand-­wringing over the cultural rise of “homo authenticus” and his social, emotional, political, and moral failings. Much of this cultural criticism is couched in terms of historical change. As such, it becomes as much a lament for a lost past as a denunciation of the present. Synoptically, we can say that today’s narcissistic, impulsive, emotionally overexpressive, other-­directed, and entitled citizen is contrasted with an allegedly self-­sacrificing, inner­directed, rationally instrumental, and self-­reliant (yet community-­minded) predecessor. Hewitt rejects this narrative of decline as fictive, arguing instead that the contrasted historical types represent opposing poles of a dialectical ethos – one that pits the individual against the community – that has been at the heart of American society from its beginnings. Seen in this light, the valorization or condemnation of one or the other pole is less a description of a changing culture than one of its constitutive and preserving discourses.

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Namely, it allows for reflexive “boundary maintenance,” a way of “establis­ hing the outer limits of acceptable conduct” by “portraying the normative contours” – however caricatured and essentialized – of a self-­consciously contradictory society. Looking forward into the twenty-­first century, ­Hewitt doubts that there will be any “significant transformation of the American self.” He foresees only further rhetorical efforts to delimit and reconcile the abiding American values of individualism and communitarianism. Revisiting the theme of technology in the shaping of subjectivity, Ciarán Benson in Chapter  6 examines recent advances in simulative technology and virtual reality. He argues that art may be “the richest arena for imagining changes in subjectivity in the twenty-­first century.” The ever-­increasing interactive, immersive, and projective power of contemporary arts and entertainment media allows for intensely “realistic” levels of physical and emotional participation in representational spaces. We are quickly moving toward an “age of fantasy,” argues Benson, where the individual’s memory for simulated events and experiences may become subjectively indistinguishable from authentic ones. Because first-­person memory provides the narrative thread in the construction of personal identity, this conflation can only complicate our understanding of personal freedom and autonomy, raising new uncertainties and anxieties as a result. After all, social power is exercised as much through the shaping of memory and identity as through the use or threat of force (Foucault, 1980). The success of simulation “leaves us without a test for a reality that is independent of ourselves,” argues Benson. To be constituted through engineered experiences that often blur the line between artificial and genuine, designed and adventitious, and individual and collective, presents fresh challenges for political and emotional security. Part III offers a number of political and institutional perspectives on identity and subjectivity. In Chapter 7, Richard Day and Adam Lewis take a prescriptive look at relations between “settlers” (broadly construed) and “indigenous peoples” within decolonizing societies. They attempt to articulate a “radical subjectivity” that is committed to achieving social justice and realizing the full autonomy of indigenous groups. In an effort to transcend the limits of “dualistic modes of thinking” that too often unintentionally “reinscribe colonial dynamics,” the authors present an alternative metaphor – the “N-­Row Wampum.” Their vision provides a model for (in Geertz’s sense) political consciousness and action that is capable of accommodating the shifting “intersectionality” of collective self-­identifications, political positions, and situated solidarities across and within separate communities. It opens up possibilities for “bridgework” between communities toward reversing historical injustice and opposing oppressive aspects of the dominant order.

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In Chapter 8, Anthony Elliott describes the pressures of the new ­global economy as reshaping not only our institutional forms, values, and practices, but also the “reflexive project” (Giddens, 1991) of self and identity. As people strive to adjust themselves to the social and institutional transformations wrought by globalization, they are driven to internalize its key imperatives – adaptability, constant reinvention, instant change, acceleration, and “short­termism.” Taken together, these imperatives define the “imaginative contours” of contemporary reflexivity, which is pursued largely through a consumerist life politics offering only “frustrated desire, dashed hopes, broken promises, and deceit.” We are, claims Elliott, bound to “a fantasy of the self ’s infinite plasticity.” We are also seduced into believing that “ceaseless reinvention is the only adequate personal response to life in a globalizing world.” The harsh market realities of devaluation, obsolescence, and transience are absorbed into people’s everyday understanding of themselves and their futures, spawning a free-­floating anxiety and “ambient fear” that can no longer name its source. These changes, according to Elliott, define the emergence of a “new individualism” in the age of “liquid modernity” (Bauman, 2000). Finally, in Chapter  9, Margaret McLaren offers a feminist perspective on identity and subjectivity in the context of globalization. She draws on Foucault’s “analytics of power” to argue for a conception of the subject as constructed through discourses and disciplines, and negotiated within micro-­ and macro-­regimes of power. She balances the claim that “social institutions and practices significantly shape subjectivity” with a view of agency that sees it as constituted “through power relations rather than outside of them.” McLaren addresses the contradictions and complexities of shifting situated identities in a time of accelerating global migration. She points out that “changes in location, situation, and circumstances may help to contribute to new possibilities for constructing identity.” To illustrate her argument, she offers the example of Moroccan women working as strawberry pickers in Spain. These women are selected as temporary workers within a “circular migration program” that rests on legitimating discourses about femininity (docility, menial diligence, nimble fingers, etc.). They are positioned within multiple structural inequalities (gender, ethnicity, class, religion) that limit their options and leave them relatively disenfranchised as employees. Nonetheless, argues McLaren, where there are changes in the determining context of subjectivity, there is the possibility of fresh resistance to power – or at least creative negotiation. She points out how the migratory experience of these workers inspires them to mobilize collectively and self­assertively around new identities as valued wage earners. Their transformed consciousness leads them to oppose some of the practices of their ­Spanish

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employers as well as demand more equitable pay for the work they do back in Morocco. Taken together, the varied perspectives brought together in this volume provide a mosaical portrait of the freedoms, tensions, and challenges that define contemporary subjectivity. They provide a reflexive frame for making sense of who we are now and mark out what we can expect of and for ourselves in the twenty-­first century. In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel (1821/1942) offered the sober observation that philosophy can only give conceptual form to an actuality – a world that already exists. It cannot “rejuvenate” that world. Philosophy, in other words, changes nothing. The same might be said of social science, which also often “comes on the scene too late.” Even so, conceptual articulation of the reality we are living through is more than an idle matter. It is, in fact, a vital prerequisite to envisioning how things could be otherwise. A society that cannot see itself in the mirrors of its own construction possesses little impetus to pursue change by other means. As Northrop Frye (1964, p. 140) memorably put it, “The fundamental job of the imagination…is to produce, out of the society we have to live in, a vision of the society we want to live in.” It is hoped that the tentative self-­portrait offered in these pages inspires readers to exercise that progressive imagination. References Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity (M. Ritter, Trans.). London: SAGE. (Original work published 1986.) Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977 (C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, & K. Soper, Trans. and C. Gordon, Ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. Frye, N. (1964). The educated imagination. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-­identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hegel, G. W. F. (1942). Philosophy of Right (T. M. Knox, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1821.) Hobsbawm, E., & Ranger, T. (Eds.). (1983). The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackson, F. (1982). Epiphenomenal qualia. Philosophical Quarterly, 32: 127–36. Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical Review, 83: 435–50. Taylor, C. (1994). The politics of recognition. In A. Gutmann (Ed.), ­Multiculturalism: Examining the politics of recognition (pp.  25–73). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1992.) Trilling, L. (1955). The opposing self. New York: The Viking Press. Williams, R. (1961). The long revolution. London: Chatto & Windus.

part i Relationalit y

1 Subjectivity and Strong Relationality Frank C. Richardson and Robert L. Woolfolk

Clifford Geertz (1973) argued that every culture is defined by both a “worldview” and an “ethos.” In his words, “A people’s ethos is the tone, character and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood; it is the underlying attitude towards themselves and their world that ­life reflects” (p. 127). Thus, it seems likely that every view of self or subjectivity is informed in the crucible of one or another ethos and so is shaped at its core by a “moral vision” (Christopher, 1996) or “moral topography” (Taylor, 1988), by a constellation or grid of cultural values and assumptions about the nature of things that shapes our experience of life and guides our approach to living it. According to Taylor (1989), this means that “Selfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes” (p. 3). Such questions about the good or right kind of life are not the special province of philosophers or intellectuals. Each of us has already answered these questions by how we live. Our thoughts, emotions, decisions, and behavior presuppose deep assumptions or coordinates, however inconsistent, whether we are aware of or can articulate them or not, about what is truly good or worthwhile. It is important to stress this entanglement of understandings of selfhood or subjectivity and convictions about the good life because so much modern social science and psychological theory has assumed that they could drive a wedge between selfhood and the good and give accounts of human action and experience that were strictly value neutral or value free. Today, one does not hear so much chest-­thumping about the ideal of value-­neutrality. It does not have the same ring of plausibility or intimidating force it once did. As deeply ingrained as it is in the belief systems of many working social scientists, whose theories and findings are assumed by many academics and citizens to be somehow “objective,” we are all significantly affected by a kind 11

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of postmodern sensibility that views all human beliefs, values, and practices to be a product of diverse cultural traditions and contexts. In addition, in recent decades, philosophers of social science ­(Bernstein, 1976; Root, 1993) and theoretical psychologists (Richardson & Woolfolk, 1994; Slife, Smith, & Burchfield, 2003; Woolfolk, 1998) have exposed the paradoxical and confused nature of the ideal of value-­neutrality. For example, Slife et al. (2003) point out that dedication to value-­freedom or value-­neutrality embroils therapists and social scientists in the paradox of firmly believing that they should or ought to be neutral or objective. In other words, they ought to “value being value-­free” (p. 60) in a way that seems painfully contradictory. This is not just a conceptual inconsistency but a concrete, existential one. The kind of wholehearted dedication to the ideal of value-­freedom demanded of them is exactly the same kind of allegiance to particular values they are morally charged to spurn or avoid. Richardson (2005) argues that the best way to make sense of this paradoxical blend of commitment to value-­neutrality and almost dogmatic insistence on a particular ethical stance is that it simply reflects uncritical adherence to dominant, quite conventional, modern ideologies of individualism and instrumentalism. Modern “liberal individualism” (Sandel, 1996; Sullivan, 1986) advances firm ethical principles of individual rights and equal moral worth of every person while insisting on an attitude of strict neutrality toward all substantive views of the good life, to prevent any of them from coercively dominating others. It exalts the right over the good (Neal, 1990; Sandel, 1996; Taylor, 1985a) – even though paradoxically this quite undercuts the plausibility and convincingness of its own substantive ethical vision of human dignity and a good society that uncompromisingly respects human rights. If we cannot reason together meaningfully about the worth of ends, we also cannot defend liberal individualism’s own vision of personal liberty and a decent society (Sullivan, 1986, p. 39). It should be emphasized that liberal individualism does not advance an exclusive or one-­sided emphasis on narrow self-­interest. Rather, it represents a sincere effort to affirm freedom without dissolving responsibility, or to eliminate dogmatism without abandoning our moral duties to others. But there remains considerable and often debilitating tension reflected in many areas in contemporary life between a firm commitment to autonomy and self-­interest and an unflinching dedication to protecting the rights and dignity of others. As a result, this ethos is self-­contradictory in theory in a way that leads it to be somewhat self-­undermining in practice. Essentially, it is embroiled in the paradox of advocating a thoroughgoing neutrality toward all values as a way of promoting certain basic values of liberty, tolerance,

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and human rights. Furthermore, these twin contradictory commitments make a slide toward moral relativism, social fragmentation, and ­individual self-­absorption almost inevitable. Faced with these difficulties, many thinkers turn to some sort of thoroughgoing postmodern relativism as the only way out of the confusion. But in what follows we touch on some of the reasons that this approach looks less and less plausible with the passage of time and the continued reflection by scholars on the issues involved (Sandel, 1996; Selznick, 1992; Taylor, 1989). In this chapter, we argue that an accurate and fruitful understanding of self and subjectivity requires finding a credible alternative to dogmatic traditionalism, modern individualism, and postmodern relativism. We explore the possibility that strong candidates for such an approach place thoroughgoing intersubjectivity and dialogue at the center of their pictures of human experience and action. These include philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1989; Taylor, 1989), Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1981) “dialogism,” Slife’s (2005) sketch of “strong relationality” and a “relational ontology,” to an extent the “dialogical self theory” of Hermans and his colleagues (Hermans & Salgado, 2010) and Gergen’s (2009) “relational being,” and a number of others. We suggest that hermeneutic thought and Bakhtin’s “dialogism,” broad features of which Slife captures with his conception of strong relationality, might serve as the most promising basis for elucidating subjectivity in the twenty-­first century.

The Axial Age and the “Great Disembedding” Often, modern individualistic conceptions of self and subjectivity are portrayed as strong reactions, perhaps excessive or one-­sided ones, against monolithic, dogmatic traditional viewpoints with postmodern accounts of selfhood, perhaps taking multiplicity and disunity to extremes, portrayed as hasty overreactions against a modern view that has become monolithic and dogmatic in its own right. There is certainly some truth to this analysis. But it also oversimplifies and distorts the evolution of ideas and misconceives the exact nature of our present quandaries concerning subjectivity and impedes progress in getting past them. We stand in need of a more refined “big picture” of these dilemmas and where they come from. In his much-­discussed new tome A Secular Age, Charles Taylor (2007) recalls the great revolutions in thought and sensibility that emerged seemingly independently in the so-­called “Axial Age” from about 800 to 200 BCE, marked by such figures as the Hebrew prophets, Confucius, Buddha, and Socrates. These philosophies and faiths profoundly transformed our

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understanding of both (1) the divine or transcendence on the one hand and (2) human flourishing on the other. In “early” or “archaic” ­religion, the divine is “immanent in the cyclic rhythms of the natural world and civil society as somehow enmeshed in these natural processes. People seek a ‘harmonious integration’ of ‘human beings with the natural world’” (p. 152). In a most understandable way, what “people ask for when they invoke or placate divinities and powers is prosperity, health, long life, fertility [and] to be preserved from … disease, dearth, sterility, premature death” (p. 150), the latter familiar evils that everywhere abound. Facing these painful and inescapable evils squarely, Axial faiths and philosophies come to have a profound “quarrel with life” (Taylor, 2007, p. 153). Life is found to be unsatisfactory, highly imperfect, morally confused, and full of suffering. Huston Smith (1991) writes that the “exact meaning” of the First Noble Truth of the Buddha that life is Dukkha – usually but not adequately translated as “suffering” – is, in his words: “Life (in the condition it has gotten itself into) is dislocated. Something has gone wrong. It is out of joint. As its pivot is not true, friction (interpersonal conflict) is excessive, movement (creativity) is blocked, and it hurts” (p. 101). In contrast to early religion, Axial faiths and philosophies portray the transcendent, in part, “as quite beyond or outside the cosmos, as with the Creator God of Genesis, or the Nirvana of Buddhism” (p. 152). Correlatively, with “Christianity or Buddhism, for instance…there is a notion of our good which goes beyond [ordinary] human flourishing, which we may gain even while failing utterly on the scales of [ordinary] human flourishing, even through such a failure (like dying young on a cross); or which involves leaving the field of human flourishing altogether (like ending the cycle of rebirth)” (p. 151). For example, Buddhism for the most part does not deny the experience of a self, only that it is a permanent, separate, unchanging entity that can provide a basis for identity and security. Suffering is caused by “sensual craving, craving for being and craving for non-­being” (Majjhima Nikaya, 9, 16), the solution for which is the “giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of [such] craving” (Majjhima Nikaya, 9, 17).1 Instead one realizes that one is an “empty self ” (anatman) that exists only as part of a vast web Laurence Christensen (1999) writes, “Buddhism emphasizes not being attached to self or ­to no-­self, to both, or to no view of the self ” (p. 44). Indeed, Christensen points out that the Buddha in places spoke positively about the self: “The self, the dearest thing for man. Becomes an absolute value, which has to be preserved by all means and in preference to everything else…Man should never give up the self. He should never surrender the self… one should not transgress against the self ” (Samyutta Nikaya, I, 41). Christensen adds, “… the self is dialectical, having both form and yet constantly changing, being separate and yet interdependent.”

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of interconnectedness or “interbeing” (Hahn, 1995) and best occupies ­its proper place or path in that wider world rightly through practices of mindfulness and compassion. To give another example, the theologian Marcus Borg (1987, pp. 112–15) suggests that the path of transformation that Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught, reflected in the saying that whoever “loses his life will preserve it,” involves a dying of “the self as the center of its own concerns” and dying to “the world as the center of security and identity.” This path or way involves a “central movement” of “handing over,” “surrendering,” or “letting go” and a radical centering in God or a “world of Spirit” that both is immanent in the world and radically transcends it.2 It in no way denies the goods or enjoyments of ordinary life as, for example, Gnosticism appears to have done. But it does entail a life in this world of turning away from envy, anger, retribution, and violence to one of self-­forgetful, forgiving love. This kind of active, forgiving love, enacted within the confines of a contingent, mutable, human existence, is thought to reflect the very being and purposes of God. In Taylor’s (2007) view, notwithstanding this kind of self-­transcendence, Axial faiths and philosophies bring about a kind of radical new individualism (of all things) through what he calls a “Great Disembedding.” He suggests that a modern sense of personal liberty, liberal democracy, and untrammeled scientific inquiry are in many ways an outgrowth of this shift. In earlier societies, the primary form of human agency is, in Taylor’s words, “the social group as a whole,” as in collective ritual action. There, we “primarily relate to God as a society” (p. 148). Crucial roles in that activity are filled by priests, shamans, or chiefs and the “social order in which these roles were defined tended to be sacrosanct.” Thinkers of the radical Enlightenment pilloried this aspect of social and religious life, much of which still survived in early modern times, which seemed to entrench forms of inequality and domination. Thus they longed, in Voltaire’s famous phrase, for the day when “the last king would be strangled with the entrails of the last priest” (p. 149). It was a mistake of many Enlightenment thinkers, however, to look back on Axial faiths and philosophies as simply naive, irrational, or oppressive in this way. Early humans were embedded not only in society but also in a cosmos that incorporates the divine and is enchanted with intracosmic spirits and causal powers inherent in things that have to be invoked or placated. Borg (1987) discusses this understanding of God as both immanent in the world and ­transcending it as “panentheism,” a view that is gaining considerable traction in Western theological circles and seems to bear some parallels to more profound conceptions of transcendence in other spiritual traditions.

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The Axial Age begins to demote or even seek to eradicate these powers ­and dismantle an overriding collective identity. It affirms a radical new understanding of God or transcendence and cultivates a “new self-­understanding of our social existence,” one that gives “an unprecedented primacy to the individual.” Society itself begins to be reconceived as “made up of individuals” (Taylor, 2007, p. 146). Moreover, such individuals may be empowered in unprecedented ways to stand alone and criticize their society in the light of new understandings of ultimate goods of justice and/or compassion – witness Socrates, the Hebrew prophets, the Buddha, Jesus, Taoist sages, and other remarkable, highly original, and creative personalities, many of whom were executed for their trouble. For the purposes of this chapter, it is a matter of complete indifference to us whether one regards such conceptions of a meaningful cosmic order or the ideals of the good life associated with them as credible or greatly appealing. The point is only that these premodern outlooks, at least in their original and most profound forms, were not simply grounded in static, oppressive absolutes. They envision ultimate reality as dynamic and interactive, in its own sphere and in relation to humans. They speak to human suffering compassionately, even if very much in terms of transcending it and finding some meaning in it rather than a typically modern overriding commitment to simply eliminating it (Richardson & Nelson, 2009). They provide a transcendent or distal point of reference that gives them leverage to perceive and courage to condemn injustice, corruption, hardheartedness, and arrogance in the social realm. And they envisage deep, mutually shaping ties of both an ontological and ethical sort existing among all beings and events of the same general kind that Slife’s (2005) “strong relationality” and Gergen’s (2009) “relational being” describe. Seeing things in this light makes a difference in terms of how one evaluates the evolution, strengths, and deficiencies of our modern outlook on the world and its associated ideals. For example, we commonly connect the “disenchantment of the world” that Max Weber famously described almost exclusively with the rise of modern science and the mechanization of the world picture. However, it turns out that a powerful drive to disenchant the world was underway long before a secular outlook began to take hold very widely among cultural elites, let  alone trickle down to masses of people. Taylor (2007) relates how in the late Middle Ages and into the Reformation era there arose an exceptionally powerful “drive to Reform” (p. 61), a “rage for order,” and a “drive to make over the whole society to higher standards” (p. 63). This drive manifested itself in such developments as movements to cultivate a more personal, devotional religious faith and practice ­among

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ordinary people; the elimination of distinctions between “renunciative” or more world-­denying spiritual elites and ordinary lay vocations; and an unprecedented concern for the poor. Central to this movement was a rigorous banishing of belief in spirits and autonomous causal powers in nature as well as of magical views of the working of the sacraments. Fearful, apprehensive, manipulative, evasive, and bargaining relations with such powers and spirits were seen as antithetical to compassion for others, confidence in grace, a life of forgiveness and self-­forgetful love, and the sense of dwelling peacefully in nature and among one’s fellows of the sort exemplified by St. Francis of Assisi. Driving them out helps pave the way for both modern science and modern conceptions of human dignity and autonomy. As a result of these developments, there begins to emerge quite early a new and historically unique kind of thoroughly reformed and tightly governed state, one that “undertakes to organize the lives of its citizens in rational ways; ensure that they are properly educated, that they belong to churches, that they lead sober and productive lives” (p. 86). Foucault (1980) saw this sort of thing emerging only later in modern times – he termed it “biopower”  – as the form that what he termed “power” takes in our era, reflected in our peculiar modern obsession with the creation of a normal and healthy population. A cultural history of this sort helps us better understand how a portion of the sense of meaning and purpose that infused this earlier movement persists to the present, lending a certain distinctive ethical coloring even to the sensibility of most citizens, religious or nonreligious. Even after an uprooting mobility and a sense of individuation and personal liberty intensify, even after the difficulty for many of believing in God comes to outweigh by far any nostalgia they might harbor for lost solidarities and consolations, a significant strand of this radical drive to reform remains. Many of us, ordinary citizens, those in helping professions, and dedicated social reformers alike, even in somewhat of a “culture of narcissism,” do not exclusively wish to lead a comfortable life while trying to keep suffering at bay. Many are remarkably altruistic and are sensitive to and truly abhor and recoil from human suffering, a legacy of the Axial faiths, and feel a genuine obligation to put others’ welfare at least on a par with their own.

The Modern Self Modern consciousness first crystallized around a radically new conception of the self in the world brought about by the success of the seventeenth-­century scientific revolution and the philosophical elaboration of its ­meaning by

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Enlightenment thinkers. Very generally speaking, a traditional teleological scheme of life comes to be replaced by a largely unprecedented kind of scientific materialist outlook, one that served as an effective tool for executing the modern rebellion against unthinking traditionalism and arbitrary authority. Our sense of self is no longer defined by a meaningful cosmic order. Instead, a new kind of “self-­defining” self confronts an “objectified” picture of reality as something to be “patiently mapped by empirical observation” (Taylor, 1975, p.  4). In this new view, there is a deep metaphysical gulf between self and world, between the subjective and the objective realms. Both the self and its inner-­worldly experiences tend to be portrayed as self-­contained “objects” that have no defining relations or meaningful ties to anything outside their realm. Joseph Dunne (1996) calls the modern sense of self the “sovereign self… which, as an ideal, has permeated much of modern culture.” The sovereign self is above all “its own ground” (p. 137). Dunne accents two influential early modern renditions of this sovereign self: Descartes’ rational knower and Hobbes’s individual in a state of nature. Descartes’ “I” or “ego” is “immediately, transparently, and irrefutably present to itself as a pure extensionless consciousness, already established in being, without a body, and with no acknowledged complicity in language, culture, or community” (p.  138). Hobbes’s naked individual is a “passionate centre of assertion… defined over against” a plurality of other such restless, aggressive centers. Dunne comments that although the sovereign self presents an “invulnerable front” of “separateness and mastery,” its exorbitant “drive for certainty and security” seems to be a response to an underlying sense of profound “fallibility and precariousness” (p. 138). Taylor (1995, p. 7) summarizes the picture of the modern self as “ideally disengaged, that is free and rational to the extent he has fully distinguished himself from the natural and social worlds.” This is a “punctual view of the self, ideally ready as free and rational to treat these worlds  – and even some of the features of his own character  – instrumentally, as subject to change and reorganizing in order the better to secure the welfare of himself and others.” Taylor’s notion of a “punctual self ” confronting a natural and social world to which it has no essential ties is particularly helpful. Given this perspective, knowledge consists essentially in the correspondence of our beliefs to an external reality from which they must be sharply distinguished. This profound aspiration to individuality and separateness, Taylor suggests, is as much a moral as a scientific ideal. It reflects the intense liberationist or anti-­authoritarian temper of the modern era. The modern ideal of “freedom ­as self-­autonomy” dictates that any overlap

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between self and world will compromise the individual’s integrity and dignity. This helps explain why the goal of mainstream social science for the most part has been strictly value-­neutral explanations or descriptions of human dynamics, and why it typically treats (or tries to) cultural and moral values as purely subjective. Either such meanings and values must be kept at a considerable distance or they will compromise our autonomy and integrity in a domineering manner. A key to the punctual self is that it can and indeed should relate to its own qualities or commitments as it does to the external world, and do so above all instrumentally. Like an ever-­receding pinpoint of consciousness and will, it can abstract itself away from or disidentify itself with any of these qualities or commitments, as the need or wish to do so arises. This view of the self in the world originally championed still reinforces cherished modern ideals of freedom, dignity, healthy skepticism, tolerance, and the like, which in some form just about all of us cherish. But it also outlines a program for living that over the long run may undermine its own best values and even turn into its opposite, with freedom turning into emptiness, or the domination over material circumstances into domination by them. An enormous difficulty with this conception of the human self – plainly an ideal of the mature or authentic self as well as an ontology of human agency – is that the picture of such separateness, sovereignty, and autonomy greatly distorts the human situation. Surely, Geertz (1973) is closer to the truth with his observation that human social actors are “animals suspended in webs of significance [they themselves have] spun.” He adds, “I take culture to be those webs” (p. 5). We live, move, and have our being in those webs of significance. Taylor provides a helpful picture of this situation with the assertion that we are inherently social beings who are greatly defined in terms of “meanings and norms implicit in [practices which] are not just in the minds of the actors but are out there in the practices themselves, practices which…are essentially modes of social relation, of mutual action” (Taylor, 1985b, p.  36). We are profoundly indebted to the cultural past for the identifications and commitments that shape us at the core and are profoundly interdependent with others in extending and reworking those meanings and norms. According to Shotter and Billig’s (1998) outline of a “Bakhtinian psychology,” our actions “are always a complex mixture of influences both from within ourselves and from elsewhere. They are never wholly our own” (pp. 22–3). If this is true, then so much for the punctual and sovereign self. The other principal difficulty with this view of self and subjectivity ­is that it appears to work out very poorly in many ways in the business of

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living. Since Alexis de Tocqueville (1835/1969) in the 1830s first coined the term “individualism,” a great many diverse cultural critics and moral theorists have argued that it describes an insufficient ethical outlook. For example, more than half a century ago, Erich Fromm (1941/69) analyzed what he called the “ambiguity of freedom” in late modern times, something he thought was actually a major source of emotional problems in living in our day. Discussing what he called the “ambiguity of freedom,” Fromm argues that we have a well-­developed sense of “freedom from” arbitrary authority and from dogmatic or irrational impediments to freedom and of exercising greater control over nature and ourselves. However, we sorely lack a corresponding sense of “freedom to” or “freedom for” that would give some context, direction, or deeper purpose to our increased freedom and opportunity. The result, he feels, is that we tend to become interchangeable cogs in the social machinery, to become directionless and empty, to be led by the nose by whatever “sells” in the marketplace, including a widespread “personality market” in which even personal qualities must be revised to accommodate the impulses or preferences of others, and to treat others and ourselves as depersonalized objects. Recently, Philip Cushman (1990, pp.  604–5) has argued this theme in the locus classicus for its articulation in the field of theoretical psychology. He contends that our society defines the mature or ideal individual as a “bounded, masterful self ” that is expected to “function in a highly autonomous, isolated way” and “to be self-­soothing, self-­loving, and self-­sufficient.” Unfortunately, Cushman thinks there is evidence that this inflated, would­be autonomous self almost inevitably collapses into an “empty self,” whose characteristics of fragility, sense of emptiness, and proneness to fluctuation between feelings of worthlessness and grandiosity are often said to be the hallmarks of neurotic psychopathology in our day (Kohut, 1977). As a result, Cushman wonders why such would-­be autonomous, self-­interested individuals would ever “choose to undergo the self-­sacrifice and suffering necessary” to raise children in modern America (p. 605). As the philosopher Robert Pippen (1990) puts it, modernity “promised us a culture of unintimidated, curious, rational, self-­reliant individuals, and it produced… a herd society, a race of anxious, timid, conformist ‘sheep,’ and a culture of utter banality” (p. 22).

The Revolt of the Many against the One The philosopher and theologian Colin Gunton (1993) puts these ­dilemmas in a wider perspective than is usually employed and gives us an especially

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penetrating diagnosis of the problem. Gunton (1993) argues that the ­“question of the one and the many” has been with us since the beginning of Western philosophy and theology. He suggests that every worldview and ethos represents, in part, a response to the challenge of reconciling these two facets or dimensions of the wider world and the human realm, of finding a way to respect the integrity of particulars while still linking them together in some sort of meaningful concord or unity.3 The quest was up and running at the outset of Western philosophy with the disagreement between Heraclitus and Parmenides. Heraclitus holds that everything at bottom is flux and strife, a matter of plurality and motion. For him there is “a world order and not a radical pluralism,” but “the logos of the universe… is not a permanent substratum that remains the same in all its modifications” (p. 17). At the opposite pole of thought, Parmenides claims reason teaches us that “the real is totally unchanging,” notwithstanding appearances presented to the senses. “The many do not really exist, except it be as functions of the One” (p. 18). The Presocratics severely demythologized Greek mythological theology, but in a positive sense they sought the “reason for the overall unity of the way the world was.” For them, a philosophical concept of the divine “had a rational and moral function,” both trying to make “sense of the world as a unity and of the human place within that world” (Gunton, 1993, p. 19). Plato, in response to the decline of Athens as he saw it and the Sophists’ skeptical disengagement from questions of the true and the good, deepens this search with an “ontology of the good,” a kind of theology in the broad sense of the word, an “engaged philosophy” that sought to “make unitary systematic sense of the world” intended to “provide an undergirding for a moral and political program” (p. 20). Gunton (1993) suggests that there is no doubt that Plato “chose…unity rather than plurality. At times like his and ours, of real or threatened social disintegration, there is always a temptation to seek unity and stability above all, and that is one reason why totalitarianism is a constant threat in modern times” (p. 21). Indeed, Gunton observes that for the most part the Western philosophical and theological traditions have “preferred Parmenides to Heraclitus in search for a focus of unity. The God of most Western ­philosophy is single, simple, and unchanging” (p. 24). Therein ­lies the problem. In the view of many, Gunton points out, there is a mutually This in no way implies that such a scheme or philosophy need or should claim finality or ­certainty for its vision of things. The search for a more adequate view continues indefinitely. The only point is that the task of reconciling some notion of the unity of the things and of the integrity of particulars may be an inescapable one.

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supportive link between “a strong stress on the unity of God” and “absolutist types of political institutions” (pp. 24–5). In the West, Paul Johnson (1978) notes, Christian institutions took shape according to the “idea of a total Christian society” that “necessarily included the idea of a compulsory society” of a wrong-­headed and to one degree or another oppressive sort (p. 115). We have seen that this kind of stress on unity and resulting “suppression of the many by the one” (Gunton, 1993, p. 25) may actually be a distortion and degradation of the understanding of basic or ultimate reality envisioned by the faiths and philosophies of the Axial Age. Nevertheless, it prevailed. Gunton (1993) cites Samuel Taylor Coleridge as an exception to this trend. “Heraclitus’ concept of the dynamic Logos or Reason served Coleridge as a model for a God who was not simply an unchanging principle of order, but in some way also allowed for, gave space to, the being of the other…a conception of God who is a principle not of blank unity but of variety, richness, and complexity” (p. 24). As a result, “much modern social and political thought can be understood as the revolt of the many against the one, and at the same time that of humanity against divinity” (Gunton, 1993, p. 27). That, of course, fits with the well-­known “thesis of Feuerbach, that the worship of God takes place necessarily at the expense of human individuality and freedom” (p. 26). But the revolt involves an even more extensive rejection of the Parmenidean past that must be appreciated in order to understand the provenance of the modern self. Gunton (1993) agrees that what Taylor (1989, 1995) terms “disengagement” is a key to modern thought and culture. Descartes’ ethic, just as much as his epistemology, calls for disengagement from the world and body and the assumption of an instrumental stance towards them. “It is of the essence of reason…that it pushes us to disengage” (Taylor, 1989; p. 148)…Disengagement means standing apart from each other and the world and treating the other as external and mere object. The key is in the word instrumental: we use the other as… the mere means for realizing our will, and not as in some way integral to our being. (p. 14)

In many ways, it is shocking how long it has taken us to realize the extent to which this approach to life and living “tends to trivialize cultural meaning, dissolve the capacity to respect and cherish others, and undermine the pursuit of common goals,” thereby even “eroding the very social ­foundations necessary for effective instrumental action in a complex and

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interdependent society” (Fowers, 2005, p. 60). But there is more to the story than the deleterious effects of a one-­sided instrumentalism. According to Gunton (1993, pp. 28–9), this forceful rebellion against the one, the significant ethical gain it fosters notwithstanding, does not simply affirm the rights of the many or “provide the legitimation of the freedom and particularity of the person.” Disengagement is accompanied by “displacement.” The functions attributed to God or a metaphysical focus of unity outside the world “have not been abolished but shifted” or “relocated,” typically to “forces within the world.” The way for this is paved by William of Ockham in the late medieval period by “positing…the real existence solely of particulars” and an “accompanying denial of the reality of universals.” As a result, “God was no longer needed to account for the coherence and meaning of the world, so that the seat of rationality and meaning became… human reason and will, which thus displace God or the world.” The “focus of the unity of things becomes the unifying rational mind.” There is a price to pay for this dramatic shift, namely the fragmentation of human experience because “the world unified only by us ceases to be any kind of shared context for human society.” So, as much as this shift confers freedom and dignity, it “has subjected us to new and of unrecognized forms of slavery.” The problem is that “in the absence of an adequate way of accounting for and realizing socially the relations of the many to each other – almost a definition of individualism – …a false universal…the public or ‘the people’… or history or the market rushes in to fill the vacuum” (Gunton, 1993, p. 31). Kierkegaard (1978) excoriated the leveling tendencies of the modern age that dissolved genuine individuals into a phantom “public.” J. S. Mill (1991, p. 80) descried the “modern régime of public opinion” that warred against “individuality” and independent thought. Václav Havel (1991) argued that both Western adulation for a market economy and system of consumption and the ideology of Eastern socialism, in his day, reflected the grip of a false universal or “the irrational momentum of anonymous, impersonal, and inhuman power” (p. 267). How did it come about that personal liberty tends to easily to morph into the “flat unity of homogeneity” (Gunton, 1993, p. 39) of the sort evident in the angry, fearful conformism infecting both the religious right and left-­wing champions of political correctness? Alan Wolfe (1989) helps explain this paradox in terms of a certain “profound confusion about obligation” in our kind of society. He suggests that, in one sense, people today are remarkably free and unencumbered by obligations. But in another sense, “economic growth, democratic government, and therefore freedom itself are produced through extensive, and ­quite encumbered, dependence on others” (pp. 9–10). Enormously complex

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modern forms of social organization leave us with much attenuated but very real and ever-­widening ties of interdependence and obligation to others, across one’s country and the globe. Unable to rely simply on traditional moral codes, we have generally sought to coordinate our affairs and resolve our differences through one of two large-­scale, impersonal, bureaucratic mechanisms, namely the market or the state. The market allocates limited resources, restrains individuals’ desires, and coordinates their actions, but places a price on everything and turns individuals into cogs in the economic machinery governed by unseen forces or an “invisible hand.” Political approaches to moral regulation tend to undermine individual initiative and responsibility in another way. “When, for example, government collects my taxes and distributes the money to others,” it “assumes responsibilities that would otherwise be mine.” I am “not obligated to real people living real lives around me; instead my obligation is to follow rules, the moral purpose of which is often lost to me,” tempting me to avoid such “abstract and impersonal” obligations if I can. Wolfe comments wittily, “Unlike Rousseau’s natural man, who was born free but was everywhere in chains, modern social individuals are born into chains of interdependence but yearn, most of the time, to be free” (p. 2).4 There is evidence in the world of social and psychological theory to support the idea of a displaced focus of unity reemerging in a way that only undermines the freedom and integrity of the many. How else might one explain the tremendous influence of scientism, behaviorism, Freudianism, sociobiology, and doctrines of extreme determinism and reductionism, which ironically utilize human freedom and creativity to entirely explain them away, radically depersonalizing and homogenizing particular humans or the many in the process? In a kind of “return of the repressed,” in a rather savage form, Parmenides regains center stage. Gunton (1993) concludes that the “thought and practice of antiquity and modernity share a common failure in conceiving and practicing relationality. The many can find their true being and be understood only as they are related to each other” and to some focus of unity (p. 37). This raises the question, “In what way are we, or should we be, related to that which is other than ourselves… Which forms of relatedness are heteronomous…and which tend ­toward true autonomy” (p. 38)? We may be sure that “freedom requires otherness” (p. 37). But what kind? Looked at this way, current polarized debates in the United States about big versus ­small government represent an argument between a more or less oppressive false universal and a rebellion of the many against the one that denies the need for some focus of unity in the affairs of a nation.

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The Decentered Self Influential postmodern, poststructuralist, and social constructionist thinkers in recent decades provide telling critiques of the modern punctual or sovereign self. They radically deconstruct and decenter human agency in a way that can be quite compelling. In this brief chapter, we can only suggest a few of the reasons why Selznick (1992), echoing the opinion of many critics, characterizes this ostensibly postmodern thought as “the wayward child of modernism,” carrying its logic to extremes. To put it another way, it continues the rebellion of the many against the one in a way that tends to perpetuate rather than solve the paradoxes and dilemmas this rebellion generates. Postmodern/social constructionist thought, along with a number of other philosophical traditions, stresses the implausibility of the notion of a disengaged self transparent to itself apart from the influence of culture, body, and gender. After all, the shared inheritance of language and cultural meanings first constructs any ideas that become available to consciousness, including any notions of a substantial or punctual self and its associated ideals. For example, according to the leading American social constructionist theorist Kenneth Gergen (1985), the “terms in which the world is understood are social artifacts, products of historically situated interchanges between people.” So-­called reports or descriptions of one’s experience are really just “linguistic constructions guided and shaped by historically contingent conventions of discourse.” Therefore, there is “no ‘truth through method,’” no correct procedure that bestows a warrant of objectivity on our findings or theories. Indeed, social constructionism bravely bites the bullet and “offers no alternative truth criteria” (pp.  267 ff.). In Richard Rorty’s (1982) words, there is “no criterion that we have not created in the course of creating a practice, no standard of rationality that is not an appeal to such a criterion, no rigorous argumentation that is not obedience to our own conventions.” Postmodern thinkers generally concur with the philosopher Dreyfus’s (1987, p. 65) contention that “humanity is a self-­interpreting way of being whose practices have enabled it to act as if it had a whole series of different natures in the course of history.” In other words, humans do not have a transhistorical or transcultural nature. Rather, culture “completes” humans by explaining and interpreting the world. Culture does not differently clothe the universal human. Rather, it infuses individuals, ­fundamentally shaping their natures and identities. In Cushman’s (1990, p.  599) words, “cultural conceptualizations and configurations of self are formed by the economies and politics of their respective eras…There is no universal,

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transhistorical self, only local selves; no universal theory about the self, only local theories.” Persuasive and intimidating as this view can be, its problems are legion (Flax, 1990; Guignon, 1991; Richardson & Fowers, 1998; Taylor, 1989). For example, it is instructive to ask, Where does the postmodern theorist stand when he or she propounds that, as Foucault (1980) famously put it, there is no truth but only “truth effects,” or that the self-­enclosed modern self is simply an illusion, or that there is “no reality outside the text,” and so forth? These views, which articulate a metaphysic of the human situation and analysis of moral beliefs, seem to be promulgated from beyond history, beyond the reach of cultural conditioning, by something resembling a sovereign or punctual self. They appear to express a simulacrum of the modern “view from nowhere.” Such a theorist seems implicitly to claim access to a final and certain truth about the relativity of all perspectives and to suggest strongly that every grand theory other than its own is a kind of ideology or illusion. How does human agency, choice, or reinterpretation in everyday life work on this kind of postmodern account? Gergen (1985, p.  273) always has candidly asserted that human agents, in the absence of any objective truth, should evaluate their beliefs and values strictly on the basis of their “pragmatic implications” (see also Rorty, 1982). Indeed, given social constructionist premises, the only alternatives would seem to be sheer dogmatism, completely arbitrary, senseless, or whimsical choice, or some kind of pragmatism. Let us leave aside the problem that pragmatism would not work when choosing among different ends in living or moral visions for the reason that diverse moral visions are likely to define what “pragmatic” or conducive to desirable ends in fact are, in the first place, or how much emphasis we should place on this kind of evaluation. There remains the problem that this is certainly not how we understand ourselves in everyday life, where what we take to be acting ethically or responsibly or decently is often the opposite of sheer pragmatism or calculating payoffs and results. Postmodern views of this kind have served beneficially to question modern assumptions and conceits, acknowledge ignored or marginalized human differences among people and groups, and sensitize us to the cultural context that shapes all human activities, including social and psychological theorizing itself (Richardson & Manglos, 2012; Taylor, 1985c). Also, ­however, just like the scientism it so vigorously opposes, this approach asks us to step entirely outside our skins and relate to the world and even ourselves instrumentally, from a radically disengaged standpoint. Even when the postmodern approach is put more in terms of an stance of detached

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irony and play, or endlessly remaking oneself as a work of art (Foucault, 1982), a similar kind of disengagement and instrumental attitude remain in force, along with all the social fragmentation, alienation, and moral confusion thought by many to flow from them. Moreover, in this approach, the same kind of displacement that Gunton (1993) identified seems to occur. Supposedly, universals and any hegemonic one are dispensed with and the many are allowed to flower in all their individuality and difference. But in both theory and recommended practice, the one seems to return with a vengeance, leveling differences once again, depersonalizing the other, and encouraging conformity to a single, severely detached meta-­perspective.

Hermeneutics and the Dialogical Self The broad tradition of phenomenology and hermeneutics, which understands humans to be finite and limited but to a degree free, creative co-­ participants in an historical and cultural life-­world. It may offer rich resources for moving decisively beyond individualism and postmodernism – or might best be seen as a postmodernism of another sort – and for reconciling the one and the many in a credible fashion. The devil, as always, is in the details. To begin with, Jonathan Sacks (2002) contends that we finally have the tools effectively to dismantle one of the problematic governing presuppositions of modern thought,” namely “the concept of the isolated or atomic self, the ‘I’ with which thought and action supposedly began.” We have discovered, Sacks believes, that “this ‘I’ is a fiction, or at least an abstraction.” Instead, personal identity at its very core is shaped through “continuous conversation with ‘significant others’” (p. 150). Strong Relationality Overcoming the isolated or atomic self, we suggest, means adopting a fully “relational ontology” (Slife, 2004; Slife & Richardson, 2008). Thus, Slife (2004) argues that most theory and research in the social sciences are built around a conception of “weak relationality,” according to which events, situations, persons, and practices “begin and end as self-­contained individualities that often take in information from the outside.” The ­term “interaction” or synonyms of it often connote weak relationality because “members of the interaction ‘act on’ each other from the outside.” There is, for example, great interest in psychology in the “internalization of ‘outside’ influences of all types.” We commonly think of the identity of entities

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or persons as something that “stems from what is ultimately ‘inside’ and within, even if some of what is inside might have originated from without.” Rather paradoxically, in this view, people are causally shaped by environmental forces to become, in the ideal case, highly self-­dependent, self-­directing individuals who then mysteriously can resist most such causes or influences in order to function autonomously or “do their own thing” (p. 2). By contrast, what Slife (2004) calls “strong relationality” is an “ontological relationality.” Relationships are not just the interactions of what was originally nonrelational; they are relational ‘all the way down.’” Things and persons are not first self-­contained entities and then interactive, but each is “first and always a nexus of relations.” They have a “shared being and mutual constitution” (p. 2). The interplay, the kind of mutual influence and dialogue, between self and others, individual and society, present and past described by hermeneutics is strong relational in nature. It is the game or interplay or dialogue that we are. A Hermeneutic Ontology Ontological hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1989; Heidegger, 1962; Taylor, 1989; Warnke, 1987) and related philosophies of dialogue (Bakhtin, 1981; Cresswell, 2011; Dunne, 1996; McIntyre, 1981) sketch a thoroughgoing alternative to the fiction of an atomic self and the stark instrumentalism it inevitably promotes. In the hermeneutic view, humans are “self-­interpreting beings” (Taylor, 1985b). The meanings they work out in the business of living make them to a great extent what they are, in sharp contrast to the viewpoint that our behavior is determined by genetic and social influences to be described for us by a branch of natural science. Moreover, individual lives are “always ‘thrown’ into a familiar life-­world from which they draw their possibilities of self-­interpretation. Our own life-­stories only make sense against the backdrop of possible story-­lines opened by our historical culture” (Guignon, 1989, p. 109). Instead of thinking of the self as an object of any sort, hermeneutic thought follows Heidegger (1962, p. 426) in conceiving of human existence as a “happening” or a “becoming.” Individual lives have a temporal and narrative structure. They are a kind of unfolding “movement” that is “stretched along between birth and death.” In ­Guignon’s (1993, p. 14) words, just as “events in a novel gain their meaning from what they seem to pointing to in the long run…so our past lives and our present activities gain their meaning from a (perhaps tacit) sense of where our lives are going as a totality.”

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What does this life-­world or “movement” consist in? It is entirely possible and for some purposes immensely useful – we have gotten quite good at this in the modern age – to abstract away from and ignore the meaning everyday events have for us and the evaluations we make of them relative to our concerns and purposes, objectify them in that way, and construct a knowledge of lawfulness or repeated patterns in some sectors of the world that may serve as a reliable basis for prediction and control, for successful instrumental activity. But there is a more fundamental, in a sense practical or ethical kind of understanding that humans always and everywhere work out together, one that does not primarily mean comprehending events mainly as “instances” of a general concept, rule, or law, as they seek to comprehend the changeable meanings of events, texts, social reality, and the actions and purposes of others to relate to them appropriately along the story-­lines of their living. This lived process, full of disappointing and unexpected turns of events – it might even be called a continuing “learning experience” – is what is ontologically basic. We have cultivated the ability in modern times to look at nature as if it were an aggregate of brute, material objects and processes in mechanistic, law-­governed relations. But that objectified picture of the world is actually a high abstraction. More fundamental is the messy, mutable, emotionally charged, and morally and existentially engaged world of meaning-­laden events and embodied, purposeful actions in which we are plunged from birth. In this view, a basic fact about humans, in Heidegger’s (1962, p.  228) words, is that they care about whether their lives make sense and what they are amounting to. Therefore, they have always already taken some stand on their lives by seizing on certain roles, traits, and values. Indeed, they “just are the stands they take in living out their lives” (Guignon & Pereboom, 1995, p. 189). Taylor (1985a, p. 3) develops this notion of care with the idea that humans do not simply desire particular outcomes or satisfactions in living. Rather, they always make “strong evaluations” (Taylor, 1985a, p. 3). Even if only tacitly or unconsciously, they evaluate the quality of their desires and motivations and the worth of the ends they seek in terms of how they fit in with their overall sense of a decent or worthwhile life. Humans never simply prefer or desire certain pleasures or results. They always, in addition, are building their lives around some notion of what is decent versus indecent, noble versus base, or deep versus shallow – the terms and their ­meaning vary widely across societies and eras. In Dunne’s (1996, pp. 147–8) words, in living one answers questions, with deeds if not with words, about “what matters to one, what one bothers with, admires, holds dear, or is prepared to commit oneself to,” which are all questions “about ‘the good.’” This certainly

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does not mean that the ideals that inform their living are necessarily clear or refined or put into practice in a nonhypocritical way. The claim is only that in some form they are inescapable. The nature and importance of strong evaluations can be elucidated, following Guignon (1993), in terms of a crucial distinction between two fundamental but quite different kinds of human practices. One is “means–end” or instrumental activities. They involve no necessary connection between one’s goal and the means adopted to reach it. Thus, the means can be easily discarded if another strategy turns out to be more effective or efficient, and an individual or group’s expertise in reaching their goals is strictly independent of the kinds of persons they are, of their ethical quality or character. The other is “constituent-­end” practices, in which means are not at all separable from ends but are experienced as central to constituting a particular way of life. In constituent-­end social practices, the whole activity, more or less excellent, “is undertaken for the sake of being such and such: I exercise as a part of being a healthy person, or I help someone for the sake of being a good friend” (p. 230). The most important goods in human life, on this view, are experienced in constituent-­end practices, which are guided by strong evaluations. However, there is usually no way first to identify appropriate criteria of worth and then subsequently apply them in reflection or action. Any fresh appreciation of what is worthwhile and whatever criteria that involves emerge together from risky immersion in the process, over the outcome of which we have limited control and that is full of surprises.5 Dialogic Understanding A central feature of human action in such a life-­world is the quest for “dialogic understanding” (Warnke, 1987). In Taylor’s (2002) words, in both everyday life and human science inquiry, “understanding of a text or an event…has to be construed, not on the model of the ‘scientific’ grasp of an object, but rather on the model of speech-­partners coming to an understanding” (p. 126). In other words, understanding is the result of a process of mutual communication, influence, negotiation, accommodation, ­and struggle, familiar to all of us in conversations and relationships. Following Gadamer (1989), dialogical understanding can be said to be an interplay of openness and application (Warnke, 1987, pp. 167 ff.). Genuine openness to any meaning or claim actually involves granting it provisional For this reason, Gadamer (1989) in Truth and Method at one point defines “experience” ­as that which overturns our expectations.

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authority to challenge our beliefs and prejudices. Application involves testing out whether an insight or point of view reveals new aspects of our current motives and dilemmas and helps make sense out of new circumstances. In the process, some reinterpretation or modification of old truths is inevitable. The danger or risk with openness is a kind of “conservatism” in which we bow to authority or rationalize the status quo out of fear or timidity. The only cure for such inauthentic rationalization is further rigorous application of these claims to our particular situation. The danger or risk with application might be termed “subjectivism” or the clever, opportunistic interpretation of events or principles in a self-­serving manner. However, the only cure for such arbitrariness is further, sometimes annoying, sometimes painful openness to challenge from others. This view is bound to seem squishy and ethically dangerous to a modern liberal outlook that is concerned to proscribe domination at all costs and leave questions of the good life to purely individual preference. But this sort of liberal individualism, we have argued, both disguises and universalizes its own vision of the mature person and the good society (Sandel, 1996; Taylor, 1985a), thereby protecting it from full and searching dialogical encounters with other views. A hermeneutic/dialogical approach requiring both courage and humility, we suggest, involving open and honest dialogue and reinterpretation of this sort in the teeth of a clash of moral visions, may be what most fully can bring underlying assumptions to light, including those containing subtle authoritarian and paternalistic bias, and compel a searching reevaluation of them (Richardson, 2005; Taylor, 1985a). This continuing endeavor involves an exquisite, quintessentially human, sometimes almost unbearable tension. On the one hand, we harbor self­defining beliefs and values concerning things we truly care about, in which we have a “deep identity investment,” sometimes an investment in “distorted images we cherish of others” (Taylor, 2002, p.  141.) On the other hand, because our ideals and our images of others and events are always partial or distorted in some way, we need to not just compromise and get along with others, but also to learn from the past, others, or other cultures. In doing so, we sometimes incur a deeply personal, sometimes painful “identity cost” (Taylor, 2002, p. 141). Thus, in matters closest to our hearts, we greatly depend on these others, their insights, and their beneficent influence. A Dialogical ­Self As soon as it is acknowledged that self and subjectivity are thoroughly mediated by language and culture, woven as it were into the fabric of a cultural

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and historical life-­world, there is the strong likelihood they will need to be understood as in some fashion decentered, disunified, or multiple, something that a sounds very strange to a modern ear. But there is little new under the sun. Hermans and Salgado (2010) point out that in the Theatetus (189e – 190a) Plato wrote that “when the mind is thinking. It is simply talking to itself, asking questions and answering them…When it reaches a decision…when doubt is over and the two voices affirm the same thing, then we call that ‘its judgment’” (quoted in Hermans and Salgado, 2010, pp. 183–4). A much greater sense of inner alienation is conveyed in Arthur Rimbaud’s famous formulation in 1871 that “I is someone else” (“Je est un autre”) (quoted in Thirlwell, 2011, p. 29). Gradually, it dawns on us that “what one customarily calls the “I” or “self ” in psychology is an unstable, constantly changing, and ultimately evanescent structure” (Oughourlian, 1991, p. 11). There remains the postmodern option of viewing self and subjectivity as thoroughly decentered and made up – if there is anything left even to speak of in this fashion – of merely shifting fragments without any sort of focus or unity. But we have argued that this kind of radical decentering into many only “displaces” (Gunton, 1993) rather than eliminates the one or a focus of unity. It returns with a vengeance in the form of the detached, punctual self-­like perspective of postmodern theorists themselves and a relativizing, homogenizing, and essentially instrumental way of relating to the world.6 Hermeneutic thought and Bakhtin’s dialogism offer a fresh start to understanding human agency. In this vein, Dunne (1996) observes that the self lacks the substantiality and discreteness of an object that is amenable to direct description or explanation. Nor can it be captured privately by an internal act of introspection or self-­perception. Its reality is peculiarly dispersed; it is always partly outside and beyond itself, receding from focal presence into background penumbra, implicated in and formed by relationships, permeated by otherness (p. 143).

The shape and movement of such agency is richly characterized by Vygotsky (1986) and Bakhtin (1984), who described inner speech as a crucial process in thinking itself. They describe how outer speech undergoes a process of interiorization and becomes increasingly abbreviated and distilled. From this perspective, the young child is highly dependent ­and impressionable but confronts others and the world “in an active mode” and with an “open interrogative stance” (Dunne, 1996, p. 145). In turn, the child This seems to represent an extreme version rather than a genuine alternative to the ­modern propensity of making things equal by making them equally meaningless.

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is drawn into language and practices that shape his experiences and self­understanding from the ground up. From the beginning, this experience and understanding take the form of becoming a participant in “scenarios of dialogical action” (Taylor, 1991, p. 314). Taylor (1991, p. 314) elaborates this view by suggesting that “what gets internalized” is not simply social prohibitions as with Freud’s superego or, less narrowly, the perspective of another person as in G. H. Mead’s theory. Rather, it is “the whole conversation, with the inter-­animation of its voices” that is assimilated and joined. Through interaction with others, different aspects of one’s own experience emerge, “converse” with one another, and struggle toward some kind of accommodation. It is always an attitudinal or conversational stance toward diverse meanings or perspectives, not one single standpoint or another, that becomes part of my identity. Most theories of personality or psychotherapy discuss how personality is formed through internalizing the perspective or evaluations of others as part of the self. Such theories then are faced with the problem of making sense of how a central “I” relates to these introjected elements. This central “I,” however, seems to be modeled after the modern punctual self, which can relate to the internalized evaluations, representations, or “objects,” and so forth only by either arbitrarily submitting to their influence or treating them merely instrumentally, at arm’s length – a tragically limited set of “control or be controlled” options for relationship. The dialogical notion of internalizing the “whole conversation” and becoming a part of it opens up the possibility of an alternative to this stark dichotomy between dominating and being dominated in the affairs of the inner life. Reconciliation of the One and the Many A great many of the persistent and confusing dilemmas afflicting modern societies and the modern psyche seem to be illuminated by understanding them not simply as consequences of a one-­sided individualism, but more subtly as deriving from what Gunton (1993) calls a “revolt of the many against the one.” Modern conceptions and ideals of self and subjectivity represent enormous ethical gain coupled with grandiose pretenses to self-­sufficiency and autonomy that obscure our indebtedness to others, the real goods of life that have more to do with being than doing, and the need for a thread of ethical commitment or purpose, beyond expanding instrumental prowess and “negative liberty,” that may sustain us in the face of uncertainty and suffering. The path of disengagement from world and ­others and an overriding instrumental relation to them, it turns out, does not banish the one or some focus of unity but seems to displace it into

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false universals, seductive but ultimately shallow ideologies, and systems of anonymous, impersonal power that undercut independent thought and personal responsibility. A great deal of postmodern thought or social constructionist theory, intended to correct this situation, may only reproduce it. Its concern to dismantle radically all universals, including modern ones and endlessly liberate particulars from any sort of assimilation to the same can be carried out only from a radically disengaged point of view that actually tends to relativize, depersonalize, and homogenize these same particulars or the many, depriving them any sort of meaningful relationship or cross-­fertilization. It turns out to be quite difficult to find a genuine alternative to, on the one hand, stultification if not outright tyranny of the many by the one or, on the other hand, a path of disengagement and displacement that tends to produce a tragically comparable outcome. The hermeneutic and dialogical view we have sketched suggests a genuine alternative. It represents a certain picture of the conversation of humankind. The one is the cultural and historical life world comprising – using the terms we have developed for this purpose – dialogical selves from diverse communities and traditions, each presenting somewhat coherent kinds of strongly evaluated practices, ideals, and identities, most of them bound eventually to be caught up in processes of mutual influence and dialogue with others with all the tensions and challenges that entails. The process may be deformed by escapism, egoism, defensiveness, or a host of other “all too human” characterological failures, but the interplay and interconnectedness in some form remain. A hermeneutic ontology and Bakhtin’s dialogism portray this ongoing process as fundamental, inescapable, and never “finalized” (Bakhtin, 1981). So, this one is most basically characterized by variety, richness, and complexity. The focus of unity in this process, which need not compromise the integrity of individuals or particulars, is that of a more or less rough but recognizable narrative. MacIntyre (1981) asks: “In what does the unity of an individual life consist? His answer is that its unity is the unity of a narrative embodied in a single life.” It might also be characterized as the “unity of a narrative quest” (p. 203). The result of the struggle among different voices and values in our experience is a partly new interpretation or understanding of who we are in terms of where we are coming from, where we are headed, and what goods we seek. So the dialogical self is also a “storied self.” The “notion of ­a history or a narrative seems to be necessary in order to make sense of the notion of ‘self.’ For we make sense – or fail to make sense – of our lives by the kind of story we can  – or cannot  – tell about it.” In just this

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sense we are “accountable” to ourselves and others (Dunne, 1996, p. 146). As compared with many fictional narratives, the stories we enact are always open-­ended, shot through with accident, somewhat ambiguous, and ragged around the edges. But the idea of narrative allows us to capture the kind of coherence belonging to an engaged, partly decentered, dialogical self. That same notion of a rough, growing (or perhaps decaying) narrative allows us to explicate the kind of unity or coherence that obtains in whatever larger traditions we play a small but indispensable part. This is the role or part of the many in this scheme, namely that of finite, necessarily limited, but nevertheless free, creative, and responsible self-­interpreting beings. There is space for the many in this one. Their integrity is required, not compromised or quashed, by the larger enterprise.

Conclusion We live in a postmodern, skeptical, pluralistic, rapidly changing world that makes for an age of great, indeed unprecedented uncertainty. We are exposed on every hand to difference and disagreement, to a cacophony of diverse models and messages. It seems less possible than ever before to know how our children will turn out. Friends and intimates often grow or change in ways, often threatening, we could never have anticipated. We confront the “other” just as much within our own self or experience as without. The unprecedented number of perspectives, possibilities, and arguments we encounter by way of the Internet and mass communications stimulates us to think and feel in quite diverse ways. We feel the pull of inconsistent or clashing impulses, ambitions, convictions, obligations, goals, or pictures of the good life. It is hard to know whether to be permissive or judging, angry or patient, proud or modest, relaxed or hard-­driving, oriented toward self­seeking or service to others, and so on and so forth. A simple example is how a great many people seem to feel an ongoing, sharp, and frequently quite painful tension between family and work. Many people sense a significant spiritual vacuum or a void in meaning in modern life. Some of them respond by turning to an established religion of some sort, and others by crafting an idiosyncratic spiritual orientation or path of their own. An appreciation of the great faiths of the Axial Age (Taylor, 2007) in their original and highest forms, as cultivating a kind of highly self-­responsible individualism, a “drive to reform,” and a ­metaphysical outlook stressing the profound “strong relational” interplay of meanings and events in the world, might facilitate such a spiritual turn. This view of the faiths undercuts the sort of modern dogmatism

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that treats all religious believers as simply credulous or submissive and heedlessly exalts a kind of self-­contained individualism that appears to be seriously flawed. Many others, of course, find any such notions of God or transcendence implausible and not life-­enhancing. They may prefer a kind of secular, stoic courage in the face of mortality and tragedy coupled with a concern for social justice and other cultural goods as the paramount form of human integrity and dignity. Many of us feel both poignant religious and sharp anti-­religious inclinations that are difficult to reconcile. With effort, individuals may resolve this sort of tension fairly satisfactorily, but neither view nor any of their many variants is likely ever to win out decisively in a postmodern cultural universe. Great uncertainty about these most basic human questions will surely persist indefinitely. Coping with such uncertainty presents an enormous challenge. Perhaps the two most common ways of failing to measure up to this challenge are dogmatism and cynicism. Religious fundamentalisms and rigid, polarizing political ideologies, rife in the modern world, represent the kind of dogmatism that forecloses on uncertainty by forcefully insisting on the unquestionable or final truth of some system of belief or code of conduct. But it is difficult to hold to such a position. One is continually confronted with difference, with other people and viewpoints that clash with one’s own but are hard to portray consistently as entirely unreasonable or implausible. They stimulate the seeds of diverse convictions or values that are present in all of us. Trying to suppress them by defensively, angrily intensifying the dogmatism tends to destroy any peace of mind it might have afforded. Likewise, it is relatively easy to fall into some form of utter skepticism or cynicism in the face of unending uncertainty. One may at least try to give up the quest for any sort of clarity, conviction, or sense of meaning under these circumstances and remain detached or seek just to live in the moment. However, it actually is quite hard truly to abandon the quest. Virtually all of us form some convictions along the way about what amounts to a better or good life for us and for humans in general, in an ethical or spiritual sense, and these ideals seem essential to whatever sense of purpose or self-­respect we acquire. Resorting to cynicism often puts us into debilitating conflict with ourselves and those we love and undermines any protection or resolution we thought it might afford. If this kind of analysis of the human struggle makes any sense, it ­would seem that the path of dialogue, dialogic understanding, and a storied self we have outlined in this chapter might represent a genuine third alternative to dogmatism and cynicism. It might speak convincingly to our need for a way

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to live creatively in a context of inescapable pluralism and uncertainty. In Taylor’s (2002) terms, it comprises an ongoing process of “identity investment” and “identity loss” that requires as much openness and humility as it does personal strength and courageous persistence. Major disappointments and mistakes may speak to the uncertainty of the path and our inability to see very far ahead. But they need not lead to failure or despair in that they often, in retrospect, are the occasion for essential life learning or needed greater wisdom. It is the process, rather than any enduring product, that is important on this view. Subjectivity now means “shared agency” (Taylor, 1991, p. 311), which has a “shared being and a mutual constitution” (Slife, 2005, p. 2). The experience and quality of this relational being is what is most important and can compensate for the loss of an inflated modern sense of individual autonomy along with any possibility of final or certain truth about human life. Alfred Adler captured this sense of things many years ago when he wrote, “We are not concerned with the possession of truth, but with the struggle for it.” References Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogical imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin (Michael Holquist, Ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.   (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics, Caryl Emerson (ed. & trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bell, D. (1978). The cultural contradictions of capitalism. New York: Basic Books. Bernstein, R. J. (1976). The restructuring of social and political theory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Borg, M. (1987). The God we never knew. San Francisco: Harper/San Francisco. Christensen, L. (1999). Suffering and the dialectical self in Buddhism and relational psychoanalysis. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 59: 37–56. Christopher, J. (1996). Counseling’s inescapable moral visions. Journal of Counseling & Development, 75: 17–25. Cresswell, J. (2011). Being faithful: Bakhtin and a potential postmodern psychology of self. Culture & Psychology, 17: 473–90. Cushman, P. (1990). Why the self is empty. American Psychologist, 45: 599–611. De Peuter, J. (1998). The dialogics of narrative identity. In M. Bell & M. Gardiner (Eds.), Bakhtin and the human sciences: No last words (pp.  30–48). London: SAGE. Dreyfus, H. (1987). Foucault’s therapy. PsychCritique, 2: 65–83. Dunne, J. (1996). Beyond sovereignty and deconstruction: The storied self. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 21: 137–57. Flax, J. (1990). Thinking fragments: Psychoanalysis, feminism, & postmodernism ­in the contemporary west. Berkeley: University of California Press. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings (Colin Gordon, Ed.). New York: Pantheon.

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MacIntyre, A. (1981). After virtue. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.   (1988). Moral pluralism without moral relativism. Paper delivered at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, MA, August 10–16. Mill, J. (1991). On liberty and other essays (J. Gray, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neal, P. (1990). Justice as fairness. Political Theory, 18: 24–50. Oughourlian, J-­M. (1991). The puppet of desire (E. Webb, Trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Pippen, R. (1990). Modernism as a philosophical problem. Oxford: Blackwell. Richardson, F. (2005). Psychotherapy and modern dilemmas. In B. Slife, J. Reber, & F. Richardson (Eds.), Critical thinking about psychology: Hidden assumptions and plausible alternatives (pp.  17–38). Washington, D.C: American Psychological Association. Richardson, F., & Fowers, B. (1998). Towards a dialogical self. American Behavioral Scientist, 41: 496–515. Richardson, F., & Manglos, N. (2012). Rethinking instrumentalism. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17: 462–72. Richardson, F., & Nelson, J. (2009). Suffering and psychology. Paper delivered at the biannual meeting of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Miami, FL, February 23–26. Richardson, F., & Woolfolk, R. (1994). Social theory and values: A hermeneutic perspective. Theory and Psychology, 4(2): 199–226. Root, M. (1993). Philosophy of social science. Oxford: Blackwell. Rorty, R. (1982). Consequences of pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sacks, J. (2002). The dignity of difference: How to avoid the clash of civilizations. London: Continuum. Sandel, M. (1996). Democracy’s discontent: America in search of a public philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Selznick, P. (1992). The moral commonwealth. Berkeley: University of California Press. Shotter, J., & Billig, M. (1998). A Bakhtinian psychology: From out of the heads of individuals and into the dialogues between them. In M. Bell & M. Gardiner ( Eds.), Bakhtin and the human sciences: No last words (pp. 13–29). London: SAGE. Slife, B. (2004). Taking practices seriously: Toward a relational ontology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 24: 157–78. Slife, B., & Richardson, F. (2008). Problematic ontological underpinnings of ­positive psychology. Theory & Psychology, 18: 699–723. Slife, B., Smith, A., & Burchfield, C. (2003). Psychotherapists as crypto-­missionaries: An exemplar on the crossroads of history, theory, and philosophy. In D. Hill & M. Krall (Eds.), About psychology: At the crossroads of history, theory, and philosophy (pp. 55–72). Albany: State University of New York Press. Smith, H. (1991). The world’s religions: Our great wisdom traditions (Rev. Ed.). New York: HarperCollins.

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Sullivan, W. (1986). Reconstructing public philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Taylor, C. (1975). Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (1985a). The diversity of goods. In Philosophy and the human sciences: Philosophical papers, Vol. 2. (pp. 230–47). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (1985b). Interpretation and the sciences of man. In Philosophy and the human sciences: Philosophical papers, Vol. 2. (pp.  15–57). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (1985c). Social theory as practice. In Philosophy and the human sciences: Philosophical papers, Vol. 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (1988). The moral topography of the self. In S. Messer, L. Sass, & R. Woolfolk (Eds.), Hermeneutics and psychological theory: Interpretative perspectives on personality, psychotherapy, and psychopathology (pp. 288–320). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.   (1989). Sources of the self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.   (1991). The dialogical self. In J. Bohman, D. Hiley, & R. Schusterman (Eds.). The interpretive turn (pp. 301–14). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.   (1995). Philosophical arguments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.   (2002). Gadamer and the human sciences. In R. Dostal ,(Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Gadamer (pp. 126–42). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (2007). A secular age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Thirlwell, A. (2011, June 9). Visionary materialism. The New Republic, 27–31. Tocqueville, A. (1969). Democracy in America. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. (Original work published in 1835.) Warnke, G. (1987). Gadamer: Hermeneutics, tradition, and reason. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Wolfe, A. (1989). Whose keeper? Social science and moral obligation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Woolfolk, R. (1998). The cure of souls. San Francisco: Jossey-­Bass. Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language (A. Kozulin, Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

2 A Multivoiced and Dialogical Self and the Challenge of Social Power in a Globalizing World Hubert J. M. Hermans

In a review of the history of globalization, Scheuerman (2010) notes ­that although the term globalization has become commonplace only in the last half of the twentieth century, intellectual discourse has been replete with allusions to phenomena akin to globalization since the advent of industrial capitalism. Philosophers and social commentators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries observed that experiences of distance and space are radically transformed by the emergence of high-­speed forms of transportation and communication, which dramatically enhanced the possibilities for human interaction across existing geographical and political divides. The resulting compression of space was well articulated in 1839 by an English journalist, who commented on the implications of rail travel by assuming that as distance was “annihilated, the surface of our country would, as it were, shrivel in size until it became not much bigger than one immense city” (Harvey, 1996, p. 242; quoted by Scheuerman). In a more poetic way, Heinrich Heine, the German-­Jewish poet who spent the last twenty-­five years of his life in Paris, noted: “Space is killed by the railways. I feel as if the mountains and forests of all countries were advancing on Paris. Even now, I can smell the German linden trees; the North Sea’s breakers are rolling against my door” (Schivelbusch, 1978, p. 34, quoted by Scheuerman). However, many commentators will argue that globalization already started long before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and can be seen as one of its later culminations. A (very) long-­term view on globalization could refer to a wide variety of historical developments, such as the early spread of Buddhism over large parts of Asia that started several centuries before Christ, the expansion of Islam from the Western Mediterranean to India during 650–850, the rise of Genghis Khan and the creation of long­distance routes across Eurasia in the period 1100–1200, Columbus’s travel to the West and da Gama’s travel to the East in the “age of discovery”(fifteenth 41

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to seventeenth centuries), inaugurating an age of European overseas ­empires. Many other and later expansions and their corresponding economic, commercial, military, religious, and ideological developments can be listed.1 Apparently it is possible to take a short-­term or long-­term perspective on globalization, each of which leads to its specific sources of information. Irrespective of this historical diversity, it is evident that, in the present era, we are living in an age of accelerating globalization. We live in an increasingly interconnected world society in which the idea of separate, internally coherent, and stable cultures becomes increasingly irrelevant. The increasing “compression” of the world-­space is drawing people from different cultural origins into close relationships, as can be seen, for example, in the expansion of tourism as the biggest industry in the world, the emergence of new geographical unities (e.g., the European Community, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the unification of South American countries in Mercosur), the flourishing of multinational corporations, the widespread dissemination of pop culture, the growing number of international educational institutions, the increasing flow of migrations, the growth of diasporas, the explosion of Internet communities, and the creation of global institutions (e.g., the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations). The increasing compression of our life space coexists with an unprecedented worldwide interconnectedness as exemplified by the increasing impact of new technologies that lead to intensified communication and media exposure. Technological innovations such as e-­mail, SMS, iPhones, iPads, Skype, and other devices result in the decrease or even removal of spatial distances. The long list of border crossings and transnational contacts could easily and erroneously suggest that globalization, with its enlarged array of communication possibilities, would naturally lead to a “communicative Walhalla” in which unlimited knowledge and information leads to the welfare and well-­being of everybody. Such a naive form of “global optimism” would reflect a form of ignorance about what could be called the crucial problem of our time, which can be succinctly formulated by the question: How can individuals and groups, who are more and more brought together in the compressed space of a globalizing society, find an answer to their apparent differences, as originating from their different cultural backgrounds and different historical circumstances? Can people deal with each other and with themselves when they are living in the same space, where 1 Retrieved from: ­http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dludden/global1.htm (Accessed February 2011).

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they are so nearby or even close together, that they can no longer ­avoid being confronted with their apparent heterogeneity? It is this question that we explore in this chapter. More specifically, my purpose is to link the social processes taking place between individuals to the “social” processes within the self. I interconnect society (between people) and the self (within people) by considering the self (or identity) as a “society of mind,” as proposed by Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans & Hermans-­Konopka, 2010). One of the central tenets of this theory is that what happens between people also takes place within the (semipermeable) boundaries of a multivoiced self. Apparently, people negotiate with each other, but they are also able to negotiate with themselves; they can criticize each other but also criticize themselves; they can consult each other but also themselves; they are able to love or hate each other but they can also love or hate themselves. This exploration is based on the assumption that that they can deal with the differences between each other better if they are able to deal with the differences within themselves. Along these lines, I explore the possibilities of dialogical relationships that individuals and groups, as members of a globalizing society, develop with each other, with special attention to the possibilities of entertaining dialogical relationships with themselves. To put it briefly, when it is worthy to work on a more dialogical world, it is equally worthy to work on a dialogical self. In this chapter, I explore not only the prospects of internal and external dialogical relationships but also their constraints. By considering the constraints and limitations of dialogue, we know better under which conditions dialogue is changing into monologue and vice versa. Just as we can learn more about our freedom by investigating the factors that determine us, we can better evaluate the possibilities of dialogue when we know the nature of monologue.

Global–Local Dialectics As Featherstone and Lash (1995) argue, two main contestants can be distinguished in the early globalization debates: “homogenizers” (e.g., Giddens, 1990), who consider globalization as a consequence of modernity, and “heterogenizers” (e.g., Said, 1978), who see globalization as a feature of postmodernity. Whereas homogenizers are searching primarily for the presence of universals, heterogenizers tend to dispute the validity of universals and question the existence of a unified world system. As long as there was a dominance of the “West over the Rest,” they considered it as simply one particular system over another system or, in other words, as the dominance of one locality

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over another. In agreement with the heterogenizers’ point ­of view, the process of globalization can be analyzed properly only when its counterpart, localization, is taken into account. As part of an accelerating process of globalization, different local cultures, with their own histories, traditions, and value systems, are getting in touch with each other and, as a consequence, become involved in a variety of relationships, including a power relationship as one of the most decisive ones. As the work of Foucault (1980) has demonstrated, heterogenizers are highly skeptical about the existence of universal truth, one of the favorite assumptions of a modernist world view. They see truth not as a something objective, which is there to be discovered by a detached observer, but as “defined truth,” context­dependent and historically bound, with a particular individual, group, or institution as having the power to define what is “true” and what is not. Depending on their position in society, the power-­holders not only define what is the proper or “right” definition, but also impose this definition on others. A speaking example of a heterogeneous world with power relationships between different cultures is immigration, which leads to a situation in which newcomers are challenged to maintain, defend, or redefine the culture of their original locality against the dominant definitions of the host culture. The Coexistence of Globalization and Localization The idea that the global and the local are not mutually exclusive but rather coexistent can also be found in discussions of the process of civilization. Wilkinson (1995), for example, proposed that on earth only one civilization exists: a single, global civilization. This civilization has its origin about 1500 BC in the Near East, when Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations collided and fused. In this very long-­term conception of globalization, the original civilization has since then expanded over the entire planet and absorbed all other civilizations that were previously independent (e.g., Japanese, Chinese, and the West). To underscore the coexistence of globalization and localization, Wilkinson proposes a transactional definition of civilization and considers connectedness rather than uniformity as the main criterion for placing the local in the context of the global. When people interact intensely, significantly, and continuously, he reasons, they belong to the same civilization, “even if their cultures are very dissimilar and their interactions mostly hostile” (Wilkinson, 1995, p. 47). Indeed, when there is conflict, hostility, and even warfare, the contestants and opponents can no longer live in total isolation. Forms of antagonistic bonding can be ­observed in religious and social conflicts and are even expressed in language

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itself. Words such as “contradiction,” “argument,” “disagreement,” “drama,” “dissonance,” “collision,” “war,” and “social power” assume the existence of entities that consist of oppositions between persons, groups, ideas, and desires: “Israel and Judah, the Homeric pantheon, Congress, counterrai­ ding tribes, the two-­party system, the Seven Against Thebes, a Punch and Judy show, and the Hitler–Stalin pact are all antagonistic couples and collections of separate entities commonly recognized as internally antagonistic unities” (Wilkinson, 1995: 48–9). Such antagonistic unities exist and develop as continuous processes of positioning and counter-­positioning in relationships that are fused with social power. Globalization and Dialogue So, instead of considering globalization as a process of increasing uniformity, it makes sense to see it as an intense interconnection of the global and the local with increasing contact zones between different local cultures (Hermans & Kempen, 1998). Similarly, civilization is not to be understood in terms of increasing homogenization, but rather as a process in which different or even antagonistic cultural groups are meeting each other or confronting each other as part of an interconnected world society. Instead of giving up their differences and specific value systems, cultural groups are becoming increasingly aware of their specific traditions and value systems and, as an expression of their localizing tendencies, are motivated to articulate, preserve, or even defend them. Even if one would see, in the speedy spread of communication technology across countries and cultures, a tendency toward homogeneity and uniformity, such devices do not take away that they provide the users adequate means to express and communicate their specific identities, values, and cherished traditions. Seeing globalization and civilization as processes that increasingly take place at contact zones where differences meet each other has at least two far-­reaching implications. First, as part of one encompassing civilization and as participating in a process of boundary-­crossing globalization, different groups and cultures – intensely interconnected as they are by growing international contacts and transnational institutions, modern technology, media, and transportation as never before – can no longer avoid the necessity of dialogue. When different individuals, groups, and cultures belong, more than ever, to an intensely interconnected world system, there must be a form of interaction that enables individuals and groups to deal with their differences, conflicts, and misunderstandings. Second, the global–­local dynamics and civilization as consisting of differentiated and antagonistic

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unities recognizes the important role of social power in intercultural and intergroup relationships, as exemplified by economic exploitation of the natural resources of local communities, forms of capitalistic and economic exploitation, discrimination of immigrant groups, and the emergence of dual economies and digital divides (Stiglitz, 2002). In such contexts the less powerful groups are seen as inferior or serviceable and their voices are neglected or even silenced. Where inequality, suppression, and injustice reign, monological relationships prevent the less privileged individuals and groups to articulate and communicate their experiences from their own specific point of view. In light of these considerations, the difference between dialogical and monological relationships is a point of attention in the present chapter.

Self as a Society of Mind Central to the present chapter is the view that not only different cultural groups are involved in a process of globalization, but also the internal dynamics of the self of the individual person is part of this (Hermans & Dimaggio, 2007). When society is globalizing, the self is too. When society is becoming more complex, the self, as an intrinsic part of society, is reflecting this complexity and is challenged to give an answer. Stronger, we conceive of the self as a “society of mind” (see also Minsky, 1985), which, at the same time, functions as part of the society at large and changes together with it.2 Society, from its side, is not “surrounding” the self as an external “determinant,” but is a society-­of-­selves, to which the self gives its original contribution, as Mead (1934) already argued in his classic work Mind, Self and Society. An important consequence of this view is that changes and developments in the self lead to changes and developments in society at large and reversed. In other words, self and society are not mutually exclusive but inclusive (Hermans, 2001). The advantage of this view is that it avoids the pitfall of treating the self as individualized and ­self-­contained

2 Computer scientist Minsky (1985) developed a model in which the mind is considered a ­hierarchically organized network of interconnected parts that together function as a “society.” There is, however, an important difference between Minsky’s conception and Dialogical Self Theory. Whereas Minsky uses “society” as a metaphor for the internal functioning of the mind in the context of artificial intelligence, DST is focused on the self as functioning as part of the society at large, as exemplified by the processes of globalization and localization. Moreover, DST sees the self as emerging from historical processes (Hermans & Hermans-­Konopka, 2010, chapters 1 and 2).

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(Sampson, 1985; Valsiner, 2002), and society and culture as abstract and self-­less (Shweder, 1991). Dominance and Social Power Many contemporary theories of the self, although they increasingly acknow­ ledge multiplicity and differences as its intrinsic features, often lack insight in the power structures of the society at large on the one hand, and, corres­ pondingly, in the “mini-­society” of the self. In a critical discussion of the literature on the self, sociologist Callero (2003) listed a number of concepts that are of central concern to mainstream psychology, such as self-­enhancement, self-­consistency, self-­monitoring, self-­efficacy, self-­presentation, self­verification, self-­knowledge, self-­regulation, self-­control, self-­handicapping, and self-­deception. In his comment on these concepts, he raises the issue of social power: . . . the self that is socially constructed is never a bounded quality of the individual or a simple expression of psychological characteristics; it is a fundamentally social phenomenon, where concepts, images, and understandings are deeply determined by relations of power. Where these principles are ignored or rejected, the self is often conceptualized as a vessel for storing all the particulars of the person.” (Callero, 2003, p. 127).

In apparent contrast to theories built on the notion of self-­contained individualism, dialogical views on the self acknowledge that social power and dominance play a role in everyday life. Instead of alien to dialogue, dominance and social power are intrinsic features of it, as the following analyses will show. Collective Voices Speak through Individual Voices At first sight, one may assume that the dialogical intentions of the self are expressed by an individual voice that emanates from an individual self (“I am speaking”). However, for a proper understanding of the self as participating in a broader societal context, this view would be essentially incomplete. For recognizing the impact of power differences in society and in the mini-­society of the self, the notion of collective voice is indispensable. As Bakhtin (1986) proposed, an individual speaker’s utterance is not simply emanating from an isolated, decontextualized voice speaking in a neutral space. Rather, individual voices are deeply penetrated by the value systems of institutions, groups, and communities in which they ­participate.

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Collective voices – as manifested in professional jargon and as expressed by authorities, social circles, dialects, national languages, and social expectations – partly determine what an individual voice is saying. An important consequence of this view is that power differences between the collective voices of a particular community appear as power differences or struggles between positions in the self. An illustrative example of power struggles between collective voices and their influence on individual voices is provided by the postcolonialist writer Edward Said (1999). He was born as a Palestinian, received his education in an English school in Egypt, and later immigrated to the United states (for extensive discussion, see Bhatia, 2002). The British staff who were running the colonial school in Egypt where Said received his training viewed the Arab boys as similar to delinquents who needed discipline and punishment. The teachers made use of a handbook with rules that were intended to educate the Arab students so that they would become like the British. Said describes how the boys resisted the rules of the handbook by invoking, in their selves, an Arab counter-­position: Rule 1 stated categorically: “English is the language of the school. Anyone caught speaking other languages will be severely punished.” So Arabic became our haven, a criminalized discourse where we took refuge from the world of masters and complicit prefects and anglicized older boys who lorded it over us as enforcers of the hierarchy and its rules. Because of Rule 1 we spoke more, rather than less, Arabic, as an act of defiance against what seemed then, and seems even more so now, an arbitrary, ludicrously gratuitous symbol of their power. (Bhatia, 2002, p. 184)

As this quotation suggests, power struggles between collective voices on the level of the institution have their impact on the selves of the members of a minority group and lead to opposing positions in the self (“I as an Arabic” vs. “I as educated in an English school”). As a result of the hard discipline imposed by the colonial staff, the Arab position in the self of the boys was not simply repressed but rather emphasized as a counter-­position that had to be defended and maintained in the service of the continuity of the pupils’ selves. Dialogue and Dominance Dialogue is often, implicitly or explicitly, understood in contrast to dominance or social power. A closer look, however, shows that turn-­taking dialogue includes, and even needs, relative dominance of the ­speakers involved. As Linell (1990) argued, there is asymmetry between the speakers

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in each individual act–response sequence. When speakers are involved in a process of turn-­taking, they can communicate in comprehensible ways only if they have a chance to take initiatives and display their own point of view. The actors continually alternate the roles of speaker and listener. As speakers they are more dominating and as listeners less dominating in determining the content and course of the conversation. The parties have several possibilities to control the “territory” of exchange. One of the participants can be more dominant by just speaking more than the other participant (amount of talk), or may take the most initiatory moves (interactional dominance), introduce new topics or new perspectives on topics (topic dominance), or take the most strategic moves (strategic dominance). As these examples show, relative dominance is not alien to dialogue, but rather an intrinsic feature of turn-­taking behavior. It is necessary for a well-­ordered verbal or nonverbal dialogue that requires a certain degree of organization. Moreover, there is, on the content level, a very simple reason why dominance is a feature of dialogical communication: one person knows more about a particular topic or has more experience in a particular field and, as a result, has more influence on the conversation when such a topic is discussed. The Dialogical Self as a Dynamic Multiplicity of I-­Positions Along the lines described in the preceding sections, we have proposed the composite concept of “dialogical self ” (Hermans & Hermans-­Konopka, 2010; Hermans, Kempen, & Van Loon, 1992). In this concept, two basic terms, self and dialogue, that are usually seen as originating from different psychological or philosophical traditions are brought together in a new and fertile conceptual combination. The self has strong historical roots in American pragmatism, represented by theorists such as William James, George H. Mead, and Charles Pierce, while dialogue is a central concept in the writings of influential figures in European traditions, such as Mikhail Bakhtin and Martin Buber. Traditionally, self and dialogue are concepts that are seen as representing opposites on the internal–external axis. Whereas the self is considered, at least in Western traditions, as a reflexive concept that refers to processes that happen “internally,” that is, within the person, dialogue is typically taking place “externally,” that is, between the person and the other. By bridging the two concepts in the “dialogical self,” the between is interiorized into the within and, in reverse, the within infuses the between. As a ­consequence, the self does not have an existence separate from society but becomes, as

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a “society of mind,” deeply contextualized in the society at large. In this way, we try to escape any antinomy or separation between self and society. Dialogical relationships, like monological ones, can take place both in society and in the self. Briefly stated, the dialogical self can be conceived of as a dynamic multiplicity of I-­positions. As a “mini-­society” the self emerges from its intrinsic contact with the (social) environment and is bound to particular positions in time and space. As a spatiotemporal phenomenon, the embodied I has the possibility to move from one position to another in accordance with changes in situation and time. Involved in processes of positioning, repositioning, and counter-­positioning, the I fluctuates among different and even opposed positions (both within the self and between self and perceived or imagined others) and these positions are involved in relationships of dominance and social power. As part of sign-­mediated social relationships, positions can be voiced so that dialogical relations among them can develop. The voices behave like interacting characters in a story or movie, involved in processes of question and answer, agreement and disagreement, conflicts and struggles, negotiations and integrations. Each of them has a story to tell about their own experiences from their own perspective. As different voices, these characters exchange knowledge and information about their respective Me’s, creating a complex, multivoiced, narratively structured self. The central notion of Dialogical Self Theory, I-­position, acknowledges both the multiplicity of the self and its coherence and unity. Subjected to changes in time and space, the self is intrinsically involved in a process of positioning, repositioning, and counter-­positioning. As such it is distributed by a wide variety of existing, new, and possible positions (decentering movements). At the same time, the I appropriates some of them and rejects others (see also James, 1890). In this way, the self is involved in a process of organizing positions as parts of a coherent structure (centering movements). The “appropriated” parts are experienced as “belonging to me” or as “mine.” They are experienced as belonging to the internal domain of the self (e.g., I as father, I as teacher, I as discriminated) or to the external or extended domain of the self (e.g., my father, my mother, my teacher, my colleague, the group to which I belong). This organization and stabilization guarantees a certain degree of coherence and continuity in the self. A central point in the theory is that the self has the potential to process I-­positions in dialogical or monological ways. By placing I-­positions in a dialogical framework and elaborating on them in “dialogical ­spaces,” both within and between selves, they are “lifted up” to the level of mutual enrichment and alterity. As part of dialogical relations, I-­positions are

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recognized in their autonomy and are allowed to speak with their own voice. This applies both to internal and external positions. As part of this polyphony of voices, the other person is considered as “another I,” that is, as an I-­position in the extended domain of the self. When the positions are allowed to express themselves from their own specific points of view, they are respected as dialogical partners in the “democracy” of the self (Hermans & Hermans-­Konopka, 2010). When speaking about internal and external dialogues, we should take into account that there are also differences between them. The internal ones are typically less systematic, less organized, more abbreviated, and more impulsive than external dialogues. In a thorough discussion of “inner speech,” Wiley (2006) observed that this form of speech is both simpler and more complex than outer speech. It is simpler in both semantics and syntax, using fewer words and fewer parts of speech, and making more jumps from the one part to another. On the other hand, inner speech incorporates many extralinguistic elements – visual imagery; tactile sensations; emotions; kinesthetics; and even smells, tastes, and sounds – which make it more complex than outer speech. However, despite significant differences between internal and external dialogues, there is a basic similarity in that voices play a constitutive role in both of them. Voices are basic in both external and internal dialogue (although it is important to note that there are also forms of nonverbal dialogue or encounter; see Hermans & Hermans-­Konopka, 2010). And in the self as a society, one voice may be stronger, louder, and more influential than another. Like external voices, internal ones may be silenced, suppressed, or marginalized. Globalization and Identity Confusion Given the basic similarity of self and society, the complexity that results from globalization is reflected in the self. The contemporary self is confronted with an increasing density and heterogeneity of positions in the self and, consequently, has to face the experience of uncertainty (Hermans & Dimaggio, 2007). Focusing on the psychology of globalization, Arnett (2002) noted that adolescents and adults increasingly have to face the challenge of adapting not only to their local culture but also to the global society. As a consequence of globalization, many people develop bicultural or multicultural identities. Whereas part of their identity is rooted in ­their local culture, another part is attuned to the global situation. Or, they develop hybrid identities, successfully combining elements of global

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and local situations in a mix. However, Arnett presents data that show that many youngsters, particularly those in non-­Western cultures, experience forms of “identity confusion.” As their local cultures are challenged and changed as a result of globalization, they are living in different “worlds,” feeling at home neither in their local situation nor in the global context (for an illustrative example, see Van Meijl, 2006, who described the identity confusion of Maori youngsters in New Zealand). Hierarchical Position Repertoires Not surprisingly, identity confusion, and its implied uncertainty, increases the need for clarity, purpose, and direction in life. As a protection, or even defense, against the multiplicity of voices on the global–local interface, people retreat to social groups or traditions that liberate them from the multiplicity of voices that may end up in a confusing cacophony. An illustrative example may be found in fundamentalist movements or orthodox religions. In a study of Jewish orthodoxy, Kaufman (1991) was interested in women who grew up in secular Jewish homes in the United States but felt after some time that the secular values of their education did not give them sufficient foundation for finding their direction in life. They converted, in their teens or twenties, to Orthodox Judaism despite the restrictions that traditional beliefs place on women. They arrived at this turning point in the conviction that the orthodox religion helped them to find a meaningful place in the world and made them feel rooted in a long, durable tradition. In an analysis of the emergence of fundamentalist movements in Western and non-­Western societies, Arnett (2002) discussed Kaufman’s study in the broader context of globalization. He argued that many of these movements emerged in the late twentieth century as a reaction to the changes caused by globalization. Indeed, for a considerable part, the upsurge of these movements can be seen as localizing counter-­forces to the process of globalization. They lead to a stabilized and tightly organized position repertoire that is based on a belief in a sacred past, a social hierarchy of authority of men over women, adults over children, and God over all (Arnett, 2002 ; Marty & Appleby, 1993). On the interface of self and society, it may be clarifying to make a distinction between two kinds of organization of the self, a vertical and a horizontal one. Communication lines in a vertical organization are ­going top-­down or bottom up. The position at the top of the pyramid determines the course of action and spreads its demands or decisions to the repertoire as a whole. The lower positions have to conform to the demands of the higher position,

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which takes responsibility for the self as a whole. The lower positions, in their turn, report their experiences to the position in authority, which then checks if the lower ones are in agreement or disagreement with the directives coming from the higher level. If they are not in agreement, the higher position gives top-­down messages to make the lower ones adapt to the guidelines of the higher position. In a horizontal organization of the self, on the contrary, there is no top position that organizes all other positions from a totalizing or unifying point of view. Rather, the different positions have a certain degree of autonomy that enables them to communicate with other positions from their own specific point of view and to take their own wishes and needs into account. They have a certain freedom to create new combinations and coalitions in direct interchange with each other. Whereas vertically organized selves make movements from the top to the bottom and back, horizontally organized selves have space to make movements to different sides, that is, they directly address other positions in the self with the possibility of innovative interchanges and decision making. The vertical and horizontal types of organization are also reflected in the ways in which selves interact with other selves as part of the larger society. Vertically organized selves may create new communities or participate in existing ones on the basis of commonalities in the top position (“We all believe in the same God” or “We all believe in the ideals of the same leader”). This top position is shared by all adherents of the same social or religious movement with the simultaneous existence of sharp boundaries between their own institutions and those that share a different top position (in case of a different religion, political conviction, or ideological belief). Selves that are organized in horizontal ways have more openness for responding to the selves of other people on the basis of the needs of a variety of positions. They can, for example, create communities that are liberated from the constraints of the dictates of the top positions in the self and they can do so on the basis of their social preferences, sexual orientations, gender ideals, physical needs, and political preferences without the forced coherence originating from any top position. Whereas the vertically organized self, with its centralized power structure, shows similarities to an authoritarian state (Greenwald, 1980), the horizontally organized self, with its decentralized power structure, resembles a democratic state. Like in a democratic society or institution, the horizontally structured self has, more than the vertically structured self, space for dialogical relationships ­both within the self and between different selves. Two remarks have to be added to the proposed distinction between two kinds of organization of the self. The first one is that social power and

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dominance are never absent, neither in society nor in the self, as we have argued earlier in this chapter. When different positions in the self meet each other, there is always a certain degree of asymmetry as the one position has knowledge that the other position does not have or one position has a more established place and, as a consequence, has a more authoritative (rather than authoritarian) say in the community of voices in the self (Stiles, 1999). Second, the distinction is an ideal-­typical construction. In everyday life, there exist many mixtures of the two forms of organization. For example, many institutions that call themselves “democratic” may actively foster the creativity and responsibility of their employees by celebrating the ideology of a flat organization structure. However, at the same time, financial or economic problems may force them to take top­down decisions that run contrary to the needs or interests of many of their employees. Or, to remain closer to the self, a person may have learned to listen carefully to the needs of the various positions in his own self, but nevertheless finds it necessary to be “strong” when his survival is at stake, thereby overruling other positions and their specific needs.

How Can the Self Be Continuous in a Discontinuous Society? The increasing frequency of border-­crossings, contacts, and clashes between cultural groups, immigration waves, and the emergence of diasporas creates an increasing discontinuity in the self as part of a changing society. The self, however, is not only a reflection of developments and changes in society, but also responds to them from an agentic point of view (Falmagne, 2004). It is challenged to give an answer to a situation that, in one way or another, is disorganizing existing social patterns and traditional ways of interaction. From a theoretical point of view, it should be emphasized that the self is not only positioned, that is, subjected to social and societal changes, but also involved in an active process of positioning and counter-­positioning. These processes do not take place in a totally free space but are driven by basic motives or needs. An example of a Pakistani family (Hermans & Dimaggio, 2007) may serve as an illustration of the relevance of ­“motivated positioning.” A Pakistani family that emigrated to England is still attached to its original cultural background and deeply affected by the fact they are not accepted for who they are by the dominant communities in the host country. The collective voice of the majority culture is critical and urges them to

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assimilate. At the same time, however, there is an inner voice, deeply rooted in the collective voices of their original culture, that motivates them to stay faithful to their origin. This traditional voice is supported and fed by the stories, myths, and autobiographical memories associated with their attachment history. Their original culture gives them security and certainty of affective belonging. In this field of tension, they must find a way to negotiate between their wish to be accepted by the host culture and their adherence to their original culture. They are forced to negotiate among the several contrasting voices to find a dialogical solution. Securitizing Subjectivity The example in the preceding section illustrates the process of globalization as creating new and intense fields of tensions between global and local positions, resulting in differences, conflicts, and oppositions between voices. To arrive at workable solutions, these voices require dialogical interchanges both within and between different selves. At the interface of differing and opposing voices, biological survival needs are at stake. When these needs are frustrated, they restrict the flexibility of the self and make it defensive, as such needs have a strong urgency and tend to dominate the position repertoire as a whole. Such restricting reactions actually take place not only in immigrants but also in representatives of the host cultures when they feel overwhelmed by “intruders.” The motivated nature of the process of positioning, and its dialogical and monological manifestations, is particularly prominent when globalization brings people into situations in which their needs for safety, security, and certainty are challenged. This idea is central in the notion of “securitizing subjectivity” as proposed by Kinnvall and Linden (2010). These authors observe that in situations of ontological insecurity, attempts are made to securitize subjectivity, expressed in an intensified search for one stable, strictly demarcated, and essentialized identity. Securitizing subjectivity is manifested in black-­and-­white categorizations, totalizing forms of thinking, and religious or secular modes of fundamentalism. It is also expressed in psychic rigidity, such as intolerance for ambiguity and a rejection of an artistic way of looking at reality. Securitizing subjectivity strives for the ­certainty that there is coherence and stability in a world that is otherwise fragmenting and threatening. In insecure social situations, people tend to retreat to familiar symbols offered by nation, religion, and gender. In some cases, the need for roots and certainty finds expression in a retreat to a mythical past (Kinnvall & Linden, 2010).

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The Creation of Continuity by a Multivoiced Dialogical Self How does the self, on the interface of globalization and localization, respond to experiences of increased discontinuity? We can search for an answer to this question by looking how persons organize or reorganize their position repertoire in specific situations of discontinuity or disorganization. An illustrative example is the case of rapid immigration to Ireland some years ago. As O’Sullivan-­Lago and de Abreu (2010) describe, Ireland is traditionally a country of mass emigration but a dramatic change occurred in 1995 when the country became economically more prosperous. Statistics show that no European country had immigration figures that paralleled those of Ireland. The authors note that, as a result of the sudden increase in immigration and resulting local visibility of other cultures and ethnic groups, the previously more homogeneous country was subjected to cultural change on a grand scale. In this particular situation, the investigators explored, in a number of case studies, how the selves of representatives of the host culture responded to the changes on the societal level. They found that their subjects responded to these changes with a set of contrasting I-­positions that in their combination seem at first sight “illogical” but at closer scrutiny appear to be a highly meaningful response to a discontinuous situation. One position was I as a good person, which figured as a specific and exclusively Irish cultural stance. This position emphasized the respondents’ national identity as being Irish, and the differences brought in by the cultural other were seen as negative and even abnormal. Surprisingly, the same subjects responded with another position that was labeled as I as human being, which expressed their view of basic human equality. This was a culture-­transcendent identity referring to the fact that people of different cultures belong to the same humanity. Finally, the subjects introduced the position We as similar, which was instigated by the necessity to include and integrate cultural others in the future of Ireland, with reference to their possession of similar traits (e.g., both groups were seen as hardworking). The three I-­positions show how the dialogical self negotiates its ­developmental trajectories in times of rupture and social change. These changes rendered traditional cultural I-­positions unstable and prompted the need to develop future-­viable positions to replace them. It seems that the basic structure of the new combination of positions can be summarized in this way: “I’m Irish and they are not, but they will be here in the future, so we have to live with them in one way or another.” In this way they developed a dialogical identification strategy that offered them “continuity repair,” as the authors call it. Interesting enough, the adaptive construction sounds

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contradictory: whereas “I as human being” and “we as similar” are connecting positions, “I as a good person” is rather separating. In their combination of connection and separation, the subjects developed a position repertoire that was at the same time adaptive and contradictory but served to create continuity in times of discontinuity, both at the individual and local level. Acculturation Is Not Linear and Monotrajectory Apparently, the process of globalization and its counter-­force localization engender adaptive contradictions between cultural positions in self and identity. This is also evident in research by Bhatia (2007), who investigated the experiences of a group of Indian Americans as one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in the United States. More than previous generations, the members of these communities have a high degree of training as engineers, medical doctors, scientists, and university professors. Drawing on participant observation and in-­depth interviews, the author found that these professionals function as respected members of American society, but at the same time feel that they are seen as racially different and as not “real Americans.” Like in O’Sullivan-­Lago and de Abreu’s research, Bhatia’s subjects emphasized that they were not only different from but also the same as members of the American majority, referring to their individual merits as professionals and their successful integration in American society. Although they, and their children, all had experiences with racism, they emphasized that racism has not had an adverse effect on their work life. They seemed to simultaneously accept and reject their differences from the majority, being involved in a “double-­voiced” dialogue between their individual voices and the majority’s dominant voice. In contrast to universal models of acculturation in cross-­cultural psychology, Bhatia argues that a dialogical view does not insist that conflicting positions or voices need to be replaced by harmonious ones. Apparently, conflicting or contradicting voices may form a useful combination that is helpful to give an adequate response to cultural situations of ­discontinuity. Moreover, on the basis of his results, Bhatia criticized mainstream theories of acculturation, which are based on the questionable assumption of mutually exclusive acculturation strategies implying that when people integrate, they are not marginalized, and when they are marginalized they are apparently not integrated. In contrast to this view, Bhatia argues that integration and marginalization may coexist in the same individuals and function as mutually complementing components of a successful cultural adaptation.

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In the context of the present chapter, it is noteworthy to refer to the notion of power in American-­Indian identities. Bhatia (2007) is well in agreement with Callero (2003) in emphasizing that the notion of social power is largely neglected in well-­known psychological concepts, such as “bicultural competence” and “integration strategies,” which are based on the assumption that both host and immigrant cultures share equal status and power. Bhatia’s criticism is in line with Callero (2003) and Hermans and Hermans-­Konopka (2010), who emphasize the existence of social struggle and dominance in acculturation processes. This perspective helps us to see how the processes of positioning and counter-­positioning work on the interface of cultures and makes us understand “how immigrants living in postcolonial and diasporic locations are negotiating and reconciling conflicting histories and incompatible subject positions” (Bhatia, 2007, p. 233). At the contact zones between different cultures and traditions, we witness processes of positioning and counter-­positioning that warrant the conclusion that the development of a contradictory or conflicting position repertoire is an intrinsic and adaptive feature of a healthy dialogical self. I suppose that, in times of complex and contradictive changes, people need complex and contradictive answers as an answer to disorganizing situations. [For a research project on adaptive dialogical counter-­positions as a response to hegemonic masculinity as a form of culturally determined social power, see Kahn, Holmes, & Brett, 2011.]

The Continuum between Monologue and Dialogue Because dialogical relationships do not develop in a social vacuum, but rather in situations of constraints, in this chapter I aimed to describe dialogical processes in the context of relationships of social power. Social differences, becoming directly manifest in a world of increasing intercultural connections, often lead to social power. As I have tried to demonstrate, power relationships, as forms of positioning, are reflected in the self and, at the same time, evoke its agentic response. However, power ­relationships may become so dominant in interactions that they prevent dialogical relationships from emerging. In such cases there is only one voice or a few voices that determine the course of the other positions that do not have the space and opportunity to act on the basis of their own preferences and needs. In such cases the interaction is more monological than dialogical. Given the role of social power and relative dominance between voices in the self that put, more or less, constraints on the dialogical self, we proposed the existence of a continuum between monologue and dialogue (Hermans & Hermans-­Konopka, 2010).

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At the conceptual level dialogue and monologue can be treated as qualitatively different. In the case of dialogue, the different voices not only have space to express their experiences and narratives, but also give space to the other voices who want to speak and express themselves from their particular point of view. Moreover, the voices are open to listening to the messages of the other voices and permit themselves to be influenced by them so that they are willing to adapt, change, or develop their original narrative or point of view as part of a shared exploration. In a monologue, on the contrary, one or a few voices dominate the other voices to such a degree that these voices do not receive the opportunity to express themselves from their specific needs, experiences, and intentions. Moreover, the dominating voice is not willing to change its original point of view and to integrate elements of the messages of the counter-­voice and is not open to constructing a common dialogical space. Despite the existence of qualitative differences, the existence of mixtures of monologue and dialogue justify placing them on a continuum. Take, for example, two interacting participants who try to dominate each other or to “win” the discussion. They do not listen carefully to each other, are not aware of possible misunderstandings, and do not allow themselves to learn from their preceding interchange. In this case, the “exchange” moves to the monological end of the continuum. In contrast, the interchange moves to the dialogical end of the continuum when the participants are willing and able to listen to the other’s point of view, allow each other space to give expression to their own experiences, and are motivated to uncover possible misunderstandings and able and willing to correct them, so that they learn from each other on the basis of their preceding interchange, developed as a common enterprise. Mixtures of Monologue and Dialogue Because dialogue can be developed only in the context of differences ­in power and dominance, there are many situations in which the interchange shows a mixture of dialogical and monological elements. For example, one participant listens to the other party in an emphatic way and corrects or develops parts of his initial point of view on the basis of the preceding interchange and even shares this with the other. In the same discussion, however, the one participant neglects or even ignores other elements that are brought in by the other one, who then feels understood at some points but misunderstood at others.

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Some forms of interaction can be placed somewhere in the middle of the continuum. In “persuasion,” for example, there is a clear dominance of one party who tries convince the other party, but, at the same time, the addressed party has some space to agree or disagree or to reject the message altogether. This is different in the case of “command,” in which the other party is forced to comply and has no freedom of choice. Command and, even more, using violence, are forms of “interaction” that represent points at the monological end of the continuum. Considering dialogue and monologue as variations on a continuum is in agreement with the positional nature of dialogical relationships. Some positions move the interchange to the monological end of the continuum, whereas others instigate it into a dialogical direction. For example, a teacher who evaluates the performance of his student at an examination does so on the basis of performance criteria and not on the basis of the wishes of the student. In doing so, he moves into the monological direction at the continuum. However, the position of “supervisor” gives, more than the “judging teacher,” opportunities to enter into a dialogue in which both parties share common insights and build on each other’s contributions during the interchange. At the same time, we may notice that a heterogeneity of positions leads to an increasing chance of misunderstandings or even conflicts when it is not clear to both parties from which position they are speaking in a particular situation and at a particular moment. Friendship as the Other-­in-­the-­Self In agreement with James’s (1890) social self and Vygotzki’s (1962) process of “interiorization,” we assume that significant others participate as “external positions” in an extended dialogical self (Hermans & Hermans-­Konopka, 2010).3 A similar idea is proposed by Aron and colleagues (2005), who have formulated an inclusion-­of-­other-­in-­the-­self model. The basic ­proposition in this model is that, in a close relationship with another person, one includes in one’s own self, to some degree, the other person’s perspectives, identities, and resources. For example, in psychological research it is well known that people recall past successes as more recent and past failures

3 Note that this process of extension of the self does not refute the existence of self–­other boundaries. These (semipermeable) boundaries hold as long as the person is able to ­make a clear distinction between actual others and imagined or purely imaginary others.

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as more distant in time than they actually are. Elaborating on this finding, Konrath and Ross (2003) examined whether the same effect occurs when people take the perspective of their romantic partners. As expected, the investigators found the same effect when their participants recalled past events for their romantic partners, but only in those cases in which the partners were felt as close, not when they were felt as distant. In one of their studies, Aron and colleagues (2005) applied their model to prejudices toward out-­groups, a topic that is particularly relevant in the present context because prejudices toward members of other cultural groups reflect rigidified monological relationships in the (extended) self. The investigators hypothesized that prejudice in intergroup contacts will be reduced when intimate contact with an out-­group member is involved. Usually, people treat in-­group members as parts of themselves and out-­group members as not part of themselves. However, the question was posed: what happens when one develops a friendship with an out-­group member? Aron et  al. hypothesized that not only the particular out-­group member (the friend) but also the out-­group member’s group identity become part of the self. The investigators did so because they expected that it was possible to undermine, along this way, negative out-­group attitudes and prejudices. On the basis of several studies, they concluded that there is support for the thesis that contact with a member of an out-­group is more effective in reducing prejudice toward the out-­group as a whole when one has a close relationship rather than a more distant one with a particular out-­group member. Simply said, make one friend, and you start to like his whole group. As we have argued earlier (Hermans & Konopka, 2010), research on friendship with out-­group members opens a promising avenue for studies on the effects of globalization and localization. More in general, research on I-­positions that have the potential to facilitate movements to the dialogical or monological end of the continuum are relevant because they not only give more insight into the dynamics of intergroup processes but also provide practical devices to create a more fertile and innovative ­contact between cultural groups and cultural positions in the self. In the line of the reasoning in this chapter, I see an important question for future research. Given the increasing amount of contradictive tension in a globalizing society  – both in the self and between individuals and groups – how much can this tension increase before resulting in a regressive movement to the monological end of the continuum? Or, how well developed is our tolerance of uncertainty to keep dialogue going? Such questions have direct implications for educational endeavors that aim to develop a “dialogical capacity.”

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The Multiplicity of Cultural Positions: Between Social Proximity and Distance Living in the compressed space of a globalizing world means that we are confronted with people from very different cultural origins, each with their particular historical background. Living in such a world creates a paradoxical situation: increasing proximity between cultural groups as a result of accelerated globalization coexists with increasing distance resulting from differences in social and cultural backgrounds. As I have argued in the present chapter, dialogue is needed to give an adequate response to this paradoxical situation. The increased compression makes that contact unavoidable; the existence of social and cultural differences implies that dialogical capacities are challenged to the utmost. However, I propose a further step. Dialogue, or more precisely, flexible movement on the dialogue–monologue continuum is needed not only between different individuals and groups; it is also a necessity in the self. As the self participates in a world of increasing complexity and highly visible differences, the self also becomes more complex and challenged by such differences. We have arrived in a situation in which cultures are no longer simply outside our national boundaries. As a result of international contacts, diaspora, immigration, and media exposure, these boundaries have become increasingly permeable. Stronger, and this is central in the present chapter, cultural differences exist within the self. As Pieterse (1995) said, hybridization of positions in the self can be seen as a major result of cultural connections that undermine the idea of cultures as internally homogeneous and externally distinctive. Intercultural processes lead to the recombination of existing forms and practices into new forms and practices. Hybrid phenomena result from the transformation of existing cultural practices into new ones. The process of hybridization may create such multiple ­identities as Mexican schoolgirls dressed in Greek togas dancing in the style of Isadora Duncan, a London boy of Asian origin playing for a local Bengali cricket team and at the same time supporting the Arsenal football club, Thai boxing by Moroccan girls in Amsterdam, and Native Americans celebrating Mardi Gras in the United States. As these and other examples of intercultural contacts, reported earlier in this chapter, illustrate, different cultural positions in the self require dialogical relationships to keep them together as part of a coherent self that is able to give a meaningful response to changing cultural situations. How appealing or suggestive the above example may be, it should not cover the important role of social power and dominance, which applies also to the lives of Native Americans and Mexican schoolgirls when they

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cross the borders of their cultures. I intentionally placed the notion of social power central in this chapter to demonstrate that it always puts constraints on dialogue. Moreover, to know when and where dialogue “works,” and when and where it does not work, we have to be aware of its ever-­present limitations. Therefore, I proposed the continuum of monologue and dialogue, which, by its attention to mixtures of both forms, shows that dialogue almost never exists in its pure form and that it is not always there. Our analysis comes close to that of Bhatia (2010), who, after analyzing the narratives of Indian diaspora, concluded that we have to attend to issues of race, gender, and power status of immigrants both before and after migration to the host country. He adds an important message: Contemporary global movements and globalization impulses (variously motivated) force us to abandon seamless conceptions of similarities and differences between national cultures in favour of hybridized, diasporized and heterogeneous notions of culture […]. In other words, “culture” – however we wish to understand it – cannot be understood as contained and circumscribed by national boundaries. To posit such static, immovable, immutable constructions of culture is a convenient fiction . . . (Bhatia, 2010, p. 221)

As a consequence of a globalizing world, cultures have not only frequently and massively crossed national boundaries, but they also have crossed the boundaries between society and self. Not only has the globalizing world created many contact zones between different cultural groups, but it also leads to an increasing multiplicity of cultural positions in the self. Not only the globalizing world, but also the self needs dialogue to create meaningful and innovative relationships between the diversity of ­cultural positions by which it is increasingly populated. References Arnett, J. (2002). The psychology of globalization. American Psychologist, 57: 774–83. Aron, A., Mashek, D., McLaughlin-­Volpe, T., Wright, S., Lewandowski, G., & Aron, E. (2005). Including close others in the cognitive structure of the self. In M. Baldwin (Ed.), Interpersonal cognition (pp.  206–32). New York: Guilford Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (V. W. McGee, Trans. ; C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Bhatia, S. (2002). Acculturation, dialogical voices and the construction of the diasporic self. Theory and Psychology, 12: 55–77. Bhatia, S. (2007). American karma: Race, culture, and identity in the Indian diaspora. New York: New York University Press.

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Bhatia, S. (2010). Theorizing cultural psychology in transnational contexts. In S. Kirschner & J. Martin (Eds.), The sociocultural turn in psychology: The contextual emergence of mind and self (pp. 205–27). New York: Columbia University Press. Callero, P. L. (2003). The sociology of the self. Annual Review of Sociology, 29: 115–33. Falmagne, R. J. (2004). On the constitution of “self ” and “mind”: The dialectic of the system and the person. Theory and Psychology, 14: 822–45. Featherstone, M., & Lash, S. (1995). Globalization, modernity, and the spatialization of social theory: An introduction. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 1–24). London: SAGE. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings. New York: Pantheon. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Greenwald, A. G. (1980). The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. American Psychologist, 35: 603–18. Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, nature, & the geography of difference. Oxford: Blackwell. Hermans, H. J. M. (2001). The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning. Culture and Psychology, 7: 243–81. Hermans, H. J. M., & Dimaggio, G. (2007). Self, identity, and globalization in times of uncertainty: A dialogical analysis. Review of General Psychology, 11: 31–61. Hermans, H. J. M., & Hermans-­Konopka, A. (2010). Dialogical self theory: Positioning and counter-­positioning in a globalizing society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hermans, H. J. M., & Kempen, H. J. G. (1998). Moving cultures: The perilous problems of cultural dichotomies in a globalizing society. American Psychologist, 53:1111–20. Hermans, H. J. M., Kempen, H. J. G., & Van Loon, R. J. P. (1992). The dialogical self: Beyond individualism and rationalism. American Psychologist, 47: 23–33. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology, Vol. 1. London : Macmillan. Kahn, J. S., Holmes, J. R., & Brett, B. L. (2011). Dialogical masculinities: Diverse youth resisting dominant masculinity. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 24: 30–55. Kaufman, D. (1991). Rachel’s daughters: Newly orthodox Jewish women. ­New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press. Kinnvall, C., & Linden, J. (2010). Dialogical selves between security and insecurity. Theory & Psychology, 20: 595–619. Konrath, S. H., & Ross, M. (2003). Our glories, our shames: Expanding the self in temporal self appraisal theory. Paper presented at the American Psychological Society conference, Atlanta, May. Linell, P. (1990). The power of dialogue dynamics. In I. Markovà & K. Foppa (Eds.), The dynamics of dialogue (pp. 147–77). New York : Harvester Wheatsheaf. Marty, M. E., & Appleby, R. S. (1993). Fundamentalisms and the state: Remaking polities, economies, and militance, Vol. 3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Minsky, M. (1985). The society of mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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O’ Sullivan-­Lago, R., & de Abreu, G. (2010). Maintaining continuity in a ­cultural contact zone: Identification strategies in the dialogical self. Culture & Psychology, 16: 73–92. Pieterse, J. N. (1995). Globalization as hybridization. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 45–68). London: SAGE. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Said, E. (1999). Out of place: A memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Sampson, E. (1985). The decentralization of identity: Toward a revised concept of personal and social order. American Psychologist, 11: 1203–11. Scheuerman, W. (2010). Globalization. In Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ sum2010/entries/globalization/ (Accessed February 18, 2011). Schivelbusch, W. (1978). Railroad space and railroad time. New German Critique, 14: 31–40. Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stiglitz, J. E. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. New York: W. W. Norton. Stiles, W. B. (1999). Signs and voices in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy Research, 9: 1–21. Valsiner, J. (2002). Forms of dialogical relations and semiotic autoregulation within the self. Theory & Psychology, 12: 251–65. Van Meijl, T. (2006). Multiple identifications and the dialogical self: Maori youngsters and the cultural renaissance. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12: 917–33. Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language: Studies in communication. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press. Wiley, N. (2006). Inner speech as a language: A Saussurean inquiry. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 36: 319–41. Wilkinson, D. (1995). Central civilizations. In S. K. Sanderson (Ed.), Civilizations and world systems: Studying world-­historical change (pp.  46–74). London: Altamira Press.

3 Technology and the Tributaries of Relational Being Kenneth J. Gergen

My concern with historical transformations in the conception of self has its own history. Its earliest traces can be found in my 1973 essay, “Social psychology as history,” where I proposed that as scientific accounts of the person enter society, so can they alter the commonly shared ­visions of self. Authoritative accounts of brain determination of human action, for example, can shift the way in which we understand ourselves and our behavior. The sense of self, in this case, becomes no more than an artifact of brain stimulation. And with shifts in understanding, so are the cultural mores set in motion and institutional policies transformed. Such concerns gained momentum in the later development of social constructionist theory (Gergen, 1994), and its focus on the historical and cultural lodgement of self-­understanding (see, e.g., Graumann & Gergen, 1996). Most central to the present essay, however, was my 1992 book, The Saturated Self. This work was centrally concerned with the twentieth century emergence of communication technology and its potentials for transforming the common conception of self. My particular focus in this work was on the Western tradition of individualism in which the origins of action are traced to psychological processes within the person. For much of Western culture, the concept of the individual self – the conscious and cognizant agent of action – is more or less accepted as a natural fact. In courts of law we hold individuals responsible for their actions; in educational settings, we hold individuals responsible for their work; in therapy we treat individual suffering; and in our democracy each individual is endowed with the right to a vote. Yet, this concept of the individual agent is also peculiarly Western and largely a by-­product of cultural developments emerging in the seventeenth and culminating in the twentieth century (see, e.g., Seigel, 2005; Taylor, 1992). It is a view to which philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Kant 66

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made major contributions, but that was also nurtured by the development of a merchant class, the Reformation, the ultimate development of democracy, and the conception of empirical science. Sampson (2008) and others have coined the term “self-­contained” in referring to this conception of the ­self; elsewhere (Gergen, 2009) I have used the metaphor of “bounded being.” The main argument is that with the emergence of a new range of communication technologies, this traditional vision of the self is fading from the cultural landscape. These developments first undermine the social supports necessary to sustain a stable and compelling view of the self. Traditional communities could be characterized in terms of their high degree of stability, reiterative communication patterns, shared beliefs and values, mutual support, and shared knowledge about the participants. With the advent of the radio, the automobile, rapid transit, mass publishing, television, jet transportation, and the Internet in particular, the traditional community has been placed in jeopardy. All of these technologies functioned to remove individuals from their location within the community. Such removals are both physical (through mass transportation, jet transportation, etc.) and psychological (through radio, television, the Internet, etc.). As workers of the nation become increasingly mobile, executives become increasingly global, and the activities of mothers and children are more widely dispersed (supermarkets, district schools, after-­school activities), the population of active and available neighbors is substantially reduced. Community dissolution is matched as well by the demise of its heart, namely the nuclear family. In many homes in the United States there are multiple televisions in the house – so that each family member can dwell in a separate symbolic ethos. There are alluring possibilities for the young to live private lives in their tech-­furnished bedrooms – CD players, computer games, cell phone, amplified guitar, and so forth. There is often a family computer as well, with high competition among family members for Internet access. Many households harbor multiple laptops, so that even when they share the same dwelling, each family member can live in a separate social world, each with its own constructions of the real and the good. Yet, we may ask, if we are witnessing the slow demise of the individualist tradition, how are we to understand its replacement? What new trajectory can we discern in the contemporary landscape of cultural life? This is scarcely a simple question and continued reflection is essential. In what follows I make a case for a shift from an individualist to a relational conception of self. However, as I propose, this shift is not unified. Rather, the general flow is constituted by a range of qualitatively different tributaries,

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each related to particular developments in technology. In the present offering I sketch out three movements toward relational being: the unbounded self, the encapsulated self, and the playing self. My attempt here is not to ­be definitive but to glimpse movements in action, so as to better contemplate our possible futures. With these trajectories in place, it will be useful to consider the emerging conditions of cultural life that may be favored.

The Unbounded Self While the emerging technologies of communication undermine the common conception of individual, autonomous agents, they also turn attention toward relationships. By the mid-­twentieth century, automobiles, radio, film, television, mass transportation, and intercontinental air travel had all opened massive new vistas of connection. “Over there” was now “in the living room.” With the development of the Internet there was a radical expansion in the availability of low-­cost means of learning about and/or communicating with people from around the globe. Electronic mail, websites, blogs, games, music, art, live conversations, and other resources travel around the world on an instantaneous basis. There are now well over a billion users of the Internet world wide, most of them relying on e-­mail communication. In the United States, more than 70 percent of the population now relies on Internet services, and by the time it takes to read this paragraph, more than 5  million e-­mail messages will have moved through cyberspace. It is estimated that today there are more than 500 million websites, with the amount of information accumulating each year equaling 30 feet of books per person for the entirety of the world’s population. The average Internet user in the United States now spends approximately 100 hours a month online. More recently, however, these developments have been augmented by the massive explosion of social media. On Facebook alone there are almost 650 million visitors during any given month, twice the size of the U.S. population. In all of these contexts new relations are formed and affective bonds often created outside one’s immediate social surrounds. Increasing numbers of people come to “matter,” even if this mattering is often fleeting and superficial. Each relationship may also invite subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) shifts in one’s manner of being. In this sense, identity becomes fluid, shifting in a chameleon-­like way from one social context to another. There is no coherent community to recognize and support an obdurate sense of identity. Rather, one’s sense of self becomes subject to a multitude of tangentially related others, each of whom may bring forth and affirm a different “me.” The boundary of what is and what is not self begins to erode.

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There is also little reason in this context for “looking inward” to ­locate “one’s true self.” This once-­significant question ceases to be relevant to ongoing participation in social life. The fascination with “inward depth” is replaced by curiosity in the next arrival of an e-­mail message, cell phone text, or tweet. Indeed, for the newer generations the very idea of a core-­self turns strange. Nor are there close companions available for reliable, in-­depth explorations of the “inner region of the self.” Increasingly we are strung out across the continents, electronically and geographically mobile, and increasingly overcommitted to numerous relations, projects, and desires. As the sense of self as bounded, privatized, and centered is undone, so does the relational matrix become central to daily existence. The Enlightenment paean to individualism, “I think, therefore I am” is replaced with “I am linked, therefore I am.” This is not to say that the sense of self is fully absorbed into the relational flow. Rather, one may envision here the development of a range of partial or fragmented selves. For example, as one moves from one website to another, one is immersed in a range of contrasting realities. From the Al Jazeera website one may absorb certain Arab logics and values; from the Conservative Outpost, a dash of right-wing Republicanism; from the ACLU, the latest on the protection of free speech; from YouTube, zaniness from around the world, and so on. Nor is it simply a sense of learning in multiple worlds. In addition, one comes to appreciate many ideal ways of being. One may variously identify with a range of others who seem gifted or honorable in one form or another – in politics, pop culture, sports, religion, scholarship, and more. One’s range of aspirations expands. With this continuous expansion in the dimensions of relational engagement, the sense of a bounded and coherent self slowly gives way to a “multiphrenia” of partial and conflicted senses of self. I become a multi­being (Gergen, 2009) who brings to any situation an enormous range of potentials. With these accretions in potentials for saying and doing, there is also an increase in one’s capacity for sensitive coordination in other relationships and similarly with millions of others around the world. The potential for effective coordination expands exponentially. The result is not only a profound increase in ongoing connectivity, but the world’s peoples also become increasingly capable of effective collaboration. And with increased capabilities, so does global organizing become increasingly effective. The small business can expand, a medium-­sized business can develop markets abroad, and a large business can go global. Increased organization takes place at all levels – the community, the state, the regional, the national, and the international. There is a globally expanding network of police that parallels the expansion

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of globally organized crime and terrorism. To appreciate the rate of growth in international organizing, consider that in 1950 there were estimated to be approximately a thousand non-­governmental organizations in the United States with active, intercontinental programs. There are currently more than 60,000 such organizations. It should come as little surprise that there are more than 12 million websites now treating the importance of collaboration in the workplace. In effect, the unbounded self thus lends skills to forms of organizing that further expand the movement toward relational being. Yet, we must not conclude that the future of unbounded being is altogether rosy. In the “un-­bounding” there is left behind in most cultures of the world at least one of two possible traditions. For those who reside in highly individualistic societies, as in the West, the tradition of the unified and self-­contained agent will continue at the edge of consciousness, whispering admonitions about one’s shallowness, spinelessness, and inauthenticity. At more painful moments, the unbounded self may be torn between allegiances, unable to make a decision. Rather than confronting oppressive forces, there may be few resources to muster in the service of resistance. And there will be desolate times when the unbounded self may feel without deep and reliable connection to anyone. For those who issue from more collectivist cultures (often associated with the non-­Western world), there is the continuing voice of one’s origin group at one’s side – whether familial, communal, ethnic, or religious. This can variously be a voice of disappointment, distrust, love, irritation, and rejection, as those who have been “left behind” do not so easily part with their members. And, as those who live an unbounded life may become aware, once immersed in the global flows of relationship, one can seldom return to the communal home with full and satisfying presence.

The Encapsulated Self A major result of communication technology has been a radical expansion in the extensity and intensity of relational life. As proposed, one significant result of this shift is the subtle replacement of the individualist vision of longstanding with a consciousness of relational embeddedness. Yet, as I have characterized this conception thus far, it is one of unbounded relations. One moves from a centered sense of self to a vision of an infinite and continuously moving engagement in relating. This view fails to take into account another significant feature of the same communication technologies, namely their potentials for arresting the flow of relationships. By this I mean that the available communication technologies also enable ­people

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to remain insulated within cocoons of meaning. These technologies permit people to locate others who hold similar values and visions of the future. Such connections may be maintained on a continuous basis, with virtually instantaneous access. Support for one’s views and values is available at every turn, giving comfort to one’s perspective and/or way of life, and thus inviting one to “remain secure in the fold.” As an example, anyone interested in the neo-­Nazi movement, Aryanism, or white supremacy can now locate more than a dozen websites that will enable connections to form across the Western world. These sites offer various conversation groups, periodic meetings, written materials, and even a dating and mating service. One may remain easily encapsulated within the community. Yet, although the number of Web-­based communities is enormous, it is the mobile phone that demands more specific attention. As I have elsewhere proposed (Gergen, 2002) the mobile phone is of unusual importance because it is almost unique as a technology of communal restoration. It offers the possibility for continuous and instantaneous reconnection of participants within face-­to-­face groups. Within moments, relationships are re-­ enlivened, common opinions and values shared, expressions of support and mutual understanding enhanced, and knowledge of the other deepened. In a Bakhtinian sense, while most of the broadly shared technologies are centrifugal in their effects, disrupting and dispersing conventional systems of meaning, the mobile phone tends to function centripetally. It reinforces the commonalties and secures them more steadfastly. It signifies the importance of connection as opposed to autonomy, looking outward rather than inward, toward network as opposed to self-­sufficiency. Yet, this restoration of community deserves closer examination. For we are not witnessing here a re-­flowering of the traditional face-­to-­face community. Rather, to borrow a descriptive phrase from nineteenth century Japan, we are witnessing the emergence of “floating worlds.” As in the Japanese case, it is a world of social interchange that escapes the control of government and military/police authority. People are free to speak of all matters great and small, regardless of whether they are lovers exchanging sighs of longing, family members arranging a rendezvous, or drug dealers negotiating sales. It also resembles the floating world of Edo, Japan, in its functioning around an axis of petty pleasure. In large degree, mobile communication is informal, unscripted, and used in ways that enhance the pleasures of relationship (e.g., romance, friendship, family life, colleagueship.) Lovers or spouses may call each other several times a day, using justifications that seem only to mask the enjoyment that is their aim. ­As Puro (2002) has described Finnish mobile phone users, they seem to “create an

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obligation for talk without a reason for a talk” (p.  27). Finally, as in the Japanese case, there is no stable center of communal life. There is no specific geographical location or membership group to which the concept of community can be attached. The community is always there in a potential state, brought into being only in those moments when two or more participants are in communication. Yet, unlike the Japanese case, the floating world of mobile phone users is not geographically grounded. The floating world of the mobile phone user is approaching the point of geographic irrelevance. Its participants may virtually be anywhere at any time. Like the hovercraft or the pneumatic rail system, they are elevated from the physical terrain; there is no specific location with which they can be identified. More broadly, it may be said that the mobile phone lends itself to the pervasive state of an absent presence, the continuous presence at hand of friends, family, and colleagues who are physically absent. In effect, there are dwelling about us at all times numerous small communities that are unseen and unidentifiable. As we stroll the thoroughfare or sip coffee in a cafe their presence may be made known to us. Each mobile phone conversation is a sign of a significant social nucleus, stretching in all directions, amorphous and protean. We cannot reach out to touch the nucleus, behold it directly, or interrogate it. Yet, it may lie somewhere toward the center of importance – guiding virtually all the actions of those who are near. I point to the importance of these interchanges because they often issue from tightly knit micro-­communities. The ways in which mobile phone communication enhances and sustains group connection has been the subject of broad commentary. For example, Ling and Yttri (2002) describe the way in which the cell phone enhances “micro-­coordination,” the capacity of people within the circle to adjust their actions to each other and move together harmoniously as a unit. There is also the use of the phone in what they term “hyper-­coordination,” or the integration of the group in terms of emotional expressions and self-­definitions. As Gournay (2002) describes it, the mobile phone moves us toward “fusional” relationships, in which “the inner circle” is vitally strengthened. As Fortunati (2002) puts it, the mobile phone is “a strong booster of intimacy among those within the social network of the user” (p. 51). With continuous communication, those within the circle can develop a high degree of mutual trust and support. It is also important to note that the new floating worlds are ­nicely adapted to the demands of life in a highly complex, rapidly moving, high­tech society. This is so first because participants can rapidly obtain information from those within the circle as the demands of the day (or night)

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unfold. One can obtain directions, advice, support, and the confidence of shared opinions and values. Or, if one suddenly learns or recalls information useful to another within the circle, this can be transmitted at once. This close interdependency also lends itself to micro-­social fragmentation. As the small group consumes an increasing proportion of communication time, issues not inherent to group interests lose salience. As small group concerns are intensified, so are demographic divisions pressed to the margins of consciousness. The problems, challenges, and possibilities of the micro-­structure diminish concerns with broad societal schisms. Micro­social concerns and conflicts become focal. In Gournay’s (2002) terms, “We are seeing a desire for closure of the relational network, reduced to a few close friends and the family core” (p. 202). Similar to the case of unbounded being, we find here an incipient diminishing of the autonomous, agentive self so central to the Western tradition. Replacing this traditional sense of self is an abiding consciousness of connection. Again, this newly emerging subjectivity is not without its problems. As Turkle (2011) suggests, participation in these social enclosures can generate a need for continuous validation. “Am I ok? Am I making the right choice here? What will they think?” One becomes helplessly dependent on social affirmation. Further, as Turkle proposes, there may be little nourishment here for what she feels are deeper needs for intimacy. Ultimately, she proposes, participants in the 24/7 world of connection may begin to look to technology itself as a replacement for human relationships. Of course, it is difficult to fathom the trajectories that may emerge as technologies of communication develop. However, that the need for validation threatens one with a sense of helplessness is a problem only if “helplessness” itself is devalued. With continued immersion in one’s bounded circles, the desired state may ultimately become that of “rocking in the cradle” of continuous affirmation. And what may seem to be “deeper needs for intimacy” may simply be a historically situated construction, slowly decaying in the new age of technology.

The Playing Self In the preceding accounts of the shifting sands of self-­definition – ­toward unbounded and encapsulated relationality – we focused on process without content. That is, we centered attention on the generalized movement away from the traditional individualist vision of the self and the emerging importance of relational being. However, there is a third direction favored by the emerging technologies that specifically centers on the content of

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communication, and most specifically on play. I expand on my concerns in this case, as discussions on the unbounded and encapsulated self may be found in previous writings. My interest in the cultural shift toward play was sparked several years ago when my morning newspaper greeted me with a front-­page, banner­size headline and photo touting the dramatic win of the city’s professional football team. The account of the game bristled with excitement. In smaller print at the top of the page was a report on the winning ways of a local basketball team. It was only in the nether regions of the page that I discovered reports on national and international affairs, all properly phrased in the monochromatic hues of impartial objectivity. Struck by the attention given to matters of sport, I became curious about the general content of the newspaper. Interestingly, the sports section proved to be substantially larger than the first and principle news section. The entertainment section also exceeded the size of the financial section. If I subtracted the advertisements from the pages, the portion of the paper devoted to playful matters was more than twice that of what one might call serious news. A few months later, an editorial in the paper opined that the name of this winning football team “is not only a piece of the town’s history; it also conjures its essence.” This composition of the news may be commonplace in today’s world. But it was not so in the world of my youth, nor it seems in previous history. My curiosity increased. Is a shift in cultural investments now in motion, and if so, is it an important one? Has play truly become the dominant cultural activity? A scanning of statistics on professional sports in the United States was provocative: In professional baseball for a recent season, the gross revenues reached a record-­breaking $7 billion. As the Major League Baseball Commissioner, Bud Selig, announced, “This is the golden era for the sport, and given the (weak) economy this may be the most remarkable year we ever had. We’re at numbers nobody ever thought possible.” Paid attendance at the games was more than 73 million. For professional football, the revenue that year was almost $8 billion, with 26 million paid fans and a television audience of at least 500 times this number. Then there are the basketball and hockey seasons to consider, among others. Considering the professional sports industry in the United States altogether, the gross revenues in 2010 reached $414 billion. This figure exceeded the total revenues ­of the combined governments of Costa Rica, India, Lithuania, Bolivia, Chile, Finland, Morocco, Romania, and Pakistan during the same period. And all this was to say nothing of the lively interest in golf, tennis, auto racing, and soccer, along with, skiing, casino gambling, horse racing, gymnastics, skateboarding, online gambling, televised poker, and fantasy sports.

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However, the most dramatic developments are surely in the virtual world. A homely example is revealing, important as well in suggesting that the shift toward play is not solely an American phenomenon: When visiting friends in the Netherlands, I was told that they were to entertain their grandchildren for the afternoon. Later, the two boys, three and five, burst into the house, and without more than a nodding acknowledgment of the assembled gathering, raced up the stairs. Their destination: the two computers in the upstairs office. Within minutes they were both absorbed in online games. They were allowed to remain so for an hour, at which point cruel grandmother pulled the switch. It was human time again. Such an event will scarcely be surprising to any young parents. At the present time, there are now more than 200 million websites related to computer games. One of these sites, chosen at random, offers 1,500 games, and has more than 70,000 participants. Another offers games in more than 40 languages. Players on the MMOs (massively multiplayer games), such as those featured on Facebook and other social network sites, cater to more than 100 million participants a year. The participants spend more than $1 ­billion annually. Video games, such as those sold for Xbox, garner far greater income. Revenues of video games now exceed $20 billion internationally. More than 20 million players have spent 17 billion hours on Xbox Live, which is more than 2 hours for every person on the planet. Another 40 million users have registered PlayStation Network accounts. Among the major characteristics of games, as defined by scholars such as Huizinga (1938) and Caillois (2001), are that they are non–income­producing activities, non-­obligatory, and circumscribed in space and time. Further, as they see it, there are rules of participation (either explicit or implicit). Participation, in turn, evokes an alternative reality, a reality that has the capacity to enchant or captivate. Defined in this way, it is legitimate to include within the cultural shift toward play, the shared indulgences in TV drama, movies, YouTube, online porn, pop music, romance novels, and social networks. As Timmermans (2010) and Pearson (2009) both describe, online activities such as these are essentially playful. We may, then, distinguish among three forms of play. First there is Social Play, constituted by the vast majority of communication taking place in social ­networks. Communication in this context not only creates a playful ambience, but is also a site on which people communicate about both spectator and participatory play, thus enhancing their significance. Second, there is Spectator Play, constituted by the vast range of spectator pleasures, as facilitated by television, movies, magazines, newspapers, and radio. Finally there is Competitive Play, made up of the enormous range of participatory competitive games, both electronic and organic.

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Let us characterize the general shift in cultural investments of attention, time, and money in these three spheres in terms of Playland, denoting a world in which the dominant cultural activities  – along with the meaning these activities give to life – center on participation in various forms of play. If this lens for viewing cultural life carries legitimacy, numerous questions follow, concerning, for example, the reasons for this historical shift; its effects on families, communities, and nation; its implications for education and governance; and so on. However, my chief concern here is the implications of life in playland for the ways in which we come to understand ourselves, and the meaning of our lives. At the outset, one might well be inclined to see in this movement an extension and intensification of the agentive “I.” One might surmise that most games celebrate the individual strategist, who aspires to success; who vanquishes; and who trains, plans, schemes, and carries out tactics for purposes of winning. In the process of playing, personal agency is reified; individualism is refurbished. Certain gaming structures certainly lend themselves to such a result, but in general, I am not persuaded. Consider again the three forms of cultural play: social play, spectator play, and competitive games. It is in the context of social play that my case for the erosion of the bounded self and the coming of relational being was significantly based. E-­mail, Facebook, cell phones, Twitter, and the like all immerse us in the co-­constituting process of communication. In each case, our actions are inherently “for the other,” and without the other they lose meaning altogether. To abandon all of one’s interlocutors would eviscerate one’s sense of self. On the level of spectator pleasure, there is also a diminishment of the agentive “I,” but the route is different. In this case the dominant pleasure is taken from the process of identification, particularly the spectator’s fantasized narrative of self as the player. Because the drama of games is one typically featuring success versus failure or good versus evil, the potential for games to generate heroic figures is great. Movie and television dramas yield a similar panoply of “gods” and “goddesses.” As a spectator, the identification process may remain wholly in fantasy. However, the fantasies also carry over into purchasing apparel fetishizing the hero, or adopting ­the hero’s mannerisms, gestures, or ways of life. The important point is that when immersed in spectator pleasures, one brackets the sense of authentic being. One lives temporarily as the other. In both of these conditions we find an alteration in consciousness, from the traditional sense of “I am the master of my actions” to an “out-­of-­self ” condition; in the former case, “I am an actor for others” and in the latter, “I experience as the other.” Let us view these as subtle movements in terms of

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the emergence of a second-­order self, a sense of self as other than self, or a state of para-­being. On the more extreme level, the sense of a second-­order self may characterize one’s condition under the influence of a drug, or when sexually aroused, romantically infatuated, or fully immersed in a stage role. One is fully compelled by activities that might be described as ego-­alien. These activities spin out spontaneously, without deliberate thought, and often surprisingly. Now consider the case of competitive games: I watch as my twelve-­year-­old grandson sits in a special chair designed for online gamers. The chair approximates the seat of a jet fighter pilot or a motorcycle driver. His eyes are fastened on the television screen, his hands grip precision controls for the events unfolding before him, and the booming sounds of these clamorous events bellow from nearby speakers embedded in the chair. This is not “John, my studious grandson, with polite manners, tidied room, and careful eating habits.” That John is absent, now replaced by a rampant killer, emptying bullets into dark figures lurking in shadows or leaping from doorways, casting grenades across barriers to see bodies torn to bits, moving ever forward to slay as many combatants as possible. This is the intoxication of a second-­order self. All the frustrations, ambiguities, complexities – along with the possible emptiness – of daily life are removed. One lives a thrilling life as a hero with a thousand lives, but returns to the dinner table as dutiful son. To be sure, this is a dramatized account, and it is clearly more relevant to some forms of participatory games than others. But virtually all competitive games invite one – for however long an amount of time – to become a second-­order self. The increased presence of second-­order being might not be so important in itself. To play tennis or golf once or twice a week probably has little impact on the remainder of one’s life. One plays, and when play is terminated, one returns to everyday demands. However, a closer examination is required. There is now substantial literature in the human sciences – from the late nineteenth century to the present – proposing that one of the major influences on human development is imitative role-­playing. In their play, children imitate their parents, for example, and in playing out these ­roles their personalities and potentials are shaped. In the same way, in entering a profession one imitates the behavior of other professionals and attempts to play the role of the professional. Of special importance to the present chapter, it is out of these processes that one’s sense of self emerges. In being other, one becomes oneself. Play gives way to a sense of obdurate identity. Consider again the emergence of playland: Activities in social networks, as we have seen, invite playing with one’s identity; spectator activities invite imitation of players; and with

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competitive games one indeed becomes the player. With sustained and intense participation in playland, the conditions are in place for the emergence of a genuine playing self. The sense of a second-­order self gives way to a first-order one: “I am a player.” As the sense of the playing self gains strength, so do states of authentic being become suspect. To create a series of avatars or game identities poses little problem; with chameleon-­like ease, one fits congenially into the game at hand. Within the individualist tradition, with its emphasis on authenticity, one might choose to play, depending on the outcome; however, as a playing self, one is simply playing without asking questions of outcome. In the same way, one does not choose to breathe the air; breathing is just the nature of life. For the playing self, one who calculates daily decisions about work and play may seem naïve. To fancy oneself as a rational agent, carefully weighing the outcomes of a decision is foolish: “Don’t you know it’s all a game?” Richard Rorty’s (1989) conception of the liberal ironist is apt. For Rorty, propositions about the real and the good are without rational foundations. Yet, those realizing that this is so may nevertheless commit themselves to relieving suffering in the world. They commit to liberal causes, understanding full well that there are no knock-­down arguments for doing so, no foundations for commitment. In the same way, in taking issues of life seriously, the playing self understands that they are not serious. Or as Oscar Wilde would put it, “Deep down he is superficial.” As the playing self emerges in cultural life, what are the implications for daily life? What is worth doing; on what kind of narrative journey is one embarked? To treat such issues we obviously broaden the realm of interpretive complexity. As commentators we are immersed in the very processes about which we write; we grapple with understanding a condition that is not, for us, an object of observation. The hope, however, is that in the grappling we generate resources for collectively navigating our way. With this said, it is my view that with the playing self, the strong individualist account of human functioning recedes. One does not ask, in the abstract, “what would I Iike to be?” and look inward for the resources to reach ­this self-­determined end. Rather, one recognizes that one is forever functioning within a relational context, with other players, with rules and expectations, and with offerings of what is possible and what is precluded. One may ask about preferred ends within a context, but there is no meta-­contextual location from which to take a stand. The playing self is relationally dependent. This does not mean confronting a prefixed world, where one can only play within the boundaries of tradition. On the contrary, because one understands that one comes into being through playing, and that the

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games are created by players, then new games are always possible. All that is required is another player responding enthusiastically to the invitation, “let’s imagine that ….” The life course for the playing self is thus indeterminate. As Timmerman (2010) proposes, in the digitalized contexts of the game world the vision of a coherent life narrative is no longer compelling. The latter vision is a by-­ product of a textual world. In effect, the playing self is ideally adapted to the technologically driven ethos in which change is continuous and rapid. Living disjunctively is not, then, unsettling. Rather, the infinite possibility of new and exciting life-­games is optimistic and energizing. Does the playing self thus lack moral fiber; is this a spineless creature for whom anything goes? I do not think so. Rather, one’s existence as a playing self requires the presence of a game, and games require for their existence rules of conduct. These rules, in turn, contain values – what it is to win and lose, to succeed and fail, to play fairly or unfairly. As mentioned earlier, most video games are based on a narrative in which heroes are pitted against villains. Thus, a world of virtue is built into both the content and structure of the game. Extrapolating to life outside the game, the playing self would be prone to a situated ethics. He or she would be sensitive to local moralities, but would be resistant to transcendent moral principles. This does mean that because the rules of a game are ultimately arbitrary, and one ultimately plays to win, situated ethics may run thin. Whether on Wall Street, the battlefield, or in the neighborhood, if winning is at stake, little else matters. Bending the rules may be a pervasive temptation, with little investment in grappling with issues of moral ambiguity or integrity.

The Future in View: Between Peril and Prosperity In the preceding account my special concern has been with three contemporary forms of self transformation. All three of these have in common a strong link with, on the one hand, the profusion of communication ­technologies, and on the other, a shift away from the traditional Western vision of independent and agentive selves. Favored in all cases is a movement toward a relational sense of self. However, depending on the form of technological immersion, three different accents of the relational self can be detected. Roughly speaking, dependency on social media, including the World Wide Web and e-­mail, favor a sense self cast on a sea of unbounded relationship. In contrast, a dependency on mobile communication, invites a more encapsulated sense of relationality. One’s identity is cemented to the small enclave of interlocutors. Finally, immersion in electronic games

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and related media and networks favors a sense of a playing self. One loses identity in the ongoing process of “the game.” To be sure, these are analytic categories, scarcely representing the possible overlaps, synergies, and vast sectors of a non-­participating public. The attempt here has not been to be inclusive but to offer resources for reflexive dialogue. It is also important to note that although communication technologies are surely an important factor in such transformations, their reverberations do not occur in a historical vacuum. Their ramifications are supplemented by several additional movements. There is, for one, the impact of global organizing. Although itself drawing from technological developments, movements toward globally organizing business, science, sports, scholarship, religion, and so on place a strong demand on collaboration. Increasingly, participants in such movements find their future depending not on the traditional virtues of self-­reliance, character, and autonomy, but on participating harmoniously and effectively in groups. In addition to globalization, the growing consciousness of environmental catastrophe also places a major stress on relationship. In the face of global warming, atomic power production, species eradication, dwindling water resources, and the like, we confront a choice between productive collaboration and catastrophe. The efforts of isolated individuals are insufficient. There are no land masses that are exempt from environmental threat. In effect, we realize that a viable future depends on the collaborative capacity of the world’s peoples. Although the forces favoring a relational consciousness of self are prevalent, continuing discussion is also essential concerning the implications for cultural life. Many may lament the erosion in individualism, once regarded as the cornerstone of American democracy and productivity. Others will be concerned with the threats to traditions of individual responsibility and possible tyrannies of the collective. At the same time, a growing number of critics have explored the corrosive impact on individuals and society of what they view as the ideology of individualism (Bellah et al., 1985; Lasch, 1979; Leary, 2004; Sampson, 2008). As many see it, when the ­individual agent is held to be the fundamental atom of society, we set the stage for narcissism, selfishness, alienation, loneliness, self-­doubt, and antagonism. Further, we develop institutions in which competition, judgmental evaluation, and hierarchy prevails. When we hold that it is fundamentally a world of “all against all,” we lean toward global distrust. In this context, movements toward relational conceptions of the self are much to be welcomed. They form a promising alternative to the individualist tradition, one that might form an invaluable resource as we move toward global interdependency.

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Yet, in my view, there are distinct differences among these three trajectories in terms of future promise. As we move into a world in which multiple perspectives, values, and ways of life are increasingly thrown into confrontation, we enter a space that is both dangerous and pregnant with potential. On the one side, within any reality-­making enclave we now have the technological potential to find 24/7 support. If invested in a religious, ethnic, political, or business enterprise, for example, our chorus of affirmation is never further than a click away. One’s vision of reality, or commitment to a way of life, need never be questioned. As a result, there may be crystallization and an accompanying resistance to any alternative reality or way of life. Such resistance may also give way quite rapidly to animosity and its deadly sequelae. We recognize this condition in the dead-­end political conflict infecting our government, no less than in the religious strife now dominating the globe. When carried to an extreme we move toward a new level of “all against all,” one with devastating consequences. At the same time, we also recognize that the chief origins of innovation lie within the hybridization of cultures or subcultures. To sustain a given tradition of reality-­making is to circumscribe the possibilities for action. In bringing traditions together, not only are possibilities expanded, but new combinations also become apparent. In effect, invention is largely a byproduct of relationship (cf. LeFevre, 1987; Montuori & Purser, 1999). Closely related, Chua (2007) has argued that the golden ages in many cultures of the world occur when their various minorities can be brought into collaborative working relations. In short, this is to say that if means can be found to soften the boundaries among various groups, to explore affinities, to appreciate multiplicities, and to prize the process of collaboration, we may move in the direction of unprecedented global well-­being. In these terms, what is to be said of the three trajectories described in this chapter? All of them move toward dissolving the tradition of the autonomous, self-­contained individual. All move toward a greater appreciation and investment in relationship. In this sense, all three could ­contribute to the more promising alternative just described. Yet, there are significant shortcomings represented in both the trajectories of encapsulation and play. In the former case, the individual becomes immersed within the reality and values of a circumscribed group. Everything outside may become either irrelevant or threatening. The potential for integrating multiple perspectives is diminished. In the case of the playing self, one sacrifices autonomous selfhood for participation in the relational world of the game. Yet, every game also functions as a bounded world within itself. And in the case of games, these are worlds generated by others, typically

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for commercial purposes. Thus, the playing self may move with ease across the span of game-­worlds. However, there is little invitation here to appreciate or participate in alternative worlds – in their terms. In terms of world futures, it is thus the general and uncontrolled immersion in technologies of communication that may offer the best hope for future well-­being. Most valued is the individual who moves freely across various spaces of relationship, absorbing from all, and emerging as a multipotentialed hybrid. The relational nomad will suffer losses – longing sporadically for the valued traditions that he or she is simultaneously rendering obsolete. Yet, given the technologies for creating new forms of life, these explorers of the new social space may just possibly generate life-­giving and life-­sustaining alternatives. References Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Caillois, R. (2001). Man, play and games. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Chua, A. (2007). Day of empire: How hyperpowers rise to global dominance – and why they fail. New York: Doubleday. Fortunati, L. (2002). The mobile phone: Towards new categories and social relations. Information, Communication & Society, 5(4): 513. Gergen, K. J. (1992). The saturated self. New York: Basic Books.   (1994). Reality and relationships: Soundings in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.   (2002). Cell phone technology and the realm of absent presence. In D. Katz & M. Aakhus (Eds.), Perpetual contact (pp.  62–81). New York: Cambridge University Press.   (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. New York: Oxford University Press. Gournay, C. (2002). Pretense of intimacy in France. In J. E. Katz & M. Aakhus (Eds.), Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Graumann, C. F., & Gergen, K. J. (Eds.) (1996). Psychological discourse in historical perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. Huizinga, J. (1938). Homo ludens. London: ­Routledge. Katz, J. E., & Aakhus, M. (Eds.) (2002). Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lasch, C. (1979). The culture of narcissism: American life in an age of diminishing expectations. New York: W. W. Norton. Leary, M. R. (2004). The curse of the self, self-­awareness, egotism, and the quality of human life. New York: Oxford University Press. LeFevre, K. B. (1987). Invention as a social act. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

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Ling, R., & Yttri, B. (2002). Hyper-­coordination via mobile phones in Norway. In James E. Katz & Mark Aakhus (Eds.), Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance (pp.  139–69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montuori, A., & Purser, R. E. (Eds.) (1999). Social creativity, Vols. 1 and 2. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Pearson, E. (2009). All the World Wide Web’s a stage: The performance of identity in online social networks. First Monday, 14(3). Retrieved from: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2162/2127 (Accessed May 1, 2013). Puro, J. (2002). Finland: A mobile culture. In J. E. Katz, & M. Aakhus (Eds.), Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance (pp. 19–29). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sampson, E. E. (2008). Celebrating the other. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications. Siegel, J. (2005). The idea of the self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, C. (1992). Sources of the self: The making of modern identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Timmermans, J. (2010). Playing with paradoxes: Identity in the Web era. Ph.D. dissertation, Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York: Basic Books.

part ii Emotional Life

4 Melancholic Subjectivity Stephen Frosh

The early years of the twenty-­first century have been marked by an escalation of global, technological violence; ethnic antagonism and brutal hostility; continuing health pandemics and major ‘natural’ catastrophes; and worldwide economic collapse. So far, so predictable: in these ways, the ­new century shows considerable continuity with the previous one. However, accompanying this has been a significant acceleration of ‘viral’ communication and increasing porosity of boundaries – between states, populations and groups; between ‘private’ and ‘public’; and between human subjects and the nonhuman technologies supporting them as ‘cyber’ entities (Braidotti, 2006). The resulting social and psychological nomadism promotes a subjectivity constituted in sensations of rootlessness and loss, even as it also constructs modes of excitement and possibility that seem to promise new, enriched experiences – most of which are not realised. This combination of excitement and loss gives rise to a ‘melancholic’ consciousness in social and psychosocial theory, which has been seen as foundational for contemporary subjectivities and their solidification into identities (especially gender and race identities). This chapter traces one genealogy of this melancholic consciousness, particularly considering its psychoanalytic resonance and its emergence as a strand in postcolonial thinking. Acting against the classic reading of melancholia as depressed self-­destructiveness, some theorists have latched onto the idea that in ‘preserving’ the lost object as an unconscious trace, melancholia may provide a paradigm for the recovery of colonised histories and hence for a progressive politics of liberation. This idea has much contemporary leverage, but also promotes what is potentially a regressive search for the ‘authentic’ object that has been stolen and needs to be re-­found. Against This chapter is based on material first published in Stephen Frosh, Hauntings: Psychoanalysis and Ghostly Transmissions. London: Palgrave, 2013.

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this, politicised notions of lack, ‘contrapuntal’ out-­of-­timeness, and messianism are drawn on as aids to thinking through the conditions necessary for resistance and renewal.

Nostalgia, Fundamentalism, Resistance The dizzying sensation to which social change gives rise is not in itself ­new, as it arguably has accompanied all the revolutionary shifts that constitute the general period of ‘modernity’, perhaps dating back several centuries (Berman, 1982). It is not even easy to argue that it is quantitatively different – that is, that the intensity of these feelings is new – given how difficult it is to establish the ‘history of emotions’ from the kinds of uncertain information to which we have access (Bourke, 2005). The most one can say with confidence is that the world has altered a great deal in the last few hundred years, and this has both disturbed people and given them hope. We might also note some obvious paradoxes of modernity. These include, first, that the Western enlightenment promise of rational scientific progress was revealed to be a scam, exposed both by the vicious outbursts of irrational, almost ‘mystical’ destructiveness evident throughout the twentieth century and by the revelation (most markedly through feminist and postcolonial scholarship and political movements) that it was anyway built on the suppression and exclusion of much of the world’s population from its benefits. Second, the extraordinary increase in life expectancy in the West has not been replicated everywhere in the world; and even where it has the emotional consequences are not completely obvious. For instance, whilst pre-­twentieth century Europeans were very familiar with death, the evidence that this inured them to it, for example, reducing the pain of losing a young child, is very mixed. Conversely, increased life expectancy means potentially more experience of loss, with each loss being that much more unfamiliar an event and hence potentially harder to deal with. Third, whilst the gains from economic expansion, technological development and scientific rationalism have been enormous and undeniable, the relentless pressure of globalised capitalism as it searches for more instrumentality, wrecking whatever gets in its way, produces immense uncertainty and insecurity accompanied by a wide range of mutually contradictory emotions and ideologies. One response to this is to feel nostalgia for more certain times, in which, the fantasy goes, ‘identity’ was stable and one’s social role clear and secure. This can have some disturbing consequences. An obvious place where such nostalgia has materialised threateningly is in the growth of religious fundamentalism – which is itself a product of modernity, rather than an ‘ancient’

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form of religion to which people are genuinely ‘returning’. One could even argue that fundamentalism is modern in the same way that psychoanalysis is, in that both of them are responses to the specific circumstances of uncertainty thrown up by modernity and particularly by the events of the early twentieth century. David Adams (2010, p. 27) comments, ‘The “fundamentalist” and the “death drive” are twins: they came into ­being simultaneously, in 1920. Cyrtis Lee Laws, a Baptist pastor, coined the former term in connection with the Buffalo meeting of the Northern Baptist Convention; Freud introduced the concept of the death drive in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.’ In the sense of rigidly asserting narrow ‘truths’ to defend against doubt, there may indeed be many modern fundamentalisms – religious ones, of course, but also modes of scientific rationalism, biological reductionism, liberal individualism and even militant secularism. Opposing fundamentalism is arguably a psychoanalytic task, lurking on the boundaries of modernism and postmodernism: promoting diversity can be seen as dependent on the capacity to tolerate or even enjoy uncertainty and to ‘read against the grain’ of orthodox opinion (Frosh, 2009). Alongside more banal and possibly less dangerous phenomena of nostalgia, associated with ‘heritage’ industries that are themselves tied up in knots over colonialism and mystical revisions of complex national histories, these exercises in backward-­lookingness make one wonder whether feelings of anxiety, insecurity and loss are more important drivers of contemporary subjectivities than hopefulness, imagination and creative engagement with changing times. Or more crudely still, but now referencing the myths of psychoanalysis, are we locked into the embrace of the death drive? That is, does this anxious yet angry nostalgia, which appeals to racialised notions of authenticity and purity as it seeks to keep clean the streets of the imagined community, actually reflect a turn away from the teeming, uncontrollable forces that constitute life? If so, we may be in the throes of a resistance movement that is precisely psychoanalytic in form. It is important to be clear what this might mean. Psychoanalytic resistance is not like political resistance, which generally speaking stands against oppression and towards liberation; rather, it is a way of avoiding facing the facts, of rejecting knowledge of ourselves, in particular of opposing the kind of open connectivity that challenges our comfortable defences and opens up spaces for radical (personal and maybe social) change. Jacqueline Rose (2007, p. 21) describes it thus: ‘In this vocabulary, then, resistance is not the action of the freedom fighter, the struggle against tyranny, the first stirring of the oppressed; it is the mind at war with itself, blocking the path to its own freedom and, with it, its ability to make the world a better, less tyrannical, place.’ The mind at

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war with itself: this is quite concretely an image of death, of something that creeps into every subject to murder its chance of freedom.

Cultures of Narcissism and Melancholia It is not that long ago since the dominant metaphor for cultural ­neurosis derived from psychoanalytic thinking was that of narcissism. As seen through the lens of Christopher Lasch (1979, 1984) and others, Western modernity was characterised by an obsessive search for reassurance that had its roots in insecurity and a fragile, ‘minimal’ self unable to cope with intense relationships and particularly with dependency and its associated vulnerability. The narcissistic rage to which such states of existential angst could give rise was seen as the source of the breathless and manipulative surface-­centredness of society, especially American society, with its individualism that did not indicate self-­confidence, but rather the reverse – an inner emptiness, perhaps an ‘ontological insecurity’ as Laing (1959) might have said, a personal landscape of deathly desert, and a constant feeling of being a fraud. From the perspective of the new century, however, and despite the subtlety of much of Lasch’s own writing, the culture of narcissism thesis now looks like a reactionary plaint, in league with the backwardness of the material it was itself describing. For example, it meshed only too well with a lament for the decay of paternal authority and an associated, usually antifeminist, nostalgia for the clarity and certainty of imagined family togetherness. It had its own colonialism too: the secure society that could breed stable selves in its citizens was imagined too easily to be one in which people would know their place, in which the disruptions of otherness could be kept within bounds. On the other hand, the narcissism metaphor had the positive effect of drawing subjectivity, via psychoanalysis, into the realm of political theorising. That is, narcissism was not just a metaphor, but a description of a subjective space – or a space of subject positioning – which was part and parcel of a certain configuration of the social (Frosh, 1991). Narcissistic culture could be given this name both because of its social characteristics and because of the actual subjective experiences of its citizens. Bereft of inner resources and terrified of loneliness, they manically chased power and greed as modes of reassurance, contributing to a society of surface and manipulative spectacle but also recycling a psychological and relational structure that could be seen operating at both personal and cultural levels. That is, ‘administered’ as a kind of bureaucratic enterprise in which consumption was constantly promoted as a way to fuel demand and perpetuate economic growth, the narcissistic society constructed its subjects

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as individualised entities at best tentatively in alliance with one another, at worst at war. Along with the more radical perspective of critical theory and the slowly permeating influence of Althusserian Marxism, this at least offered some guidelines for wrapping together the social and ­psychological, understanding how they could not be theorised apart. There is also a slightly surprising trace from this narcissism work through to some more contemporary psychosocial thinking that offers what is probably a significantly more sophisticated take on how the conditions of relational being intersect with the structures of social life. Perhaps the most fertile element of this is the literature on recognition, which sees reformist social theorists such as Axel Honneth (1996) working closely with psychoanalytic developmental theory to produce an account of social struggle founded in the idea that it is emotional stability and responsiveness that is essential for personal empowerment and political progress. Honneth examines social and political conflict as derived from a ‘fundamental struggle for recognition that itself is the key to understanding the long-­term development of social interaction in capitalist societies’ (McNay, 2008, p. 271). Drawing directly on object relational and intersubjectivist psychoanalysis, Honneth suggests that healthy development is dependent on an accurate and sustaining experience of recognition from the parent, and that this developmental necessity can be writ large as a simple fact of human experience. ‘Affective recognition’, grounded in childhood experiences in the family, is thus the source for the kind of emotional stability and security of selfhood that is necessary for sustaining social life. It gives rise to ‘legal’ and ‘status’ recognition in a triad that as it develops produces new forms of human opportunity, but if blocked evidences distortions and constraints on freedom. In particular, claims for legal and status recognition can become the fuel for social struggle and collective resistance; that is, an essentially affective condition (the demand for recognition rather than, for example, for resources) leads to political activity. One element of the recognition argument that is both consistent with the narcissism literature and that has also been productive for psychoanalytic and social theory (e.g., Fraser, 2000) is its attention to the dialogic nature of personal and collective identities. There is no subject without the other, in the sense that each subject requires recognition as a subject from the other to form itself as such. Politically, this means that the demand for recognition is a primal necessity, both at the level of the subject and of the collectivity. This claim has the effect of highlighting the relational contexts in which subject formation takes place and drawing attention to the conditions under which such contexts become damaging, a clearly ‘psychosocial’ as well as intersubjective

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move. Nevertheless, it is perhaps obvious that this approach would be criticised for psychological reductionism, as indeed it has been (McNay, 2008), even though it also facilitates a focus on emotion in social life that allows one to gain theoretical leverage on ­the intensity of people’s investments in politics. What is worth noting, however, is the lineage. Like the theorists of narcissism as well as others drawing on Winnicottian ideas of secure ego and object development (e.g., Giddens, 1991; Winnicott, 1971/1969), those deploying intersubjectivist concepts of recognition place mutuality, acceptance of dependence, and acknowledgement of the subject status of others as key attributes of a secure, psychologically stable and socially rewarding cultural sphere. Without recognition, the subject – whether as an individual or in a group  – languishes in a state of insignificance, its needs unmet, its desires unexpressed, its vulnerability and hurt unacknowledged. No wonder rage comes from there, not only the kind of narcissistic rage in which the subject is fuelled by anxious defensiveness, but also the kind of destructiveness that is itself rooted in personal injury, in an interminable cycle. Strikingly, Judith Butler’s (2009) very differently derived meditation on nonviolence shows some of the same elements as those found in recognition theory. For her, there is a primary vulnerability and dependence of the subject on others, which means that every subject experiences hurt. This lies at the source of the early destructiveness so evocatively portrayed by psychoanalysis – though not as an inbuilt death drive and associated envy, as Klein (1975/1957) would have it, but as a reaction to the social conditions under which dependency is projected into hurt and loss. Linking her theorising with the ideas of Jean Laplanche (1999), which make the insertion of unconscious, untranslatable messages from the other central to the formation of subjectivity around an unconscious kernel, Butler gives us a structure for understanding how contemporary subjectivities might be immersed in a kind of elemental state of loss. We are what others have made of us, overcome by vulnerability, tempted all the time to destroy, needily grasping at the possibility that we might after all find the thing that has already escaped us, believing it might make us whole again. Yet out of this neediness also comes the possibility of the subject as an ethical subject. Butler (2009, p. 171) writes, Non-­violence is precisely neither a virtue nor a position and certainly not a set of principles that are to be applied universally. It denotes the mired and conflicted position of a subject who is injured, rageful, disposed to violent retribution and nevertheless struggles against that action (often crafting the rage against itself). The struggle against violence accepts that violence is one’s own possibility.

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Because the temptation to destroy is universal, the human capacity ­to stay one’s hand is a move away from what is ‘given’ towards a conscious act of resistance, this time in the political sense: an act of taking responsibility for one’s mode of being. Butler’s tracing of the relationships between recognition, responsibility and violence is extremely important in the development of a contemporary philosophy of ethics, with political as well as theoretical consequences (Frosh, 2011). Her account of the resistance of the human subject to knowledge, couched in terms of the ‘opacity’ of the subject to itself and to the other, promotes a politics based on what she calls ‘epistemic limits’ (Butler, 2005, p. 42): recognition has to tolerate the otherness of the other and not try to make it ‘same’. This suggests less a demand for recognition from the other than a capacity to hold back from making that demand, in the interests of acknowledging that subjecthood cannot ever be fully known. But it also resonates with something else that she has worked on over an extended period: the language of melancholia, understood as indexing the ‘unknown unknown’ of unrecognised loss, and now replacing narcissism as the metaphor for contemporary subjectivities and their solidification into identities, especially gender and race identities. Melancholia is receiving a surprisingly good press in some of the academic work going into it, for reasons that are discussed later, so it is worth reminding ourselves first of the problems it poses, specifically of how, psychoanalytically, it has traditionally been referenced as a mode of pathology, of unworked-­through mourning that leaves the subject depressed and out in the cold. Freud’s original (1917) account of mourning and melancholia has never really been surpassed: The distinguishing mental features of melancholia are a profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self­regarding feelings to a degree that finds utterance in self-­reproaches and self-­revilings, and culminates in a delusional expectation of punishment. This picture becomes a little more intelligible when we consider that, with one exception, the same traits are met with in mourning. The disturbance of self-­regard is absent in mourning; but otherwise the features are the same. Profound mourning, the reaction to the loss of someone who is loved, contains the same painful frame of mind, the same loss of interest in the outside world – in so far as it does not recall him – the same loss of capacity to adopt any new object of love (which would mean replacing him) and the same turning away from any activity that is not connected with thoughts of him. (p. 244)

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Melancholia is seen as paralleling mourning, and as mourning is ­a response to loss then it implies that melancholia has similar causes. But the distinction between mourning and melancholia is important. As well as identifying the passivity and loss of interest in the world to be found in depression, Freud draws attention to the ‘self-­reproaches and self-­revilings’, to the way the self becomes the object of assault, how self-­recrimination dominates, how it often seems that the depressed person is behaving as if she or he is the actual cause of the loss, when usually this is patently not the case. The difference between melancholia and mourning in this way of thinking about things is subtle but important: ‘In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself ’ (Freud, 1917, p.  246).The implications of this can perhaps be understood relatively easily. If it is the world that has lost meaning, then one might find ways of acting on the world to recover it; one might even accidentally find that meaning is restored through the presence of someone who cares, or who one cares about, or through some other act of unexpected grace that can come upon one, sometimes almost unawares. In melancholia, however, because it is the ego that is depleted, there is no inner capacity to respond to such potentially rescuing moments: whatever actually exists in the world, however benevolent it might ‘objectively’ be, it cannot be used. Melancholia  – severe depression  – feeds on itself, consuming the person until there is nothing left that can respond to the feelers put out even by those who are full of genuine concern. Against this unpromising backdrop, melancholia has been resurfacing as a paradigm of subversion, an instance of how what is written out as a profound negative can be reinterpreted as a call to arms, even a messianic call in some renderings. The key element in this rereading of the productive possibilities of melancholia is not the issue of self-­hatred, but rather the way the poor ego turned in on itself refracts another aspect of the melancholic dynamic. Mourning, we are told, is a process whereby we recognise a loss and grieve it; it results, however painfully, in a coming-­to-­terms with that object’s demise, and an incorporation of it into the ego so that life can go on. The object loss fades, because it is dealt with; the thing that is lost no longer has existence, even if it is recalled with pleasure and sorrow. In melancholia, however, there is no recognition of the loss of the object, which instead becomes an unconscious spur to continuing psychic trouble; it exists ‘in’ the unconscious as something that cannot be grieved because it is never acknowledged. This has some paradoxical effects. The object is not recognised so cannot be seen for what it is, and therefore cannot be let go of; it continues to trouble the ongoing life of the subject, causing ­depression

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of a kind that cannot be got rid of because its source is not known. On the other hand – and this is what is leading to a revaluation of the melancholic motif – it in some sense preserves the object precisely because the object is never grieved. That is, whereas mourning deals with object loss and integrates the object into the subject’s psychic life, dissolving it so that it becomes a part of the subject, melancholia can be read as an act of refusal on the part of the object to being taken up and destroyed in this way. From a failure of the subject to a refusal by the object – this is an important shift in perspective that gives space for a rereading of the ‘lost’ object as now no longer lost. Butler (1997, p. 134) describes the psychoanalytic mechanism at work as follows. If in melancholia a loss is refused, it is not for that reason abolished. Internalization preserves loss in the psyche; more precisely the internalization of loss is part of the mechanism of its refusal. If the object can no longer exist in the external world, it will then exist internally, and that internalization will be a way to disavow the loss, to keep it at bay, to stay or postpone the recognition and suffering of loss.

Because it is undigested, still present in psychic space as something that is neither recognised nor disposed of, it still exists; it lies in wait for that moment in which, as Butler (2011) describes it (drawing on Walter Benjamin), it can ‘flash up’ as a moment of reminder, a breaking through of that which was occluded in history, but can now be recovered as a potentially revolutionary agent. In the life of the individual, melancholia signals that something important is still there, waiting to be recognised; in the life of the collective, the same thing applies. At the heart of much of this discussion of the paradoxes of melancholia is a dynamic of regret and potential. The object is lost, but unrecognised as such, so there is an unlocated sense of ‘something lost’ that cannot be pinned down and hence saturates the subject with a regret that shades into melancholia. At the same time, there is an augury of potential reemergence of the lost object, which perhaps threateningly, perhaps promisingly, can radically reshape the contemporary psychosocial and political scene. How the latter trend might triumph over the former is never clear, but the model here seems in many ways to be a conventional ‘depth to surface’ one in which – like the unconscious – there is always something pressing for release, and at some point it cannot be held back any more. The anti­apartheid struggle might be one instance of this; so too, however, might be the resurgence of nationalistic myth-­making and violence subsequent to the breakdown of the Eastern European Soviet states (Žižek, 1990). No

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wonder then that ­contemporary subjectivity falls under the shadow of melancholia: something is coming back to haunt us, which was not recognised before, and perhaps we are uncertain both of its provenance and its direction of change.

Melancholic Postcoloniality It will probably be obvious why so much of the reinstating of melancholia has been linked with postcolonial studies. Lisa Baraitser (2012) summarises the field, connecting it to the melancholia present in psychoanalysis itself, as a discipline that is always somehow out of time, out of date, embracing lost objects without accepting that they have really gone. Part of her thinking here is that in the context of twenty-­first century time pressures, psychoanalysis is at odds with the buzz and pace of Western urban life that gives so much of the hectic ‘feel’ to contemporary culture. Standing against the thrust towards constant productivity that dominates economic thinking, psychoanalysis is one of those sets of practices that are clearly ‘redundant’, demanding too much time and money, too much commitment – a space in which nothing happens, for ages. She suggests ‘we might usefully think of both psychoanalysis and particular inflections of performance… as “redundant” forms of human contact, deliberately “useless” and “stupid” forms that nevertheless continue to stage the possibility for something to happen’ (Bayly and Baraitser, 2008, p. 353). Baraitser (2012, pp. 224–5) comments on how this ‘out-­of-­timeness’ is intrinsic to psychoanalysis not only because of its preservation of a peculiar treatment space, but also because of its conceptualisation of how time works, as always embroiled with resurrecting the past. The trope here is that of anachronism, which is opposed to what might seem its close cousin, nostalgia, because it challenges rather than just laments the present. One way, then, that psychoanalysis is linked to anachronism is through its theorization of chronological misplacement – the way, as Lacan would have it, that future events control the meaning of events in the past, and through après coup, give rise to the past itself. But more importantly, psychoanalysis is also an anachronistic and melancholic profession due to an unacknowledged ‘othering’ constantly at work in its theoretical antecedents, and which we must make visible, but not entirely work through. The ‘work of melancholia’ (as distinct from the work of mourning) requires a stubborn attachment to a traumatic historical past that is important for both the colonized and the colonizer, as forgetting constitutes a denial of this shared, though unequal history. So it is as ­a melancholic discipline in both senses…

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Melancholia is being used here to express the attachment to the past that refuses forgetting and therefore opposes the ‘colonising’ act of appropriating history that makes it the ‘history of the victors’. Ranjana Khanna (2004), in her influential text on postcolonial melancholy and psychoanalysis, makes the link equally distinct: Whereas Freud wrote of the work of mourning as the work of assimilating the lost object, the work of melancholia has a critical relation to the lost and to the buried. It manifests, sometimes in paralysis, stasis, or demetaphorization, loss, and it thus calls upon the inassimilable remainder. It does not merely call for inclusion, assimilation, reparation, or retribution. It calls for a response to the critical work of incorporation, and the ethical demand that such incorporation makes on the future. In the context of newly formed colonized nation-­states, the critical response to nation-­statehood arises from the secret embedded in nation-­state formation: that the concept of nation-­statehood was constituted through the colonial relation, and needs to be radically reshaped if it is to survive without colonies, or without a concealed (colonial) other. (p. 25)

More of this is present in the work particularly of Homi Bhabha (2004) drawing backwards towards Fanon (1967/1952) as the recognised psychoanalytically informed precursor of postcolonial studies. There is much to be said about this, and there are several important studies of the modes of racialisation and indeed of racism that can be teased out of the nexus of colonialism and psychoanalysis (e.g., Brickman, 2003; Hook, 2012; Seshadri-­Crooks, 2000). From within the history of oppression, what comes across most urgently is the idea that in emerging into a postcolonial space, something from the unremembered past raises its head, unacknowledged and unwanted yet having intensely ambivalent effects on contemporary subjectivities. The ambivalence can perhaps be spelt out along two dimensions, as one might predict. First, colonialism so comprehensively destroyed the sources of value within the cultures that it conquered – left those subjects so unrecognised, one might say – that whilst there might be powerful sensations of loss at work in those cultures, there is little access to the actual things that were lost. What might have constituted the subjugated culture as living and substantial was wiped out so thoroughly that even its loss cannot be known. This could also forge a psychic response in which the unbearable nature of this loss is denied and replaced by a manic rush towards the coloniser’s mode of being, for example, in aping the structures of the colonial nation state. To adapt Butler’s (1997) version of ­melancholic loss from the context of gender and sexual formation, ‘I never loved, I never lost’ becomes the condition under which the colonised nation is formed,

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with melancholia as its characteristic ‘state of mind’. This unrecognised loss has powerful effects: as it breaks through to postcolonial nationhood, the colonised culture is haunted precisely by the lost object that it cannot name, which has become somehow incorporated and kept alive, yet is neither integrated nor acknowledged, is truly in this sense melancholic. Khanna (2004) implies that the whole concept of nation-­statehood as an unrecognised construction of colonialism needs to be ‘radically reshaped’ if new nations are to survive ‘without colonies’. More specifically, melancholic subjectivity is something that produces a kind of restlessness in which it becomes known, or at least felt, that something has gone missing – that something, indeed, has been stolen, to use a trope familiar from Lacanian accounts of racism (Žižek, 2006) – but because it is impossible to trace what this is, the subject is haunted by a kind of empty rage and odd deference to those who possess something to which they can point as having value. Perhaps envy, perhaps internecine destructiveness arise from this, a kind of violence in which loss is covered over in a devotion to death. Margarita Palacios (forthcoming), examining the differing relations of fantasy and melancholia to violence, argues that it is in the act of covering over lack through an unendurable meditation on unremitting loss that melancholia turns on itself in a kind of deathly pact. If melancholia… is no longer theorized as the right to recover the lost object, but as the mourning of the (lacking) Thing, it could be said that both fantasy and melancholia are different mechanisms which deal with the impossibility of the real: whereas its covering up is constitutive of ideological fantasy, the attitude of exposing the very space of lack would be characteristic of melancholia. This conceptual distinction is quite significant since formulated this way, melancholia no longer informs struggles for political justice, but produces violence as well, a type of violence where the self is equally exposed to death as the other, or to put it differently, a type of violence where the self and the other die together, or where self and other are together ‘only in death.’ (Palacios, Forthcoming)

The idea that melancholia may be a way of covering over lack with the fiction of loss is returned to later; but here what stands out is that in refusing to nominate an object of loss, but rather instead preferring to delineate an empty space in which loss is felt but not remedied, there is an invitation to violence that turns inwards on the subject, and on the society in which the new postcolonial subject is formed. Youth violence is given by ­Palacios as an instance here: acting as if death does not matter, or is somehow not real, subcultures dominated by melancholic violence deny themselves the

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possibility of active, outward-­directed revolt. Despite its contemporary language, this idea would not have been unimaginable by Freud, who after all made the distinguishing characteristic of melancholia its inwardness, its ‘self-­reproaches and self-­revilings’. Butler (1997, p. 142) offers a kind of summary, when she writes, ‘Melancholia is both the refusal of grief and the incorporation of loss, a miming of the death it cannot mourn. Yet the incorporation of death draws upon the death instincts to such a degree that we might well wonder whether the two can be separated from one another, whether analytically or phenomenologically.’ The second face of the ambivalence of melancholy is, however, the potentially resistive, ‘messianic’ one produced, as described above, by the internalisation of the lost object without breaking it down into digestible, colonisable, bits. Because it is internalised (incorporated) whole rather than assimilated, it remains to trouble the colonising subject, ready at some point to burst out so that it can challenge the received position that nothing existed there. That is, the failure to mourn the lost object means it continues to press for recognition; and the revolutionary postcolonial act is that of acknowledging this lost object and drawing from it the voices of oppressed people who previously did not have a place, who could not be mourned because their very existence was denied. From these voices a new dynamic can be produced, shaming the colonial rewriting of history; the past therefore ‘flashes up’, disturbing the present, radicalising the vision of what once was and therefore could be built anew. Before arguing against this position and insisting ‘on the need to denounce the objective cynicism that such a rehabilitation of melancholy enacts’, Slavoj Žižek (2000, p. 658) describes it comprehensively. Against Freud, one should assert the conceptual and ethical primacy of melancholy. In the process of the loss, there is always a remainder that cannot be integrated through the work of mourning, and the ultimate fidelity is the fidelity to this remainder. Mourning is a kind of betrayal, the second killing of the (lost) object, while the melancholic subject remains faithful to the lost object, refusing to renounce his or her attachment to it. This story can be given a multitude of twists, from the queer one, which holds that homosexuals are those who retain fidelity to the lost or repressed identification with the same-­sex libidinal object, to the postcolonial/ethnic one, which holds that when ethnic groups enter capitalist processes of modernization and are under the threat that their specific legacy will be swallowed up by the new global culture, they should ­not renounce their tradition through mourning, but retain the melancholic attachment to their lost roots.

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Žižek recognises the power of this argument, but denounces it as used, in practice, to legitimise the continuation of precisely the oppressive social conditions that it is meant to challenge: ‘The melancholic link to the lost ethnic Object allows us to claim that we remain faithful to our ethnic roots while fully participating in the global capitalist game’ (p. 659). Indeed, he claims that this might mean that postcolonial studies itself is sustained by a logic he calls that of ‘objective cynicism’. ‘To make things absolutely clear,’ he writes (p. 659), ‘what is wrong with the postcolonial nostalgia is not the utopian dream of a world they never had (such a utopia can be thoroughly liberating) but the way this dream is used to legitimize the actuality of its very opposite, of the full and unconstrained participation in global capitalism.’

Lost Lacks One can see some of the potential problems here as melancholic attachments to imagined lost goods come to stand in for progressive attempts to respond to contemporary conditions of the actually existing symbolic. Of course, the imaginary domain can in principle be a source of utopian and hence radical hope: this is what Žižek is referencing when he comments that ‘such a utopia can be thoroughly liberating.’ It can be a way of reimagining boundaries and challenging constraints, for example, in relation to gender divisions assumed under the order of patriarchy to be ‘natural’ and immutable. But there are two weak links. One is utopianism itself: it underestimates the power of the actually existing social order to take hold of its dissidents and either to crush them or, precisely, to colonise them, to appropriate them to its own tastes and concerns. Before the advent of melancholic nostalgia in its current form (though at a time when ‘roots’ were being uncovered as a source of ethnic pride, particularly in America), Hélène Cixous (1981/1976, p. 255) noted, using the notion of the ‘symbolic’ to refer to the patriarchal order of language and the law, ‘Their “Symbolic” exists, it holds power – we, the sowers of disorder, know it only too well.’ This remains a realistic statement of the limits to which it might be possible to challenge the structures of power and violence by purely cultural means. The second weakness, perhaps more relevant here, is that in imagining the existence of a lost object that can or must be ‘recovered’, a mythology is created which has a number of potentially nefarious effects. It is, by definition, backward-­looking to a supposed time when there was a pure culture of ­the now-­oppressed, a kind of romance of origin that can be called on to establish the distinctiveness and perhaps purity to which the group can return. Particularly in the context of ethnic and postcolonial challenge, this

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is a dangerous strategy in that it sets up a division between the ‘authentic’ culture of the oppressed group – a fetish of the lost object, in psychoanalytic terms  – and the reality that one still lives with the effects of colonialism even after its apparent demise. The postcolonial world is not the same as the precolonial one; Nachträglichkeit applies here as well as in the individual psyche, because what might or might not have actually existed at one time can be recovered and read only from the specific position in which one now finds oneself. Allowing the lost object to ‘flash up’ as if it has not changed may disturb the present, but what is produced is something fantasmagoric and potentially reactionary, the lost object becoming a call back to a neverland of imagined time. As Derek Hook (2012) has shown, Edward Said (2003) provides a useful parallel concept to Nachträglichkeit with some of the same resonance – something taken out of time to disturb the present  – showing how what is actually required is a way of thinking through past challenge and present being that acknowledges the irreducibility of each to the other, yet still allows them both to be shaken up by their encounter. Said’s concept is that of the ‘contrapuntal’, reading or hearing different lines of thought against one another, keeping them in tension without it being a case of restoring the past in the present or harking back to a better time. He writes about those figures from the past who should be read ‘out of context’ in this way: My approach tries to see them in their context as accurately as possible, but then …I see them contrapuntally, that is, as figures whose writings travel across temporal, cultural and ideological boundaries in unforeseen ways to emerge as part of a new ensemble along with later history and subsequent art. (Said, 2003, p. 24)

Out-­of-­time reading of this kind (which does not mean to say that Said neglects historical context in his work) leads to a radical form of ‘reading against the grain’ that operates in two directions  – to unsettle the present, for sure, but also to reopen the past in the light of present concerns, exploring how it changes as one reads it differently. This is again similar to the way psychoanalysis makes it impossible ever to find a pure lost object uncontaminated by the accretion of later fantasies around it, as well as repositioned by the context within which the memory of it arises. Said comments (p. 25), Thus later history reopens and challenges what seems to have been ­the finality of an earlier figure of thought, bringing it into contact with cultural, political and epistemological formations undreamed of by – albeit affiliated by historical circumstances with – its author.

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There is no fixed original form of the primary object, trauma or wish that can be recaptured in the present, that can flash up as if it has been preserved unchanged for centuries. It was never like that. One can go back to the texts and stories, the reconstructed memories and cultural myths, and make use of them in the present for purposes for which they were not intended, to shake up and challenge the present, to offer new ways through. But this is still not a way of allowing something real to speak its truth; and the danger of insisting that it is so is that of creating a present that is essentialist and reactionary. What is at stake here is the importance both of tracing the history out of which the present has emerged, so that there is recognition and acknowledgement of oppression as well as restitution and liberating action, but without fetishising the past so that its constructed character is denied. It is here that the question arises of whether valorising melancholy as a structure of loss is actually a way of covering up something else, more profound and more pervasive – which from the Lacanian position occupied by Žižek can only be that of lack. In short, what melancholy obfuscates is that the object is lacking from the very beginning, that its emergence coincides with its lack, that this object is nothing but the positivization of a void or lack, a purely anamorphic entity that does not exist in itself. The paradox, of course, is that this deceitful translation of lack into loss enables us to assert our possession of the object; what we never possessed can also never be lost, so the melancholic, in his unconditional fixation on the lost object, in a way possesses it in its very loss. … The melancholic subject thus elevates the object of his longing into an inconsistent composite of a corporeal absolute; however, since this object is subject to decay, one can possess it unconditionally only insofar as it is lost, in its loss. (Žižek, 2000, p. 660)

The lack versus loss argument might seem unnecessarily arid even for Lacanian theorists, but one can see its implications in the postcolonial space of contemporary subjectivity. If melancholia is organised around a lost object that can later be recovered it fixes the subject in the past; like the Jewish prayer to ‘restore our days as of old’, it is premised on the idea that there is a truth-­trauma to be uncovered and mourned and that there has been a kind of degeneration since those days. Something has been stolen from us (which may of course be the case), and its absence haunts us until it is restored. Žižek’s claim, however, is that this is a kind of fakery, in ­which two related things occur. First, there is no lost object as such, but rather a constitutional and universal experience of lack, of an impossible gap that can never be fully bridged; and second, a way develops of dealing with this lack by pretending that it is actually a loss – that is, by inventing an object

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which can be lamented, even though it has never been necessary to mourn it at all. ‘Therein resides the melancholic’s stratagem,’ Žižek writes (p. 661), ‘the only way to possess an object that we never had, that was from the very outset lost, is to treat an object that we still fully possess as if this object is already lost. The melancholic’s refusal to accomplish the work of mourning thus takes the form of its very opposite, a faked spectacle of the excessive, superfluous mourning for an object even before this object is lost.’ It is not the object that is lost, but rather it is desire that is always disappointed: we may find the object (the postcolonial nation state, for instance) and then experience that finding as a lack, because it can never satisfy the desire around which it was supposedly constructed. More politically, what we have here is a possible opposition between closure and openness. The melancholic attitude is to look back for the thing that once recovered will bring history to an end, the thing that replaces what was lost, destroyed or stolen; the alternative is an approach to history which sees it as constantly unfolding in its modes of newness, never satisfied and complete, and because of that always seeking something else, restlessly alive with possibilities as well as threats. There are many problems with the Lacanian and Žižekian presentation of lack as constitutive of the political as well as the psychic arena, not least that it can produce a nihilistic account in which nothing can be done to induce change (Robinson, 2004). Even without this contested point (Lacanians argue, for example, that the incompleteness and ‘lack’ in the system is precisely what allows human creativity to emerge), there is the question of exactly what it is that is always and fundamentally lacking. Is it something beyond history, a secularised Fall? Lacanians would have it to be a necessary failure that is constitutive of human subjectivity: there is always something that escapes symbolisation, termed by Lacanians the Real, theorised as a potential for breakthrough or breakdown. Conjuring up the Real in the realm of the political, for instance, Stavrakakis (2007, p. 54) comments that it ‘refers to the moment of failure of a given identity or social construction; a failure which not only dislocates the identity in question but also creates a lack, stimulating the desire for a rearticulation of the dislocated structure, stimulating, in other words, human creativity, becoming the condition of possibility for human freedom.’ That is, the fact of lack creates the desire for change – an idea that drives Stavrakakis’ ­belief in and commitment to radical democracy. It is perhaps in this context that Butler’s (2011) reassertion of Walter Benjamin’s take on Jewish messianism is most alluring. For her, drawing from but opposing Gershom Scholem (1941), the Kabbalistic imagery of

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the breaking of the ten sefirot (the vessels set aside to hold God’s holiness) during creation is an important image. In Jewish mystical tradition, the breaking of the vessels is seen as a cataclysm: they were meant to hold the divine light and their loss scatters this light everywhere; this produces an exile of the divine that forces history into motion as a process of suffering and searching until the scattered sparks can be redeemed. For Butler, however, the divine scattering of light across all peoples creates the prospect for diversity and what she calls ‘co-­habitation’. The messianic gathering-­in of these holy sparks is not then a metaphor for the end of history, but for its continued creativity. Butler (2011, p. 83) comments, ‘What is produced at such a moment, or at such a juncture, is, in Benjamin’s words, “a revolutionary chance in the fight for the oppressed past.” To fight for the oppressed past is not simply or only to document it, much less to give it monumental form. Rather, it is a certain breaking apart of the amnesiac surface of time, so that what seems to be moving toward us, what might be entering the gate, is a memory as it acts upon the present, a memory that takes fragmented and scattered form.’ This means that there is no actual lost object simply to be recovered, a presence that will return to lead everything to its satisfactory, integrated conclusion – the reunification of the sparks, which sees the fragmentation of society (the ‘breaking of the vessels’) as a degraded system that needs to be put right, demanding a reparative response that is itself the marker of the messianic. By contrast, Butler’s use of Walter Benjamin here advances the cause of continuing ‘flashing up’ of the hidden sparks, in which those who have lost most and who are written out of humanity have the chance to return, to make their presence felt. Butler writes (2011, p. 84) that this is a kind of ‘wager’, a chance rather than a programme or even a prophecy. If the history of effacement continues the history of affliction, then what flashes up is precisely the history of the oppressed not as something that did happen, but something happening still. And if the emergency brake is pulled on such a history, then the effacement through which affliction is continued is brought to a halt. Well, not quite. There seems to be a chance that this will happen, but the messianic, if we recognize it here, seems not to be an event, not a happening, but the chance, the sudden fragility of an inexorable progress, the exploding from within of an amnesia that denies the history of suffering, and whose denial is ­the continuation of that history.

This kind of ‘melancholia’ understands the recovery of the lost object not as something that refers to the past, but as an act troubling the present because of its continuing ‘affliction’. So the mode of subjectivity that is

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open to this announces itself as one which is always toppling over, is never capable of a satisfied balance; it is a radical subjectivity exactly because it has no option but to hear the voices of the oppressed as they continue in their resistance. Not solely melancholic now, but somehow assertive too. Žižek (2000, p. 665) notes, with reference to Derrida, ‘on account of its very radicalism, the messianic promise forever remains a promise, cannot ever be translated into a set of determinate economic and political measures.’ This is troubling subjectivity at its most poignant: something speaks from the other that cannot ever be fully answered, some demand, threat or promise that the subject knows it cannot ever contain.

Reclaiming Rootless Cosmopolitanism There is a coda here, which has to do with what it is that is fantasised as bearing the weight of the messianic wager and that relates to postcolonialism and anti-­Semitism as a specific form of contemporary racism, perhaps with different dynamics from other racist phenomena. In French political theory after the Second World War, notably Sartre’s (1946) Anti-­Semite and Jew, there was an intriguing move towards what has been called the ‘rehabilitation’ of the figure of the Jew as one who is not tied to a particular way of being, to a land or specific nation. Hammerschlag (2011, p. 24) comments that Sartre defined the anti-­Semite as the one who flees his existential destiny by clinging to determinist ideas of essence, nature and race. In contrast he presented the Jew as something of an archetype for the everyman: faced with existential groundlessness and struggling against the fact of being over-­determined by the other. Sartre asserted on multiple occasions that he himself identified with the Jew, ‘a type who has nothing, no land, an intellectual.’

Ironically, this reinstatement of the dispossessed Jew as a positive figure emerged at almost exactly the same time as the argument was being undermined by the formation of the State of Israel. It also plays on traditional tropes of the Jew as rootless cosmopolitan that has been a major source of anti-­Semitic opprobrium: the Jews as the viruses spreading around the world; the plague-­carriers; the conspirators with no attachments to ­nation, people, or land. This suggests a few speculative strands of thought that might say something about the reemergence of strong forms of anti-­Semitism in twenty-­first century culture, and through that might reflect on wider modes of intolerance and fear of otherness. The Jew exists in this discourse as the one who transcends boundaries of nation and state, who cannot be assimilated nor fully repudiated, but is

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imagined to be everywhere; who however hard one tries to wipe him or her out remains in existence (so that anti-­Semitism is present even in the absence of Jews); who is desired and envied (so good at money-­making, so clever) as well as abhorred (Frosh, 1989, 2005). This already has the feel not only of paranoia, but also of melancholia. But if that is the case, what exactly is it that is lost, and how does it relate to the contemporary scene? First, if one accepts that the Jew traditionally represents in part the longed-­for absence of roots, liberated from constraints of morality and obeisance to the big Other of society – that is, if Jews are excluded and exclude themselves – then the Jew can stand in for an imagined lost freedom in which the subject can follow its desire without pause or constraint, without superego enforcement. This is perhaps the truth in Žižek’s otherwise apparently anti-­Semitic claim about Judaism and its attachment to the law. For Jews, it seems, the relationship with the law is intimate – they exploit it for its loopholes – precisely because it is not weighed down with unnecessary ‘supplements’. The determination of Judaism as the religion of the Law is to be taken seriously: it is the Law at its purest, deprived of its obscene superego supplement… the miracle of the Jewish prohibition is that it effectively is just a prohibition, with no obscene message between the lines. It is precisely because of this that Jews can look for the ways to get what they want while literally obeying the prohibition. Far from displaying their casuistry and externally manipulative relationship to the Law, this procedure rather bears witness to the direct and literal attachment to the Law. (Žižek, 2005, p. 151)

Žižek’s position here is a subtle one, which in some ways idealises Judaism as a direct relation to the law that is not caught up in a fantasmatic pattern of enjoyment in which transgression is invited at the same time as it is prohibited. This directness allows Jews to know the law as it is, not to ‘supplement’ it; in contrast to other relationships to the law, including Christian readings of Judaism, there is something more honest about it. This is why the comment that ‘Jews can look for the ways to get what they want while literally obeying the prohibition’ is not exactly anti-­Semitic, even though it seems to have anti-­Semitic resonance (Jews exploit the law to get their ­own way …). It is in many ways the classic image held of Jews by non-­Jews: Jews do what they want and are both admired and abhorred for doing so. They therefore carry not just vermin status in the anti-­Semitic world, but also a set of fantasies about what it could be like ‘if only’ one did not have to be tied down, if only it were possible to be rootless and free, untroubled by the superego injunction to obey. ‘Only enjoy’ would then be the commandment, and the Jews hold out the possibility that this could be so.

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It is perhaps no accident in this regard that much contemporary antiS­ emitism climbs on board an anti-­Zionist ticket. As noted previously, at the moment that Sartre and others rediscover the Jew as the one who is free because he or she ‘has nothing, no land’, the new Jew comes formally into being as the one with an old-­fashioned nationalistic state, in some ways colonial, certainly militaristic and expansionist; a modern state, with plenty of foibles and destructive components. In addition (or one might say, ‘in excess’) to political opposition to the actions of this state, there are plenty of examples of anti-­Semitic tropes being brought into play over it, recognisable as such even by clearly committed critics of Israel. Surely this is multiply determined, but perhaps one of these many determinants is a kind of melancholic disappointment. As Žižek (2000, p. 662) opines, ‘Melancholy occurs when we finally get the desired object, but are disappointed in it.’ Jews are no longer admired and longed for, but also abjured, because they have ‘nothing, no land’; now they are represented as in their own state, which normalises them as mainstream political Zionists always hoped would be the case. However, for the non-­Jewish anti-­Semite this is a narcissistic blow: the Jew who carries the hope that freedom is possible carries this no more; and whilst the threat of Jewish contamination is thereby reduced (though it is a handily resilient threat that is constantly resurrected), the Jew becomes just the same as everyone else. The promise of freedom is gone; no one escapes the normalising enforcement of the nationalistic big Other. Admittedly this is speculative, but it fits the scene of melancholy: modern anti-­Semitism and the racisms it represents is in part due to disappointment that the Jew no longer carries the hope of recovery of an object-­cause of desire that lies in freedom. And recall here that at least for Žižek, in a characteristically controversial move at odds with postcolonialism, anti-­Semitism is fundamental to all racism. He states (1994, p.  74), ‘we are dealing with universalized anti-­Semitism – that is, every ethnic “otherness” is conceived of as an unheimliches double that threatens our enjoyment; in short, “normal”, non-­exceptional, non-­anti-­Semitic racism is no longer possible.’ Why is the anti-­Semite fascinated by the Jew, even when there are no Jews around? It is because the Jew has something that triggers the anti-­Semite’s desire. ­So when the Jew turns out to be no more than anyone else, it is not only a disappointment, but also a travesty; and more rage grows. If twenty-­first century subjectivity is characterised by melancholia, then it is not necessarily the case that this will lead to a deepening of feeling nor to a breakthrough of previously oppressed subjects who now at last find their voice. In a postcolonial context, one might wish this to be so, and the subtle theoretical positions taken up by those who are sensitive to the loss

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and inward-­directed violence that characterises the melancholic state have certainly provided a poignant articulation of the possibility of recovering purpose and value from derogated histories. But there is a risk that both previously ‘subject’ groups and colonisers themselves may find that their attachments to imagined lost objects produce incoherent hatreds and disappointments as much as new ways of being. If we are to talk in terms of the messianic, which may itself be a mistake, it needs to be the messianic as openness to the new, not to a recovery of the old; not to nostalgia but to disruption; not solely to restitution and acknowledgement – though these things are necessary – but to the overturning of continuing oppression and racist hate. Melancholic subjectivity has its attractions, but melancholia is also genuinely a state of stuckness and inward-­directed destructiveness; too much of it is around, and it is important to move from it towards a more outward-­directed commitment to resistance and renewal.

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Fraser, N. (May–June 2000). Rethinking recognition. New Left Review, 223:107–20. Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and melancholia. The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. XIV (1914–1916): On the history of the psycho-­analytic movement, papers on metapsychology and other works (pp. 237–58). London: Hogarth Press. Frosh, S. (1989). Psychoanalysis and psychology. London: Macmillan.   (1991). Identity crisis: Modernity, psychoanalysis and the self. London: Macmillan.   (2005). Hate and the Jewish science: Anti-­Semitism, Nazism and psychoanalysis London: Palgrave.   (2009). Promised land or permitted land: A consideration of Jewish fundamentalism in the light of Levinasian ethics. Psychoanalysis and History, 11: 209–24.   (2011). The relational ethics of conflict and identity. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 16: 225–43. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-­identity. Cambridge: Polity. Hammerschlag, S. (2011). The least and last of the Jews. Jewish Quarterly, 217: 22–5. Honneth, A. (1996). The struggle for recognition: The moral grammar of social conflicts. Oxford: Polity. Hook, D. (2012). A critical psychology of the postcolonial: Biko, Fanon, racism and psychoanalysis. London: Routledge. Khanna, R. (2004). Dark continents: Psychoanalysis and colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Klein, M. (1975). Envy and gratitude. In Envy and gratitude and other works (pp.176– 235). New York: Delta. (Originally published 1957.) Laing, R. (1959). The divided self. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin. Laplanche, J. (1999). The unfinished Copernican revolution. In Essays on otherness (pp. 52–83). London: Routledge. Lasch, C. (1979). The culture of narcissism. London: Abacus.   (1984). The minimal self. London: Picador. McNay, L. (2008). The trouble with recognition: Subjectivity, suffering, and agency. Sociological Theory, 26: 271–96. Palacios, M. (Forthcoming). Between fantasy and melancholia: Lack, otherness and violence. In L. Auestad (Ed.), Nationalism and the body politic. London: Kamac. Robinson, A. (2004). The politics of lack. British Journal of Politics and ­International Relations, 6: 259–69. Rose, J. (2007). The last resistance. London: Verso. Said, E. (2003). Freud and the non-­European. London: Verso. Sartre, J-­P. (1995). Anti-­Semite and Jew. New York: Schocken (originally published 1946). Scholem, G. (1941). Major trends in Jewish mysticism. New York: Schocken. Seshadri-­Crooks, K. (2000). Desiring whiteness: A Lacanian analysis of race. London: Routledge. Stavrakakis, Y. (2007). The Lacanian left. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Winnicott, D. W. (1971). The use of an object and relating through identification. In Playing and reality (pp. 86–94). New York: Basic Books. (Originally published 1969.) Žižek, S. (1990). East European republics of Gilead. New Left Review, 183: 50–62.   (1994). The metastases of enjoyment. London, Verso.   (2000). Melancholy and the act. Critical Inquiry, 26: 657–81.   (2005). Neighbours and other monsters. In S. Žižek, E. Santner, & K. Reinhard, The neighbour: Three inquiries in political theology (pp.  134–90). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.   (2006). The parallax view. Cambridge: MIT Press.

5 Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: Self-­Consciousness in the Twenty-­First Century John Hewitt

… on or about December, 1910, human character changed. I am not saying that one went out, as one might into a garden, and there saw that a rose had flowered, or that a hen had laid an egg. The change was not sudden and definite like that. But a change there was, nevertheless; and, since one must be arbitrary, let us date it about the year 1910.1 …Virginia Woolf, Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown

Generations of sociologists, historians, and social critics have taken Virginia Woolf ’s hyperbole – “on or about December, 1910” – virtually as a slogan. Around the turn of the twentieth century, it is alleged, profound changes in the character of human beings began to be evident. They became modern (and later still, some allege, postmodern); they abandoned ideals of character and began a quest for personality; they replaced an inner moral compass with organizational and interpersonal conformity; they found it necessary to find or construct identities that had once been institutionally provided and guaranteed; they came to regard self-­esteem as an entitlement; they degenerated into narcissism. However the change was conceived, nothing about the individual and about consciousness of self would ever be the same. In its varied forms, this hypothesis of change has become received wisdom in social and behavioral science. My goal here is to subject the hypothesis to critical scrutiny, examine its social and political uses, and offer a dissenting 1 Woolf (1924/2005, p. 24). The Mr. Bennett in the title of Virginia Woolf ’s 1924 essay was the English novelist, playwright, and critic, Arnold Bennett, with whom she had carried on a ten-­year literary argument. Mrs. Brown was an imaginary old lady in the corner of a railroad compartment, Woolf ’s surrogate for all of humankind. “I believe that all novels,” she wrote, “begin with an old lady in the corner opposite. I believe that all novels, that is to say, deal with character…” Mrs. Brown is “…eternal, Mrs. Brown is human nature,” and her character and experience, we are told, could not be conveyed using the methods of Bennett and his Edwardian novelist peers. Something in human character had changed that demanded new writing tools.

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interpretation. The self of the twentieth century is more complex and varied, and more rooted in the past, than scholars and critics have alleged. Discourse about these matters, particularly in the American context, which is my focus, reveals more stability than change in the self, and we are unlikely to see major transformations in the twenty-­first century.

From Homo Sincerus to Homo Authenticus It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which changes in the social and psychological nature of Americans preoccupied both scholarly and popular authors during the second half of the twentieth century. Those who had something to say include such prominent figures as Warren Susman, T. Jackson Lears, and Christopher Lasch in history and David Riesman and Phillip Rieff in sociology.2 The list of popular writers and conceptual entrepreneurs who have addressed the topic is endless. The words deployed to depict this change include inner direction, other direction, character, personality, “the quest for identity,” individualism, self-­esteem, narcissism, “the triumph of the therapeutic,” and “therapism.” The hegemonic image is one of change, whether conceived neutrally as the transformation of the self or its social anchors, or critically and politically as decline or decay. Although the nature and causes of the change have been matters of dispute, that there has been a change is taken as settled knowledge. The literature of a changing American self is too vast to survey here. Even a brief review of major contributions would merely recapitulate the history of the discourse and focus attention on the details of scholarly differences rather than on overall similarities. Accordingly, I instead portray two imaginary modal character types, one, homo sincerus, allegedly dominant by the end of the nineteenth century, and the other, homo authenticus, emergent during the twentieth and dominant by its end. The terms, but not the types themselves, are suggested by Lionel Trilling’s (1972) Sincerity and Authenticity, which charted the emergence of these words and their contrasting moral guidance for the self through 400  years of European literature. Trilling’s contrast is not precisely isomorphic with the character types I construct here; accordingly, crass social science owes Professor Trilling’s memory an apology for 2 Given my emphasis here on American culture and character I have perforce ignored the vast body of literature on the nature of the contemporary or modern self, for example, the work of Anthony Giddens (1991). That body of work is as much grounded in a hypothesis of change as is the analysis of the American self, but the changes in question are said to have occurred more broadly to Western, “modern,” or “postmodern” society. The present analysis intends to cast a finer and narrower net, on the theory that particular cultural circumstances matter considerably.

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whatever violence is done to his nuanced discussion. Nonetheless, his words convey the essence of the contrast between the two types without privileging any particular scholarly or popular version of them. Homo sincerus and h. authenticus are imaginary in two respects. First, the terms distill a set of attributes or dispositions into “pure” types that are never realized but can nonetheless usefully represent modal ways in which individual personalities may be organized and linked to the social order. They are thus ideal types in the sense Max Weber (1904) conceived of them. Second, these character types are distilled not from my own observations, but rather from an array of types imagined primarily by scholars focused on changes in the self. David Riesman’s inner-­directed character, for example, is a first-­order typification of nineteenth-­century social character based on his own historical interpretations. My h. sincerus is a second-­order typification derived from Riesman’s work and that of several others. As do all such typifications, those under discussion here reveal as much about the interests, motives, and preconceptions of their inventors as about the people they purport to analyze. A series of questions provides a useful starting point for constructing this typology. These are fundamental questions a sociologist looking at the connections between the individual and the social world might ask about any society or historical era. Their formulation here reflects particular changes that have allegedly occurred over the past century or two. Each depicts a pair of opposite ways people might construct themselves and their relationships to one another and to the social world as a whole. Do individuals imagine themselves as anchored in the social world and its institutions or as in a state of tension with it? Do social controls operate from within, through various forms of internalization, or from without, by conformity to external demands? Do people locate themselves in the social world primarily through identification with social roles and group memberships or primarily through the construction of personal identity narratives? What emotions are associated with self-­experience, and do people regard such feelings as subservient or superior to thoughts and actions? Do people find individuality in the instrumental pursuit and accomplishment of concrete ends or in the expression of personal traits and attributes? Should the individual be responsible for his or her own fate or seek the aid and support of others? Is favorable self-­regard conditional on conduct, personal attributes, or group membership, or is it something to which all are entitled?

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These questions, answered (if not always explicitly asked) by scholars, social critics, and conceptual and therapeutic entrepreneurs, lead us to a skeletal statement of our typology of h. sincerus and h. authenticus. The typology and its key terms and distinctions are sketched in Table 5.1. The authors on whose work the elements of this typology are based would doubtless be reluctant, perhaps even dismayed, to see their analyses combined in this way. Nevertheless, these elements, contributed at various times and in differing voices  – scholarly analysis, cultural criticism, sermonic exhortation, conceptual and therapeutic enterprise, political tract, jeremiad  – seem aptly to characterize the overall nature and ­direction .

Table 5.1.  A Typology of C ­ haracter Element

H. Sincerus

H. authenticus

Self-­anchorage

Institutional: The best self is revealed by living up to institutional obligations to family, work, religion, etc.

Social control

Inner-­direction: Social controls are internalized; conformity is fostered by inner commitment to norms and values. Social: Social roles and group memberships provide a sure and relatively stable sense of identity, utilizing standard cultural narratives. Reserve: Emotions are antithetical to rationality and should be controlled. Instrumental: Individuality lies in the attainment of goals. Self-­reliance: The individual should guard against dependence on others. Merit: Positive self-­regard must be earned.

Impulsive: The real self is revealed by acting on impulses even when they violate institutional requirements. Other-­direction: Social controls are external; conformity is shaped by the expectations and responses of others. Personal: The person constructs and narrates an uncertain and malleable identity based heavily on his or her particular biography. Expression: Feelings are as important as thoughts and should be expressed. Expressive: Individuality lies in the expression of personal attributes. Help-­seeking: The individual needs the aid of others.

Identity

Emotion Individualism Independence Self-­esteem

Entitlement: Positive self-regard is a right.

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of the hypothesized change when taken together in the colloidal form proposed here. Homo sincerus, by this account, found the truest expression of self by adhering to institutional obligations and standards of accomplishment. Family, work, religion, and civic life provided both the abstract values and the concrete social settings for the development and demonstration of personal virtue. To be true to those institutions was to be true to self. Social controls operated from within, frequently unseen and unfelt, as people internalized social obligations and ambitions and thus developed a powerful moral compass to guide them through life. They learned to want to do what the social order wanted them to do. The individual could be located in social life, by self and by others, by his or her social roles and group memberships. Identity was thus predominantly social, shaped by relations with others and given legitimacy by a standard set of narratives that spoke of such things as duty, ambition, and perseverance in the face of obstacles. Experiencing and expressing emotions was institutionally governed, with a strong disapproval of excessive emotion; clear norms about appropriate times, places, and means of emotional expression; and a strong sense of opposition between the emotions and rationality. Individuality was cherished, but it took an instrumental form: one demonstrated individuality by persevering in the quest for success. Self-­reliance was the watchword, and self-­esteem – thought of as a modicum but not an excess of pride in self – could be had only by accomplishment and adherence to standards. Homo authenticus takes a different stance toward the social world. Major institutions are not so much the source of virtues and goals through which a self may be created as they are external forces that impose restrictive and often oppressive norms that hinder the expression of a true self. People are at their best when acting on their own feelings and desires rather than living up to rules imposed by others. Rebellion thus frequently trumps conformity as a measure of worth and happiness. Social controls do exist – as indeed they must in any social order – but they lie in the real or imagined responses of others rather than within. There is a paradox here, of course, for h. authenticus disapproves of conformity, but nonetheless must have his or her individuality validated by the approval of others. The individual is ideally located in the social world far more by biography and personal narrative than by social roles or group memberships. Personal identity is more important than social identity. Given the important role of impulse and of individual wants and needs, emotions are viewed favorably. Feelings are as important as thoughts and should be given expression, lest the individual suffer psychologically. Individualism takes an expressive form, for instead

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of the pursuit of ambitions, h. authenticus favors the open expression of individuality. Notwithstanding this intense expressive individualism, this character type finds no shame in help-­seeking  – indeed, the giving and seeking of help, especially of a psychological or therapeutic kind, is a major way of organizing social relationships. Self-­esteem is an entitlement, for all persons should be accepted for who and what they are.

Character Types as Partisan Symbols No one, neither impartial scholar nor fervent social critic, can plausibly claim to have found in vivo a pure instance of either h. sincerus or h. authenticus.3 When we see them in everyday life, if we see them at all, we know them by their common names – the “rugged individualist,” the “organization man,” the “Yuppie” – and understand them as much the product of the authorial imagination as of real life. Moreover, there is a surfeit of theoretical analysis, critical outrage, and carefully selected egregious illustration of these types, but a dearth of empirical evidence of a linear change from one type to another. Certainly, one finds ample evidence of h. authenticus in contemporary life, but h. sincerus is present as well. And both types are evident in the second half of the American nineteenth century, which was not exclusively the province of h. sincerus. Indeed, it could hardly be otherwise, for as I argue, these character types portray conflicts and tensions of an enduring nature in the American experience and not a linear transformation from one to another. Nor is the typology free of invidiousness. Homo sincerus easily presents, in some accounts (e.g., Sommers & Satel, 2005), as an idealization of the hardworking and virtuous nineteenth-­century American who built industries, loved and made a home for his [sic] wife and children, and was a pillar of the community. In accounts in this genre, h. authenticus is portrayed as a self-­absorbed, dependent, emotionally governed, morally and socially adrift late twentieth century villain. On the opposing side, the humanistic and person-­centered therapeutic approaches (e.g., Rogers, 1951, 1980) that 3 There have, to be sure, been debates about evidence. Warren Susman’s (1984) seminal analysis of a change from “character” to “personality” in American advice literature has recently been challenged by Heinze (2003). Christopher Lasch’s assertions about the culture of narcissism employed a rhetorical strategy that not all have found convincing; see Kilminster (2008) for an analysis. Recent efforts to document quantitatively a rise in narcissism (see Twenge, 2006) have been refuted (Trzesniewski et al., 2008a, 2008b). And more popular criticisms of “therapism” (Sommers & Satel, 2005) and “therapy culture” (Furedi, 2004) have been characterized by a tendency to sample on the dependent variable by cherry picking egregious examples of therapeutic excess.

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became popular in the mid-­twentieth century, construct h. sincerus as hopelessly repressed and h. authenticus as a self-­actualizing creature capable of growing naturally toward the light of human freedom. The scholars and critics who contributed the various elements of these types varied in their approach. Some, like the social psychologist Ralph Turner (1976) or the sociologist David Riesman (1950), sought to be even handed. Turner was neutral toward his creations, and conceived of neither the institutionally nor impulsively anchored person as a poster child for virtue or evil. Likewise, Riesman depicted the contemporary other-­directed individual in relatively sympathetic terms. Even so, it is worth noting, students of sociology (probably few outside the discipline read Turner’s essay) and both scholars and the general public (Riesman’s book was a best seller) found critical ammunition in their analyses with which to praise or condemn one character type or the other. Warren Susman’s (1984) influential essay on the transformation of personal advice from an emphasis on character to a stress on personality in the early decades of the twentieth century was couched in even, scholarly terms. But the use made of Susman’s work almost invariably wafts an odor of disapproval, as for example in T. Jackson Lears’s (1981) account of the rise of a consumer mentality. Other prominent writers have made no secret of their moral preferences. Phillip Rieff (1966) and Christopher Lasch (1978, 1984) were angry and disgusted. Rieff ’s psychological man and Lasch’s narcissist exemplify all that is wrong in their eyes with contemporary culture, and the dominance of these types signals an inexorable cultural decline. More popular (and far less scholarly) writers such as Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel (2005) allege that American culture is endangered by what they call “therapism,” a set of beliefs and practices that construct people as weak and defenseless, too ready to accept professional help for problems they should be able to solve themselves.4 Homo authenticus is in their eyes well on the way to hell in a therapeutic hand basket. Neither empirical realities nor scientifically neutral types, h. sincerus and h. authenticus are in fact names for a cast of heroes and villains in a partisan struggle that lies at the heart of American culture. The struggle is not partisan in a political sense, though political collectivities – Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, socialists and libertarians  – may 4 Sociologist Frank Furedi (2004) has chimed in on the European side of the Atlantic with similar arguments about the fate of British “stiff upper lip” culture and the “therapeutic turn.” It is an interesting question as to whether criticism of the therapeutic in that context has cultural functions parallel to those in the United States, different functions altogether, or is merely derivative.

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well align themselves with one side or the other. This is an intermittent, sporadic form of partisanship, most visible when social critics publish books and the chattering classes and their middlebrow followers avidly discuss them, when television talk shows interview activists about the social problem du jour, and when experts write magazine articles advising parents what they are doing wrong with their children and how to make it right. Although, as I argue, the basis for this strife is embossed in American culture and relevant at almost every turn, it is easier to portray instances of the conflict than to describe the parties that idolize h. sincerus and h. authenticus. There is no organized two-­party system with headquarters, platforms, periodic conventions, and elections. Rather, there are shifting alliances, periods of relative calm, and intermittent ad hoc campaigns, moral eruptions, and collective hand wringing.

Skirmishes in the Culture Wars Three comparatively recent episodes illustrate the nature of the partisan strife centering on h. sincerus and h. authenticus. First, almost since the word began its ascent to prominence in the 1960s, self-­esteem has been a focus of controversy in books, articles, and the media. Second, and closely related, Christopher Lasch’s book, The Culture of Narcissism (1978) released a flood of popular and academic discussion, and narcissism remains a term of criticism. Third, Phillip Rieff ’s scholarly laments about the rise of psychological man and the triumph of the therapeutic have found contemporary form in popular critiques of therapism. By examining these episodes we can begin to see more clearly the divisions that underlie American culture and show their significance for the future. Self-­esteem5 has a long history in psychology and social psychology, reaching back to William James’s definition of self-­esteem as the ratio of successes to pretensions. James (1890) wrote that … our self-­feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities; a fraction of which our pretensions are the denominator and the numerator our success … (p. 310)

After decades of academic research, self-­esteem began to gain greater prominence in the 1960s (Wylie, 1974). Researchers began to investigate it as an important variable intervening between group memberships and personal 5 The following discussion draws on previous work of mine. See Hewitt (1998, 2009).

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experiences and various problematic outcomes, especially educational failure and juvenile delinquency. By the late 1960s Stanley Coopersmith (1967) in psychology and Morris Rosenberg (1965) in sociological social psychology had published widely read and highly regarded academic studies of self-­esteem. During the 1970s and 1980s self-­esteem made its way into the public realm. Information and ideas about the topic had once been confined largely to academic channels of distribution, but self-­esteem rather quickly became an item of mass consumption. Conceptual entrepreneurs adopted and adapted scholarly ideas and developed a plethora of products for retail distribution: books, pamphlets, exercises, workbooks, tapes, videos, magazine articles, and educational programs. Students, parents, teachers, bankers, and nurses, among others, were advised of the importance of self-­esteem and instructed in how to foster it in themselves and others. By 1986 the California legislature had created a “Task Force” to learn how self-­esteem, in the words of its chief sponsor, Assembly member John Vasconcellos, is ‘‘nurtured, harmed, rehabilitated’’ (New York Times, October 11, 1986). The aim was to compile “the world’s most credible and contemporary research regarding whether  healthy self-­esteem relates to the development of personal responsibility and social problems.” Crime, drug abuse, and teen-­age pregnancy, among other social problems, began to be seen as the result of low self-­esteem, and the raising of self-­esteem a possible solution.6 In the quarter century since the California task force was created, self­esteem has waxed and waned in popularity. The stream of books, articles, and self-­help measures has ranged between torrent and trickle. Nonetheless, self-­esteem has become an enduring part of the vocabulary of self in the United States and elsewhere, used to explain success and failure, define happiness, and justify social and educational programs. The word falls easily from many tongues, though not always with the same meanings, and it sells products – hair care, cosmetic surgery, and weight loss regimes as well as bootstrapping workbooks. Notwithstanding its widespread acceptance, self-­esteem was a topic of controversy from the very beginning of its ascent into public view. Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip made comedic hay of the California task force, portraying it (as did much news coverage) as the sort of cultural nonsense to be expected from the “left coast.” Parents and many teachers objected to scarce class time being spent on what they regarded as useless 6 A summary of the task force findings can be found in Mecca et al. (1989).

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exercises to foster self-­esteem. Psychologists doubted that the methods being sold for “teaching self-­esteem” would have any lasting effect on a child’s self-­regard. Many critics  – in a theme that continues to the present – took an opposite view, that adults would be too successful in fostering self-­esteem in children and would produce a generation of self-­centered, entitled narcissists. Perhaps the most culturally significant theme in the ongoing debate about self-­ esteem has been a sharp division of opinion about whether it is something to which each person is entitled and for whom it can easily be provided or an attribute that must be earned by dint of dedicated effort and actual accomplishment. On the whole, conceptual entrepreneurs in the self­esteem movement maintained that each person is entitled to feel good about himself or herself. Whether the basis for the entitlement is sought in fundamental human rights or given a more scholarly anchorage in theories such as Abraham Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs, self-­esteem is in this view something every person needs and deserves. If this is so, parents and teachers are obliged to foster self-­esteem. Thankfully, relatively simple techniques are available, and in many instances for sale, to enable them to do so. Critics took issue from the start, arguing that durable, real self-­esteem is acquired only by successful performance. Self-­esteem is something to be earned, they argued, not conferred as a matter of right. People who do not meet their obligations, follow the rules, and succeed at something are not entitled to think well of themselves. Moreover, because it requires effort and accomplishment, self-­esteem is not easily conferred. There is neither a free lunch nor free self-­esteem, and whatever positive self-­regard is acquired on the cheap is ersatz, undeserved, and of no lasting value. Pundits, professors, and preachers alike took aim at the self-­esteem movement, each holding up a version of h. sincerus as an ideal against which to measure the failures of h. authenticus. Our contemporary h. authenticus thus appears to be a creature for whom self-esteem is an entitlement, a universal need that each person deserves to have met unconditionally and can have done so easily. That alleged denizen of the nineteenth century, h. sincerus, would have been dismayed, perhaps regarding too much self-esteem as in itself a problem, but in any case viewing it as something to be gained only through effort and accomplishment. Lurking in the historical background, the predecessor of h. sincerus, h. Calvinismus, who was fully convinced of humankind’s sinful nature, would presumably have been appalled by both. But matters are not historically as simple as they might seem. Writing near the end of the nineteenth century, William James himself seems rather

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equivocal about self-­esteem. On one hand, he tells us that self-­esteem depends on success, implying that it derives from what people actually accomplish. On the other hand, James also informs us that self-­esteem is within people’s power to change by choosing the performances and attributes on the basis of which they will evaluate themselves and be evaluated by others. That is, they can choose to stake their self-esteem on pursuits in which they are likely to succeed and define as less important those in which they are not. In addition, there is a strain of “positive thinking” in James’s writings that lent legitimacy to the nineteenth century “New Thought” belief that the mind creates its own reality. Although he did not argue for the inherent truth of its vague and humidly optimistic ideas, James approved of their pragmatic value. “The greatest discovery of my generation,” James is often quoted as saying, “is that humans being can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”7 From nineteenth-­century writers like Phineas Parker Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy through the mid-­twentieth century’s Norman Vincent Peale and contemporary New Age advocates exemplified by Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, Americans have recurrently found support for the idea that positive attitudes and beliefs will yield positive results, including enhanced self-esteem. Contemporary popular ideas about how to boost self-­esteem are just one version of a cultural tradition that is now more than a century and a half old. Positive thoughts put money in the pocket and self-­esteem in the psyche (see Meyer, 1988). It appears that h. authenticus, convinced that favorable self-­regard is available for the taking  – or, perhaps better, “for the thinking”  – has been walking among us far longer than the hypothesis of change implies. Likewise, given the dissenting views that critics continue vociferously to express, which make of h. authenticus a contemporary fool and his or her enablers villains, it appears that h. sincerus is not at all a dead man walking. Preachers, social critics, politicians, military officers, psychologists, motivational speakers, and all manner of other cultural leaders continue to extol the virtue and heroism of h. sincerus. December 1910 marked neither the disappearance of one nor the first appearance of the other. Moreover, with due respect to those who are convinced a transformation occurred, or that it is so far underway that it is irreversible, there is really no metric available to confirm or disconfirm this argument. It is possible, of course, that the cultural and political conservatives who vehemently 7 It is more accurate to say that this statement is attributed to James; I have not found an actual source.

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oppose entitled and readily available self-­esteem are merely fighting a rear guard action doomed to eventual failure. But there is equal reason to argue that the various subspecies and breeds of h. authenticus and h. sincerus will continue to function as symbols of a cultural polarization that will endure in the future. I return to this theme later. During the very period of the late 1970s when self-­esteem was flourishing as a measure of happiness and a causal analysis of social problems and their solution, narcissism was emerging as a key concept in both learned cultural criticism and broader public discussion. The principal occasion for the emergence of this discourse was the publication of The Culture of Narcissism (1978) by the historian and social critic Christopher Lasch. The book became a best seller, generating academic forums, television interviews of the author and critics, and interest in a very wide circle, including the Jimmy Carter White House, which enlisted it for intellectual support in a campaign against selfishness. Lasch built his critique around the psychoanalytic theory of secondary narcissism, which he regarded both as the most useful metaphor for understanding contemporary culture and as the characteristic personality problem of the age. The narcissist is preoccupied with self, but it is not the fully developed self of a previous age, but a “minimal self ” lacking an ego capable of effectively mediating between id and superego. Homo sincerus (applying my term to Lasch’s ideal) had a strong sense of self and was ready, and had the competence, to impose an individual will upon the world to achieve goals. But a set of social and cultural changes had weakened the self and produced individuals incapable of being interested in anything outside of themselves. Three things in particular stand out in Lasch’s (1978) critique. First, the sense of historical time, of participating in a chain of generations, was on the wane: To live for the moment is the prevailing passion – to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future. (p. 5)

Second, although “individualism” and the “loss of community” have been commonly cited to explain the loss of generational continuity, Lasch has a more precise historical explanation. The modern welfare state and corporate bureaucracies have gradually stripped individuals of the cultural competence they once possessed. Homo sincerus had control over the fundamental ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that comprised culture. Cooking, raising children, maintaining a house, making a living, inculcating norms

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and values, grieving and mourning, and otherwise managing the affairs of daily life were well within the knowledge and competence of the average person. State and corporation have robbed individuals and communities of both abstract knowledge and practical skill, and made them dependent not only on these centers of power but also on a plethora of experts, whose advice must be sought at every turn. Third, institutionalized authority has declined, and no one – neither the authority figures of the past nor those of the present – commands the respect and credibility needed to guide and authorize individual conduct. The result of these changes, says Lasch, is a drift toward narcissism as a dominant character structure. With no sense of the past or regard for the future, people are concerned only with themselves. Without control over the cultural skills needed for everyday life, people are left in the hands of experts and dependency becomes a way of life. The decline of authority, far from liberating individuals from unreasonable social demands, as the champions of h. authenticus might see it, has instead produced a harsh, punitive superego. As authority figures in modern society lose their ‘credibility,’ the superego in individuals increasingly derives from the child’s primitive fantasies about his parents – fantasies charged with sadistic rage – rather than from internalized ego ideals formed by later experience with loved and respected models of social conduct. (p. 12)

In short, our h. authenticus, as constructed by Lasch, is anxious and uncertain, dependent on the attention and approval of an admiring audience, engaged constantly in an unsuccessful quest for peace of mind. Lasch’s critique was for a time a major focus of public discussion of American society and its ills. The ascendant humanistic psychology and burgeoning therapeutic enterprise of the 1960s had exalted h. authenticus, but this creature was now put on trial. Narcissism became a way of describing the selfishness of the “Me Generation” that would be named in the 1980s. The psychoanalytic meaning of Lasch’s metaphor of narcissism was, not surprisingly, lost on the general public. But his broad analysis of the loss of generational connections, cultural competence, and legitimate authority held sway as a partisan response to the individual freedom and creativity that had been promised with the appearance of h. authenticus. Once in the public domain, terms such as narcissism become prominent for a time and then recede as others take their place, only to come to prominence again a few years later. Narcissism reared its pretty head again in the first decade of the twenty-­first century. Psychologists had been for several

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decades conducting studies of college students using the “Narcissism Personality Inventory,” the results of which could be taken as evidence for stability or change over time in the incidence and prevalence of narcissism. Building on an earlier book, Generation Me (2006), psychologist Jean Twenge conducted a meta-­analysis of such studies and published the results in a book, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, (2009) coauthored with W. Keith Campbell. According to Twenge, college students have progressively become more egotistical, self-­confident, and entitled over time. Among other causes, Twenge alleged, the self-­esteem movement was responsible for the rise in narcissism. Although her findings were strongly challenged (see Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2008a, 2008b) on methodological and substantive grounds,8 the claim received widespread media attention from major newspapers, network television, NPR, and other influential outlets. For a time the narcissist was again the symbol of a culture and society in trouble. Twenge’s “discovery” of a rise in narcissism among college students illustrates a problem common to most such hypotheses of a changed self. Portrayals of the change – whether produced more than a half century ago by Riesman and his colleagues, or in the 1970s by Lash, or by contemporary critics of narcissism  – make only vague and widely varying estimates of when it occurred. “Change” is invariably located at some ambiguous point “in the past” or in “earlier generations,” with its sharpest and most awful effects “only now” beginning to be realized. The contrast is always between a sadly deteriorating present and a past that might have been a generation ago, “within the lifetime of most persons of middle or advanced years” (Wheelis, 1958, p. 17), or, equally, a century ago. This temporal ambiguity is unhelpful, to say the least, but also understandable given the lack of data that might help fix the alleged changes more precisely. Last, we come to “therapism,” the neologism coined by Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel in a best-­selling and widely discussed book, One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-­Reliance (2005). Taking as their target what Phillip Rieff (1966) called the “triumph of the therapeutic,” the authors mounted an attack on a broad array of contemporary practices. Although they cite Rieff by way of intellectual authority, their attack on the therapeutic sensibility is not derived from his 8 Twenge’s (2006) meta-­analysis drew on studies of college students, typically conducted on volunteers and other nonrandomly selected individuals. Whatever the other merits of the studies that rely on them, nonrepresentative samples cannot be used to generalize about the distribution of traits in a population or about changes in such traits in a population over time.

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complex and difficult analysis. It is, rather, grounded in conservative and libertarian political views as well as in less rigorous and more visceral feelings about “psychobabble,” humanistic psychology, the “abuse excuse,” and similar targets of their ire. “Therapism” constructs people as hapless, weak, and vulnerable victims, Sommers and Satel argue, undermining self-­reliance and personal responsibility. These critics lament, among other things, the vacuous self-­esteem remedies of educationists; the entrepreneurial intemperance of grief counselors and other purveyors of psychological advice; the transformation of ordinary sadness into clinical depression or bad behavior on the highways into intermittent explosive disorder; and the relentless spread of the addiction metaphor. More generally, they and their peers worry about the medicalization of everyday life and its vicissitudes, in matters of physical as well as mental health.9 The ideas and practices of the therapeutic sensibility have no doubt earned some of the scorn heaped upon them. The widespread practice of offering counseling and therapy in schools in the face of tragic or unsettling events such as untimely student deaths by accident or disease, for example, does seem to usurp the prerogatives of family, church, or community. In recent years the therapeutic sensibility has become a major American export, pressed upon victims of natural disasters in countries with their own culturally established ways of dealing with adversity (Watters, 2010). But in all of these instances, it is easy to mistake the zeal of people engaged in therapeutic enterprise for the frequently unexpressed opposition or indifference of those they attempt to serve. As Sommers and Satel themselves point out, there is evidence of resilience in the face of adversity that advocates and therapeutic entrepreneurs determined to head off unhappiness or posttraumatic stress syndrome do not seem to grasp. The historical and sociological misconceptions critics bring to the table frequently obscure rather than illuminate the nature of contemporary experience and its differences, if any, from the past. The therapeutic sensibility did not originate in the 1960s, and Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are not chiefly to blame for it. Humanistic psychology did not depict human beings simply as fragile, easily wounded victims unable to face life except with the help of benevolent therapists. “Self-­reliance” is, like Herbert 9 There is also an opposing liberal or progressive critique of the therapeutic ethos, typified by Elayne Rapping’s (1996) book, The Culture of Recovery, which argues that a focus on individual psychic ills and recovery diverts attention from the social and cultural arrangements that underlie individual pathology, and thus makes it more difficult to mount collective actions to change those arrangements.

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Hoover’s “rugged individualism,” more myth than historical reality. So is the emotional stoicism for which critics wax nostalgic. The success of giant pharmaceutical companies in “branding” new medical conditions rests in part on long-­established cultural tendencies. The highly visible activities of contemporary therapeutic activists and entrepreneurs arguably do not represent the tip of an iceberg of moral decline, but one tail of a broader distribution of ideas and arguments. We can conveniently (if too simply) mark the beginnings of the therapeutic sensibility in the United States with Dr. James Beard’s publication of The American Nervousness in 1880. Confronted with the fast pace, noise, stress, and marked social transformations of the emerging industrial world, some middle-­class Victorian ladies and gentlemen developed “nervous exhaustion” and took to their beds. Help was available, both from physicians who saw neurasthenia everywhere and from an emergent popular therapeutic movement known as “Mind Cure.” This approach sought relief through positive thinking: forward-­looking and cheerful thoughts provided all that was needed for the cure of both psychic and physical ills. The antiquity of this worldview should caution against ready acceptance of the view that contemporary American culture is only now on its way to a kinder, gentler hell. Fervent expressions of it are not evidence for the decline of “self-­reliance” or the institution of new forms of emotional tyranny. Instead, they represent a strand that has long been interwoven with the dominant warp of instrumental individualism in the fabric of American culture. The therapeutic sensibility provides a contrasting weft, a contemporary expression of communitarian and expressive themes. It advises people now, as it has done historically, to be content with life as it is and not pin their happiness on financial and social achievement; that the pursuit of what William James called the “bitch-­goddess” of success can be injurious to physical and mental health; that the interests of the community sometimes must trump individual rights; and that the social world owes the individual a respectable place and respect for occupying it. Moreover, it is worth noting, the emotional expression sometimes demanded by the therapeutic sensibility has much in common with long-­standing evangelical and charismatic traditions in American Protestantism. Confessing and emoting take a variety of forms in addition to the therapeutic one. Much criticism of the therapeutic sensibility also rests on a sociologically uninformed conception of how people in their everyday lives use the ideas they get from teachers, the mass media, therapeutic entrepreneurs, and professional healers. Critics assume that people easily absorb and follow the advice of self-­esteem advocates or the cloying presence of grief counselors;

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that they are eager to make use of “the abuse excuse” and to accept it from others; that “sickness” has replaced “badness” in their moral vocabularies; and that they readily seek physicians and therapists rather than police and clergy as agents of social control. There is little hard empirical evidence to support these assumptions and ample reason to doubt them. Epidemics of mental illness are far less common than mental health advocates predict. Absent specific mechanisms that encourage a psychiatric diagnosis and reward it as a rational choice, most people get over their troubles and get on with their lives. When therapeutic language is used, it is frequently devoid of content: “self-­esteem,” for example, has come to mean whatever one wants it to mean. The intended recipients of grief counseling and other forms of unwanted psychological help frequently resist. As Leslie Irvine (1999) showed, codependency, one of the iconic terms of the therapeutic sensibility, is not a term or an ideology mindlessly adopted, but one shaped and adapted to particular purposes. Ordinary Americans seem aware of the moral slippage inherent in the “abuse excuse,” take responsibility for their actions, have a practical sense of ethics and morality, and their mantra for losing weight is “diet and exercise” and not “metabolic syndrome.” When they refer to themselves as “chocoholics” they do so with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Words take their meaning from use as much as, indeed more than, from the intentions of those who invent and promulgate them. There are other reasons to doubt that the therapeutic worldview dominates everyday words and deeds as much as feared. Psychologists, psychiatrists, alternative medicine advocates, new age philosophers, and the pharmaceutical industry do provide a plethora of terms that people can use to comprehend themselves and their world. But so do Bible-­believing friends and co-­workers, fundamentalist clergy, Roman Catholic bishops, bloviating talk show hosts, political pundits, social critics, environmentalists, and the National Rifle Association. Some people still approvingly read Norman Vincent Peale; some find inspiration in the political philosophy of Glenn Beck. The world of popular ideas is one of pluralistic cacophany, not therapeutic monotony. People respond in differing ways to these competing ideas. Some steep their psyches in the moral philosophy of Carl Rogers or Rush Limbaugh, imagine themselves as they are instructed, and act accordingly. Indeed, as Farhad Manjoo (2008) has argued, many contemporary people seem to inhabit one or another separate reality, each possessing not only its own beliefs but also its own facts. Doubtless the echo chambers of conservative think tanks and talk radio shows – or, for that matter, of New Age alternative

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healing therapies and recovery support groups – do to some degree enable people to live in parallel but distinct social worlds. Yet most contemporary Americans in a variety of ways daily rub elbows with people whose views, and even realities, differ from their own. They do what the members of a complex society must do in the face of clashing vocabularies of motive, self, and morals. They compartmentalize. Although psychological mechanisms help keep conflicting ideas safely segregated from one another, the achievement is mainly a social one. People use different excuses, justifications, or explanations depending on the situation, the audience, and their purposes (Mills, 1940). They have common sense understandings of who will accept what words, and how these words will affect future possibilities. Their numerous and varied formulations – “I lusted after underage Congressional pages because a minister molested me as a child and, moreover, I’m an alcoholic” or “The blood of Christ washes away my sins” – tell us little about the conditions under which people actually form their conduct, or about the hiatus between reasons privately avowed and those offered to others.

A Divided Culture Throughout its history the depiction of an American self transformed – a generation ago, last week, or in December 1910 – has concealed more than it has revealed about the culture and its impact on how people think about, talk about, and are conscious of themselves. To understand self-­consciousness as it has been in the United States, and to grasp why it is likely to remain much the same, we need to get beyond the hypothesis of change. To do that we must develop a different understanding of American culture from that provided in the discourse of change. That discourse identifies important cultural themes but it misinterprets their meaning. Culture can be conceived in a variety of ways, but for the task at hand a relatively simple and old-­fashioned approach will suffice. Culture consists of established ways of thinking, feeling, and acting within a social collectivity. So defined, culture encompasses a considerable variety of items: deeply internalized preferences that make steak an appealing food and insects disgusting (or vice versa); abstract values and ideas, such as “success,” or “freedom,” “the market,” or “happiness;” an array of normative prescriptions and proscriptions for conduct; ways of naming, experiencing, and displaying affect; ideas about which excuses and justifications for misdeeds are appropriate for particular situations or audiences; theories of human nature; and “taken for granted” assumptions about the world, including a set of seem-

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ingly self-­evident binary distinctions (e.g., adult–child, society–individual, freedom–constraint) that frame experience and discourse. The most important elements of any given culture – its most cherished goals, ideals, and values – are as likely to be objects of anxiety and conflict as they are of assured satisfaction and consensus. As Kai Erikson (1976) pointed out in his analysis of Appalachian culture, The mind that imagines a cultural form also imagines (which is to say “creates”) its reverse, and to that extent, at least, a good measure of diversity and contrast is built into the very text of a culture. Whenever people devote a good deal of emotional energy to celebrating a given virtue, say, or honoring a certain ideal, they are sure to give thought to its counterpart. (p. 81)

The strong expression of any particular value by cultural participants means that they think about and also sometimes value its opposite, and that they will habitually concern themselves with the conflicting guidance this binary pair gives to conduct. If independence is highly valued, as it was for the mountain men Erikson studied in the wake of West Virginia’s Buffalo Creek flood disaster of 1972, then dependency is also likely to be a matter of concern. Not only did men worry about becoming dependent on others, but their occasional readiness to do so suggested that it held some appeal for them. If people value conformity to the expectations of others in their everyday lives, they are likely also to hold rebellion in some esteem, whether in a preference for “outlaw” country music or in the ritualized dramas of adolescent rebellion and return to parental graces typical of American culture. As Erikson made clear, cultural polarities have three key aspects. First, at an individual level, the contrasting, conflicting, or polarized goals, norms, values, and ideas that are built into a culture generate ambivalence. American adolescents, for example, are caught between a powerful urge toward independence and their parents’ desire to continue to nurture and control (not to mention their own continuing attraction to these perquisites of childhood). Retirees cherish the freedom (and the warm temperatures) of Arizona, but regret the distance between them and their children and grandchildren as well as the lost opportunity to be an ongoing part of their lives. Culture presents people with dilemmas  – with the need to choose between lines of conduct that are opposite but very often equally valued. Second, at a collective level, cultural polarities are typically accompanied by differentiation and specialization. In the Appalachian culture Erikson studied, for example, freedom, independence, and the right to elicit

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unquestioned obedience within the family were the prerogatives of men. Women were unfree, dependent, and expected to obey. Gender is, not surprisingly, the basis for a great deal of specialization, as for example, in norms governing emotional expression. Big boys don’t cry, whereas big girls may and probably will. In middle-­class American life, adolescents rebel, twenty­somethings devote themselves to the selfish pursuit of pleasure, thirty-­and forty-­somethings devote themselves to their careers and families, and fifty­somethings have mid-­life crises. To every value there is a season, and a time to every purpose under culture. Finally, cultural polarities generate discourse. Middle-­class adolescents and their parents talk about one another, seeking to make sense of their impossible demands and inexplicable violations of the rules. Pundits speculate about how the electorate will respond when the big boys and girls in politics cry in public  – think John Boehner or Hillary Clinton. Learned treatises are written to confirm or deny the existence of biological or psychological differences between men and women and thus offer support to one or another interpretation of the significance of gender. Appalachian women (and perhaps American women of many regions and classes) talk among themselves about how to preserve (or undermine) their menfolk’s cherished illusion of independence and control. Social scientists and journalists write books about the life course, seeking to explain how people’s outlooks are transformed over time. Crucially for my present purposes in examining American culture and the self, sociologists, historians, social critics, journalists, humanistic psychologists, conceptual entrepreneurs, conservative scolds, and a host of others produce articles, books, pamphlets, screeds, workbooks, and videos focusing on the self and its transformations. These products chart the difference between past and present, offer hope for the creation of powerful and better selves in the future, decry the loss of selfhood, promise improved self-­regard, and in myriad other ways make self, character, identity, self-­esteem, narcissism, and similar topics matters of public discussion. This discourse provides important clues, then, to important features of American culture, and in particular to some of its fundamental strains, inconsistencies, polarities, and contradictions. Partisan strife about the self – about h. sincerus and h. authenticus – is one response to the built-­in contradictions of American culture. Scholarly analysis couched in terms of purported changes in the self is another. There are many avenues for exploring the major polarities of American culture, but its vaunted individualism is perhaps the broadest and the one most central to American self-­understanding. Whatever form it takes at particular historical moments or as elaborated in particular tracts or manifest

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in various life styles, individualism provides Americans with their “first language” (Bellah et al., 1985). Society is made up of individuals, they learn, and they are prior to it. “Everybody is an individual; we are all different.” Americans claim the rights of autonomy and privacy as individuals – to act on their own desires and needs and to keep others out of their private affairs. They feel responsible for themselves and for the development of their own talents and potentials. Whatever others would do to and with the individual must not come at the expense of individual freedom or initiative. Individualism has a vast array of meanings: It can refer to the calculated, instrumental individualism of the capitalist entrepreneur who believes that the unbridled pursuit of profit is not only moral in itself but the only basis for a good society. It may include the conviction that it is the individual alone who has the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It can mean the “rugged individual” of Herbert Hoover, the fully developed and “self-­reliant” individual of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the “self-­actualizing” individual of Abraham Maslow. It encompasses the rebellious but conforming individualism of contemporary adolescents who adopt outlandish styles of dress and bodily adornment but roam in packs of like-­minded others. It embraces both the libertarian individualism of Ayn Rand and the expressive individualism of 1960s hippies. It is a term of praise with nearly sacred connotations as well as one of bitter criticism. Although individualism is the dominant cultural doctrine, it does not go unopposed. There is a strong countervailing communitarian impulse present in American culture, stronger than most critics have been willing to admit and one we neglect at the peril of a drastic misreading of the culture. It is visible historically in the formation of utopian communities in the nineteenth century – for example, New Harmony, Brook Farm, Oneida, The Amana Colonies – and in the flourishing commune movement of the 1960s. It can be seen in the historical success of Brigham Young in leveraging Joseph Smith’s theology, bizarre even by the standards of his day, into a network of thriving Mormon communities in the intermountain West. It can also be seen in the contemporary success of suburban megachurches that combine large size and sophisticated organization with a significant core of highly active members participating throughout the week in a range of both religious and secular activities that make the church a functioning community. It can be found in the persistence of urban ethnic neighborhoods as well as in the proliferation of more dispersed and ephemeral communities based on the mutual attachment of like-­minded others on such grounds as sexual orientation, ethnicity or color, and political ideology. Hence, we have the North End of Boston, as well as “Southie,” but also

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the gay community, the African American community, and the progressive community. Explicit sentiments of community tend to be evoked sporadically – when natural disasters prompt an outpouring of donations to the Red Cross, for example, or the president defends the allocation of funds to provide a social safety net to the old or the poor – but they are no less expressions of a communitarian ethic because of this fact. Alexis de Tocqueville captured an additional and still-­relevant feature of American individualism a century and three quarters ago in Democracy in America. Communitarian critics of individualism and its shrill libertarian promoters portray individualism in one dimension. For the former, it is an evil that separates people from one another and leaves them lonely and involved with nothing outside of themselves. For the latter it is pure virtue and offers the only route to social and economic productivity. Tocqueville (1837, Vol. II, chapter 8) saw something different: Americans temper unbridled and destructive individualism by the principle of self-­interest rightly understood. The Americans … show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state.

And further, The principle of self-­interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-­sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-­denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous; but it disciplines a number of persons in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self­command; and if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits.

Taking into account the interests of others and the effects of one’s own actions on them in America was, in Tocqueville’s estimation, not a matter of high principle or publicly asserted morality. Rather it was, and arguably still is, a pragmatic affair. People are drawn to help others – that is, to consider themselves members of a community of interest and not merely as self-­interested individuals – not because it is virtuous to do so but because doing so has practical, beneficial results. Discourse about the self is a central and essential element in the larger cultural tendency to worry about individualism and to find pragmatic ways of resolving its conflict with communitarianism. The self-­esteem movement and its opposition, the critique of narcissism, and the periodic alarms sounded about social problems such as “therapism” are all, at bottom, ways

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of embracing either individualism or communitarianism and at the same time reconciling the two. The self-­esteem movement, for example, pays clear homage to individualism in its celebration of individual self-­regard as both a central problem of the society and as an individual entitlement. People need to think well of themselves, the movement avers, and when they do not, there are undesirable consequences for society as a whole, including social problems like drug abuse or teen pregnancy as well as educational failure. Devoting resources to solving the problem of self-­esteem – by taking steps to improve the self-­esteem of students, for example – is justified in part by asserting an abstract communitarian virtue, namely that parents and teachers and the community as a whole owe it to their children to enable positive self­regard. Equally, the justification is a practical one: it is in everybody’s interest to enable individuals to (self-­interestedly) think well of themselves. This is Tocqueville’s principle of self-­interest rightly understood as expressed in contemporary ideas about solving social problems. If we can help people feel better about themselves they will be less likely to do us harm and more likely to do us good. The discourse of self-­esteem also both emphasizes and reproduces Americans’ conflicting ideas about the nature of happiness. Individualist happiness lies in the future, particularly in the attainment of definable goals. This version of happiness features anticipation, risk, and excitement – the pleasure lies as much in the hunt as in the kill. Communitarian happiness emphasizes a state of being rather than a desired state of becoming. It is about contentment rather than excitement, security rather than risk, and enjoying the fruit of one’s labors rather than taking pleasure in their acquisition. Discourse about self-­esteem is thus in some measure a surrogate for discourse about happiness – whether self-­esteem should be dependent on the willingness to take risks or is something to be found in satisfaction with the present. Individualism regards the social world as an interpersonal oyster waiting for the individual to crack it open. Happiness thus hinges on the individual’s construction of voluntary relationships on a larger social stage  – in society. In contrast, the communitarian version of self-­esteem envisions a world, to quote the lyrics of the Cheers television program theme, “where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.” It is a world where happiness is assured by the individual’s assured acceptance within a circle of familiar others – a world of community.10 10 The contrast between society and community is explored in detail in Hewitt (1989), chapter IV: Modernity, Society, and Community.

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The critique of narcissism laments the disappearance of community and all that is lost with it: the authoritative role models of preceding generations; a sense of connection with succeeding generations; the everyday competence that insulates the self from intrusion by experts; and the sense of restraint and limits that go hand in hand with membership in a community. Critics of narcissism are thus card-­carrying members of the “party of community.” Like all such partisans, they are both admired and condemned and their words are often misunderstood or ignored. They are not lone voices in the wilderness, however, despite the fact that their partisanship requires such a stance. Like all prophets, they speak for one pole of a culture’s values, however threatened and endangered it may be. Their Jeremiads play a major role in preserving that version of the culture, and they do so in a classic sociological way, by portraying the normative contours of society. No less than the criminal whose act provokes collective responses of isolation and punishment, the lamentations of prophets play an important part in drawing moral lines in the sand. Christopher Lasch’s protest at the loss everyday competence of individuals in their families and communities, for example, implicitly invokes the principle of self-­interest rightly understood. It is, after all, through people’s commonplace, small-­scale associations with one another that meaningful attachments are formed, everyday competence is achieved, and self-­interest rightly understood is enacted. Lasch argues that the forces of modern life isolate people from one another and undermine everyday competence. His lament is vastly overstated, reflecting not only an excessively rosy view of past virtues but also a misreading of the present. Look anywhere in contemporary life, for example, and you will see people talking and texting and Facebook posting on their mobile phones. Those people are in contact with somebody, and their behavior undermines the hypothesis of social isolation (as well as the notion that technology itself isolates). What they say to their more and less significant others may be mundane – “Can you give me a lift?” “Will you be at the party?” – but they are no less evidence of social contact because of that. More broadly, neighbors still talk over the back fence, families visit one another, parents confer with teachers, and workers gossip at the water cooler. Lasch’s analysis should be understood not as factual description but as boundary maintenance. Where the critique of narcissism laments the loss of community and thereby offers sermons intended to restore it, the critique of “therapism” takes the opposite view. In their role as “resident scholars” at the American Enterprise Institute, Christina Sommers and Sally Satel do not

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overtly criticize “communitarianism.” Indeed, direct criticism of the idea of community is comparatively rare, except among contemporary libertarian devotees of Ayn Rand, and must generally be transmuted into some other form. When the national political temperature is running hot, anti-­communitarian sentiments tend to be expressed as opposition to “socialism,” a term of unquestioned opprobrium in conservative circles. “Therapism” is a cooler term, but it has the same propaganda role as “socialism,” namely to frame opposition to communitarian sentiments in terms more likely to garner support. There should be no mistake: just as the therapeutic impulse in contemporary society is one expression of the communitarian impulse, opposition to it is a way of condemning that impulse and celebrating individualism. It is also important to understand that this critique has the same kind of boundary-­maintaining functions as the critique of narcissism. The function of the deviant – of whom egregious examples can always be found and singled out for attention – is to establish the outer limits of acceptable conduct. The weak-­willed therapy junkie no less than the self-­absorbed narcissist performs a valuable service in illustrating matters that concern cultural members and showing the limits of acceptable conduct. Why, if individualism is the dominant force in American culture, do its partisans find criticism of communitarian sentiments to be so vital? From the perspective of political conservatives and libertarians, virtuous individualism is always under threat from insidious, immoral collectivism, whether symbolized by the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson, or the mere existence of Barak Obama. From the standpoint of progressives, the demonization of communitarian ideas is political subterfuge, a careful effort to cultivate a false consciousness that will align the perceived interests of the oppressed with the real interests of their oppressors. The truth does not lie in splitting the difference between these points of view, but in recognizing the validity of both. Community is highly valued by Americans, though honored more by mundane practice than articulated ideology, and both practice and value are always upheld by at least some actors standing on guard against rapacious individualism. And individualism is an ideology that, however much it frames Americans’ self-perceptions, does serve the interests of the powerful and propertied by asserting and defending the justice of their privilege and wealth. Nothing quite so dramatically illustrates the fundamental American conflict over individualism and communitarianism as the extremes toward which partisanship so often spirals.

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Conclusion Homo sincerus and h. authenticus, although merely imaginary characters forged by several generations of intellectuals, are thus reflections of and spokespersons for a fundamental and frequently partisan division within American culture. That division is neither recent nor superficial, for it is both historically rooted and deeply imbedded. The tension between individual and community  – whether examined in the mundane lives of people scarcely able to talk about it or as articulated by ideological agents – is not merely an interesting but otherwise irrelevant fact about American culture. It is, rather, a considerable part of what makes the culture tick. This tension finds expression in myriad ways. It can be seen an intellectual history in which Americans are criticized both for their unbridled individualism and their excessive conformism. (McClay, 1994). It can be found in the history of American immigration and internal migration alike, in which people who readily pulled up stakes and moved – to escape the sight of their neighbors’ chimneys, the oppression of racism or poverty, or the reach of pogroms – became intractably attached to their new surroundings and defensively committed to their new communities (Hewitt, 1989, chapter 3). It can be seen in countless Western movies in which a hero comes to town and saves the citizens from lawlessness, but must in the end refuse their pleas that he stay, as to do so would be to submerge his individuality in their community (Wright, 1975). Students and critics of American culture have participated in this tension by imagining a significant transformation of the American self, captured in the supposed decline of h. sincerus and the ascendancy of h. authenticus. Their discourse – whether couched in the neutral jargon of social and behavioral science, the dismissive screeds of political conservatives, or the hopeful sermons of apostles of self-­actualization  – is integral to American culture, one of the means by which it is realized as well as a reflection of it. Far from providing a stable analytical platform from which to view the interplay of society, culture, and the self – much less changes in any of these – this discourse should be regarded as data. To adopt this stance is not to claim that the hypothesis of change is empirically wrong but rather that those who adopt it typically beg the question. Rather than demonstrate change, they assume change and search for confirming evidence. Their mistake has been to focus on putative changes in the self without first considering the possibility that

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self-­consciousness in America is rooted in deeply embedded and enduring cultural polarities. One of the founding American sociologists, Charles Horton Cooley (1903) ) wrote that “… the imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society, and … to observe and interpret these must be a chief aim of sociology” (p. 97). These imaginations are also the solid facts of self-­consciousness, for the ways in which people conceive society shape their conceptions of self. I take seriously the view that these imaginations change more glacially than torrentially. Change is an appealing trope, for scholars and social critics alike, because it provides a convenient way of making sense of cultural contradictions by consigning one set of patterns and preferences to the past and another to the present. When we begin to recognize the possibility that these patterns and preferences coexist in tension with one another, facile pronouncements about past changes become subject to doubt. So, for that matter, do facile predictions that the twenty-­first century will somehow be drastically different from the twentieth. References Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A, & Tipton, S. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cooley, C. H. (1903) Human nature and the social order. New York: Scribners. Coopersmith, S. (1967). The antecedents of self-­esteem. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. Erikson, K. T. (1976). Everything in its path. NewYork: Simon and Schuster. Furedi, F. (2004). Therapy culture: Cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age. London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-­identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Heinze, A. R. (2003). Schizophrenia Americana: Aliens, alienists and the “personality shift” of twentieth-­century culture. American Quarterly, 55(2): 227–56. Hewitt, J. P. (1989). Dilemmas of the American self. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.   (1998). The myth of self-­esteem: Finding happiness and solving problems in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press.   (2009). The social construction of self esteem. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology, 2nd ed. (pp. 217–24). New York: Oxford University Press. Irvine, L. (1999). Codependent forevermore: The invention of self in a twelve step group. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology. New York: Holt.

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Kilminster, R. (2008). Narcissism or informalization? Christopher Lasch, Norbert Elias and social diagnosis. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(3): 131–51. Lasch, C. (1978). The culture of narcissism: American life in an age of diminishing expectations. New York: W. W. Norton.   (1984). The minimal self: Psychic survival in troubled times. New York: W. W. Norton. Lears, T. J. (1981). No place of grace: Antimodernism and the transformation of American culture, 1880–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Manjoo, F. (2008). True enough: Learning to live in a post-­fact society. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4): 370–96. McClay, W. M. (1994). The masterless: Self and society in modern America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Mecca, A. M., Smelser, N. L., & Vasconcellos, J. (Eds.) (1989). The social importance of self esteem. Berkeley: University of California Press. Meyer, D. (1988). The positive thinkers (rev. ed.). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Mills, C. W. (1940). Situated actions and vocabularies of motive. American Sociological Review, 5(6): 904–13. Rapping, E. (1996). The culture of recovery. Boston: Beacon Press. Rieff, P. (1966). The triumph of the therapeutic. New York: Harper and Row. Riesman, D., Denney, R., & Glazer, N. (1950). The lonely crowd: A study of the changing American character. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rogers, C. (1951). Client centered therapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.   (1980). A way of being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-­image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sommers, C. H., & Satel, S. (2005). One nation under therapy: How the helping culture is undermining self-­reliance. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Susman, W. I. (1984). Personality and the making of twentieth century culture. In Culture as history: The transformation of American culture in the twentieth century (pp. 271–85). New York: Pantheon. Tocqueville, A. de. (1837/1945). Democracy in America, Vols. 1 and 2 (Phillips Bradley, Ed.). New York: Vantage. Trilling, L. (1972). Sincerity and authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., & Robins, R. W. (2008a). Do today’s young people really think they are so extraordinary? An examination of secular trends in narcissism and self-­enhancement. Psychological Science, 19(2): 181–8. Trzesniewski, K. H., & Robins, R. W. (2008b). Is ‘‘Generation Me’’ really more narcissistic than previous generations? Journal of Personality, 76(4): 903–17. Turner, R. H. (1976). The real self: From institution to impulse. American Journal of Sociology, 81: 989–1016. Twenge, J. M. (2006). Generation me: Why today’s young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled  – and more miserable than ever before. New York: Free Press.

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Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2009). The narcissism epidemic: Living in the age of entitlement. New York: Free Press. Watters, E. (2010). Crazy like us: The globalization of the American psyche. New York: Free Press. Weber, M. (1904/1949). Objectivity in social science and social policy. In E. A. Shils (Ed.) & H. A. Finch ( Trans.), The Methodology of the Social Sciences. New York: Free Press. Wheelis, A. (1958). The quest for identity. New York: W. W. Norton. Woolf, V. (1924/2005). Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown. In M. J. Hoffman & P. D. Murphy (Eds.), Essentials of the theory of fiction (pp.  22–35). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wright, W. (1975). Six guns and society: A structural study of the western. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wylie, R. C. (1974). The self-­concept (rev. ed.). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

­6 New Kinds of Subjective Uncertainty? Technologies of Art, ‘Self ’ and Confusions of Memory in the Twenty-­First Century

Ciarán Benson Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae (I feel once more the scars of the old ­flame) (Vergil. The Aeneid, Book 4)

Has Aldous Huxley’s ‘New’ World Bravely Arrived? 1 Here is an episodic memory I can trace to around 1954/1955 when I was 4/5 years old. My father, holding my hand, is walking into a building, talking to a man, walking me up some carpeted steps, in through a door into blackness. We turn right, walk a few feet and turn left. I am astonished by what I see immediately. On a bright wall facing me is a man running towards me, seeming to get bigger with every step. Then he turns around and runs away, seeming to get smaller with every step. This was my first unprepared experience of cinema at a time in Ireland years before television arrived. I never again experienced that scale of gain and loss in size of what I saw on the screen that afternoon. Although I cannot be sure of this, my sense is that my brain was so taken by the novelty of this cinematic phenomenon that it failed on this occasion to calibrate properly for size constancy. Here is a second, recent episodic memory. I am at the Dublin premiere of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in 2010. It is in 3-­D. At the end of the film Absolem the blue butterfly – Lewis Carroll’s original ‘Absalom’ – flutters towards me in the darkness of the auditorium, so real that I feel that merely reaching out will be sufficient for me to grasp him. I have never before experienced 3-­D like this in a film. 1 My thanks to Merlin Donald whose invitation to lecture at a colloquium in Case ­Western Reserve in March 2007 allowed me to shape some elements of the present chapter

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Each of these memories is rooted in cinema, the greatest advance ­in artistic technology in the twentieth century, and a lifetime separates both. The achievements of the technologies underpinning the second memory are startling compared to the, then amazing, technologies that gave rise to the first memory. As I watched Absalom fly towards me this thought occurred to me: Will there come a time when I will remember a wonderful blue butterfly coming towards me but forget where and when I saw it? Will I remember the butterfly but forget its experiential origin? In Brave New World (1932), Aldous Huxley imagines a time when ‘the feelies’ will overtake the recently achieved ‘talkies’ in cinema. Eighty years on with, for example, interactive games like ‘Kinect’, Huxley’s idea that advancing aesthetic technologies would more and more simulate the parameters of everyday ‘real’ experience seems self-­evident. In this sense, aesthetic technologies are primary shapers and developers of subjectivity and of intersubjectivity. It follows that as they develop and change so also will novel, associated forms of subjectivity, and of intersubjectivity, come into being. This is an assessment, from the philosopher of ideas, John Gray, of what is happening in the early twenty-­first century: ‘The chief effect of the Industrial Revolution was to engender the working class. … At the beginning of the twenty-­first century, a new phase of the Industrial Revolution is under way that promises to make much of that population superfluous’ (2003, pp. 159–60). What will the working and other classes do if they cannot be productive workers? Will they spend their time seeking out what to consume, and then consuming it, as required by the relentless engines of global capitalism? The twenty-­first century Industrial Revolution will be fuelled, in Gray’s view, by the productively superfluous populations’ systemically ordained role as consumers. What they will consume, apart from obvious things like food, alcohol, drugs and status-­related objects will be ‘experiences’, passages of subjective formation shaped for them, albeit perhaps with an ever-­increasing power to become semi-­active players in virtual worlds, a kind of character-­karaoke. They will not control the overall game but they will have a say in some of the moves. What happens to ‘self ’ when ever-­greater proportions of a lifetime are spent in simulated worlds? Referencing Hans Moravec, an expert in robotics and robotic intelligence, Gray believes the time is coming when ‘almost all humans work to amuse other humans’ (Gray, 2003, p. 160). The ‘experiences’ created to amuse the many will be, as never before, ‘phantastic’. In this, the social institutions previously known as ‘Art’ will play a central role, one which will threaten Art’s historical claims to be a privileged route to self-­transcendence.

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S­ elf-­forgetfulness may be a condition for self-­transcendence or, on the contrary, it may simply be a stage on the road to the further diminution of autonomous selves skilled in the inhibition of desires and correspondingly free to reject what they have not chosen. It may, on the other hand, open up novel and beneficial routes to self-­expansion. What is certain about the coming achievements of ‘virtual’ technologies as they become available for artistic use is that the traditional ‘gap’ between the artistic ‘semblance’ of some aspect of reality and the actuality of that feature – between ‘about’ and ‘is’ – will reduce to such an extent that it will become ever more difficult to discern the difference between them (Langer, 1953). In time, that ‘gap’ may not be the default starting point for an experience of ‘art’ as has been the case in recent centuries in the Western world, and as it has been described in theories of psychical or aesthetic ‘distance’ (Bullough, 1957). Instead it may have to be adopted later as part of a critical stance when a person comes to assess what they remember as having happened. 2 The qualitative difference between traditionally detached, formalistic aesthetic experience – in which ‘perception’ is privileged and deliberately quarantined from any impulse the viewer might have to engage with what is presented in a more complete psychological way – and the kinds of experience that contemporary and newly emerging art forms require is a difference in degree between detached contemplation and active engagement. As the events that constitute virtual reality come ever closer to the perceptual-­motor ‘completeness’ of first-­order everyday life they will, like everything else, be remembered. But to the extent that the subject is an active participant in a perceptually compelling virtual experience that extends over time, then what is remembered must be different from what a similar person will have been able to experience and remember in, say, twentieth-­century cinema. In what follows I reflect on the possibility that a particular kind of episodic memory, arguably the sort that plays a key role in constituting 2 Susanne Langer (1953) devoted chapter 4 of Feeling and Form to the idea of ‘semblance’. ­Her concern was with the ways in which ‘Art’ is dissociated from actuality, detached from its actual setting, and not requiring practical action: ‘Schiller was the first thinker who saw what really makes “Schein” or semblance, important for art: the fact that it liberates perception  – and with it, the power of conception  – from all practical purposes, and lets the mind dwell on the sheer appearance of things. … The knowledge that what is before us has no practical significance in the world is what enables us to give attention to its appearance as such’ (p. 49). Contemporary art, and its technologies, often demands engagement and practical response. It will not allow perception to work autonomously.

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personal identity over time, might be especially prone to being induced ­by the coming technologies of the twenty-­first century. Will this introduce a novel uncertainty – or at least accentuate an uncertainty that in the previous history of the arts was embryonic – into the dynamics of both personal and group identities? The concern here is with the borderlands of autonomy and heteronomy. Up to this point in cultural time the kinds of memory I have in mind, and that I describe in more detail in the text that follows, will have seemed self-­authenticating to the person reliving them given their phenomenology. What I want to explore is whether novel technologies, especially in the hands of creative artists, can create new kinds of virtual experience that will in turn be remembered in forms that mimic older, self-­authenticating forms of episodic memory. If that is plausible, then those who have knit such memories into their identities will have historically novel reason for caution, doubt and uncertainty about the veridicality of memories that lie at the core of who they think and feel themselves to be. Will those who are adept at participating in perceptually compelling virtual worlds – especially if those worlds allow their inhabitants options of choice and control over what happens in their unfolding narratives – in principle experience confusions of selfhood to do with their assessment of whether certain memories are theirs ‘for real’ as against being byproducts of games played, especially when young?3 More specifically it raises the possibility that identity-­constituting memories may not in time be earned, so to speak, in the course of first-­order engagements with the found world of a person’s experience, but may instead come to be supplied in the course of second-­order engagements with prefabricated worlds of a kind that have been the lifeblood of the arts over recent millennia. If that is so, then the potential for controlling the political formation of collective memories, for instance, will have had a very powerful new weapon added to its armoury.

Can John Dewey’s Idea of ‘Art as Experience’ Help Us to Understand the Coming Changes by Art of Twenty-­f irst Century Subjectivity? Why pick Dewey? The answer is that his neglected concept of ‘experience’ is especially helpful if we are to take seriously the dialogical nature of high­level consciousness, the fact that subjectivity unfolds in and over time in 3 From a growing number of studies we know there is a ‘reminiscence bump’ where a ­disproportionate number of autobiographical memories are routinely recovered from the ages of about fifteen to twenty-­five (Rubin, Wetzler, & Nebes, 1986; Conway et al., 2005).

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transaction with myriad intentional objects, and that the reconstruction ­of past autobiographical ‘scenes’ has, in humans, its own special neural vehicle in the form of the episodic memory system (Tulving, 2002). Scientific psychology’s analytic impulse must compartmentalize what it studies. This is inevitable and highly productive so long as the questions asked are appropriately served by that focus. In the human sciences generally, of which psychology is a part – though it often seems to wish to be apart! – larger questions to do with how persons and cultures interact and change must ultimately be addressed synthetically using the insights and findings of many disciplines. That synthesis requires its own language, one alert to assumptions threatening to undermine the synthetic project.4 Two such assumptions preoccupied John Dewey (1859–1952) throughout his long philosophical career. Dewey’s ubiquitous villain is the pervasive influence of ‘dualistic’ thinking, which he sees as dividing, separating and reifying when what is required is a description true to the unity and temporal unfolding of the phenomena of ‘experience’. A connected assumption is the issue of individualism and the separation of the person from a wider whole, with its reduction of the concept of ‘experience’ to that of ‘subjectivity’. To reduce experience to subjectivity is to shift attention from the constituting relationship of subject and object to just one of experience’s constitutive terms. Dewey – vainly, it must be said, given the dominant trends of the last century – doggedly argues that ‘experience’ is the outcome of the transaction of a person and his or her world.5 It is best conceived as transpersonal and not synonymous, as it has become, with ‘subjectivity’. His allegiances are to Darwin, Hegel and William James, amongst others, and he sets himself to overcome the analytic hypostatization of categories – the ‘Good’, the ‘True’ and the ‘Beautiful’ – of Kant. Dewey argues that ‘Art’ is the paradigm case for understanding ‘experience’ in its fullest flowering. For Dewey, the categories of ‘subject’ and ‘object’ come into play after the division, by acts of reflection, of the unified subject-­object, not before. To speak of ‘self ’ and ‘its world’ as separate is a consequence of a division that comes later in the flow of experience. Reflective experience, 4 For a reminder of the importance to such a language of the concept of ‘an act’ see Benson, ­C. “Acts not tracts: Why a complete psychology of art, and identity, must be neuro­cultural”, in T. Roald & J. Lang (Eds.) (2013). Art and identity: Essays on the aesthetic creation of mind (pp. 40–65). Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. 5 Late in his life, realizing that his prolonged attempt to promulgate his complex understanding of ‘experience’ had failed, he wondered whether he would have been better off concentrating on the cognate concept ‘culture’.

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Dewey constantly reminds us, is founded on prereflective experience. In ­prereflective experience, the boundaries of ‘self ’ and ‘not-­self ’ are much more fluid and permeable than they seem to dualistic ways of thinking where the starting point is to define ‘self ’ as clearly separate and detached from not-­self. The occasions when self and not-­self are separated, as when a person is constituted as a subject by taking, for example, a questioning stance towards a memory, are only part of the overall flow of any individual’s psychic life. What dualistic thinking also misses, or at best underplays, in addition to downplaying the interconnectedness of self and world at many levels, is the moment-­by-­moment flow or streaming of experience as it incessantly transforms into the next subject–object relationship and into the next, until death intervenes. Contemporary conceptions of how core consciousness works would support Dewey in this (Damasio, 1999). As a context for what is to follow, here are some ideas deployed by Dewey in his still relevant aesthetics, written at the same time as Huxley’s Brave New World was published (Dewey, 1934/1958). In addition to the notion that selves and their worlds are mutually permeable, that the boundaries of self and not-­self are indeterminate and constantly shifting according to the particular phase of experience, there is Dewey’s claim that art – understood as experience unfolding over time as self and artistic ‘product’ merge and divide in hugely complex, rhythmic choreographies – is the most complete kind of experience.6 The product or object or event made by an artist is not, Dewey insists, the work of art. The work of art is what happens when a suitably equipped person engages with what an artist makes, or makes possible. It is Dewey’s idea of the psychological completeness of art, understood as experience unfolding over time, that I want to emphasize here. ‘Translate the enjoyment of … sunlight sparkling on water …,’ writes Dewey, ‘into experiences of the live creature, and what we find is the very opposite of a single sense functioning alone, or of a number of senses merely adding their separate qualities together. The latter are coordinated into a whole of vitality by their common relations to objects. It is the objects that lead an impassioned life’ (Dewey, 1958, p. 126). Objects have their own ‘lives’ capable of shaping the consciousness of those who engage with them. If the object of attention has been constructed by a good artist then this can ‘lead’ a person 6 Quite how radical Dewey intends to be can be gauged by his quoting of himself in Art ­as experience (footnote, 26): “… art, the mode of activity that is charged with meanings capable of immediately enjoyed possession, is the complete culmination of nature, and that science is properly a handmaiden that conducts natural events to this happy issue.”

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on a journey that engages the person at many levels, more levels, in fact, ­and more completely than can be achieved by other kinds of experience such as the scientific which are characterized by a more restricted range of engagements. Art works in ‘a rhythm of surrender and reflection’, of ‘absorption’ and self-­forgetfulness – where there is no felt distinction between subject and what is imaginatively engaged with – followed by a return to critical, detached assessment of what has happened while absorbed (Benson, 1993; Benson, 2001, chapter 11; Dewey, 1958, p. 144). Advances in art have always depended on advances in the materials and technologies that generate the media available to artists. Emerging technologies will allow ever more sophisticated combinations and qualities of sense and meaning, way beyond anything imagined by Dewey, though still capable of being caught in the wide-­flung net of his philosophy of experience. These in turn will reshape the subjective boundaries of selves who engage with what is afforded – in J. J. Gibson’s sense – by the new kinds of situation which artists will create and enable. These changes in the powers of what is created in new media will intensify preexisting kinds of subjectivity, kinds already familiar to aficionados of art, but they may also generate quite new and unprecedented patterns of subjectivity. Many phenomena of ‘self ’ illustrate the inadequacy of the idea that its limits are the limits of the body envelope, that ‘I’ somehow end where ‘my’ body physically ends. Some of the phenomena that challenge this are neurological as in cases of anosognosia and asomatognosia; some are emotional as in the psychology of emotions like disgust; many draw from accounts of imaginative engagements with art and experiences of ‘absorption’ or of ‘being lost’ in imaginary worlds; some are social as in, for example, the dynamics of ‘reputation’; others are moral as in the dynamics of empathy, sympathy and compassion, love and hate, grief and guilt; some have to do with the psychology of ownership and possession; and yet others concern the ways in which collective and personal memories constitute feelings of identity and comradeship.7 Feelings of ownership and control in particular play a foundational role in determining the surprisingly wide-­flung, constantly shifting boundaries of selfhood. As we will see, even this list is not exhaustive. 7 For a more detailed treatment of the idea of ‘boundaries’ and ‘self ’ see Benson, C. ­“The unthinkable boundaries of self: The role of negative emotional boundaries in the formation, maintenance and transformation of identities”, in R. Harré and F. Moghaddam (Eds.) (2003). The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political and cultural contexts (pp. 61–84).Westport CT: Praeger.

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If you could make art that is even more psychologically complete ­than, say, contemporary 3-­D cinema  – art, that is, which engages ever more capacities of a person by ever more complex but unified ‘scenarios’ of attention – would you also be able to increase the likelihood of repositioning a person ‘elsewhere’ than his or her actual real-­life position at the start of the experience? Could this repositioning of self differ in kind from the sorts of experience of art we are already familiar with over the history of the arts? And if so, what consequences for memory and identity might that have as people ‘return’ to their next real-­life position to reflect on what happened just before? And what of how they think about the event much later? What confusions and uncertainties of a historically novel kind might creep into their subjectivities? If art  – understood in Dewey’s sense as jointly constituted experience extending over time  – is the most complete kind of experience, and if it always advances and develops in lockstep with new technologies, and if John Gray is right in thinking that the coming time will be marked by the pervasive amusement of the many, then art is the richest arena for imagining changes in subjectivity in the twenty-­first century.

‘Self’ and Points-­o f-­V iew in Perception, Memory and Imagination John Dewey wrote that the cognition of artists is distinctive because they think ‘in (the) qualities’ of their media. His idea of ‘qualitative thinking’ is a very helpful if neglected one (1958, p. 193). The perceptual and aesthetic qualities of materials used as media  – whether for sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, kinaesthesia and/or movement – can be rich and quick triggers for emotional memories. When it comes to thinking about our ‘selves’ and our worlds we feel like impulsive dualists, despite convincing Deweyan-­type arguments to the contrary. We feel like we are here, somewhere behind our eyes, attending to what catches our interest somewhere over there. The word ‘centredness’ is sometimes used here, as is the phrase point of view. Psychologists call this the ‘perceptual egocentre’. This concept, as Laurence Kubovy tells us, has a history dating as far back as 1792 (1986, p. 150). Kubovy relates the perceptual egocentre to the kind of virtual point of view used in cinema, and he makes two points relevant to our concerns with imagination. First, and in agreement with Dewey (although he does not reference him), he observes that the boundaries between the world and ourselves are very flexible. Second, and significant for what follows, Kubovy argues that egocentres are moveable. Imagination finds very fertile ground in which to thrive ­when

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such conditions exist. Kubovy is interested primarily in the novel psychological possibilities opened up by the invention of linear perspective. Merlin Donald (2001) also has much to say about the significance of egocentres. He observes that nonvisual channels (sound, touch, feeling tone, body sense, and so on) seem to converge on this imagined or felt positioning of the visual egocentre just a few centimetres behind the eyes. In his view, this visual egocentre functions as a unifier, ultimately tying all the other maps together (2001, p. 134). It is a key point of reference for calculating position and for interpreting the actions of the self. That position is given perceptually and immediately, not abstractly in some conceptually mediated way. It also serves to unify feelings and emotions such as, for example, a feeling of dread in the stomach. The perceptual egocentre is not some kind of Cartesian homunculus grounding a natural dualism. It is what Donald calls ‘the integrated neural footprint of our embodiment’ or ‘the brain model of the physical self ’ (2001, p. 135). The boundaries involved here are central to senses of self. Donald argues that ‘our capacity to combine an abstract self-­representation of events external to the self is surely at the core of our human expressive genius’ (2001, p. 135). For him, this egocentre anchors higher cognition, and is ‘the architect’ of self. It guides self-­construction and ‘supervises the countless negotiations that constitute the cognitive basis of human culture’ (2001, p. 137). This helps us think about a feature of aesthetic experience that John Dewey placed at the heart of his aesthetics. For Dewey, the hallmark of ‘aesthetic experience’ as it unfolds over time is ‘exactly the fact that no such distinction of self and object exists in it’ because ‘the two are so fully integrated that each disappears’ (Dewey, 1958, p. 249). In the development of selfhood the egocentre is intimately involved in the linguistically constructed self. I have elsewhere called this phenomenon (where consciousness is, temporarily, not centred on some dimension of ‘self ’) ‘positive absorption’ to distinguish it from a noxious kind of absorption characteristic of extreme pain (Benson, 2001, chapter  11). Absorption involves subjective feelings often described as a shifting of boundaries between self and its objects of attention, and a sense of being ‘relocated’ or ‘repositioned’. It is the sense, often reported by people who claim to have had mystical or aesthetic experiences, of being ‘one’ with the world, or of being ‘lost in’ a book or painting or passage of music. Even though the temporal duration of these phases of subjectivity may be very short – a few minutes – and often difficult to repeat, people remember them as being of great significance. Much happens during such experiences. A feeling lingers that something ­important and valuable has happened and that the occasion should be remembered.

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I have suggested elsewhere that a precondition for becoming ‘aesthetically absorbed’ is the temporary ceding of control, or its capture by the object, such that the construction of consciousness for a period falls to the powers of the object (Benson, 2001). The person stops deploying ‘I’, or having ‘I-­thoughts’, or being a linguistic subject for the brief duration of the absorption phase. Certain classes of culturally constructed object  – ‘The Arts’ particularly  – are deliberately designed to invite and facilitate such transformations of boundary between self and world, but also within ‘self ’. The arts lie at the epicentre of our technologies of self-­cultivation and self­extension by, paradoxically, seducing the subject away from his or her routine habits of control and linguistic auto-­positioning while the object has its say. Like any good relationship, respect, trust and difference play a central role in this. The idea of point-­of-­view is central to understanding how the processes of ‘self ’ are bound to other psychological processes constitutive of self in its full, uninjured functioning. This is particularly true in the case of memory and imagination. As I will have less to say about imagination than memory in what follows, it is important to stress how close they are as processes and to remind ourselves that they share neural structures. The connection between memory and imagination has long been known (Wood & Byatt, 2008). As Dewey writes: ‘the conscious adjustment of the new and the old is imagination’ (1958, p. 272). Endel Tulving (who first coined the term ‘episodic memory’ in 1972) reports a severely amnesic patient KC who ‘cannot imagine his future, any more than he can remember his past’ (Tulving, 2002). Contemporary neuroscientists are exploring the neural underpinnings of this. ‘Scene construction’ involving the generation, maintenance and visualization of spatial contexts is one capacity for which episodic memory and imagination have been shown to share a common distributed brain network, and the areas of the brain which distinguish episodic memories from fictive, imagined ones have also been identified in general (Hassabis, Kumaran, & Maguire, 2007). Work is ongoing to discover more precisely what underpins the feeling a person has when retrieving an episodic memory that allows him or her to know that it really happened.8 8 Referring to recent imaging work (Kensinger & Schacter, 2006), Schacter et al. write: ­“(R) ecent neuroimaging evidence has confirmed that individuals tend to believe that an item was perceived if its retrieval is associated with enhanced activation in sensory cortices, whereas they are likely to attribute an item to imagination if the item’s retrieval is associated with enhanced activity in regions thought to support self-­generated ­reflection and self-­referential processing” (Boyer & Wertsch, 2009, p. 101).

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It is precisely the possibilities of such uncertainty about whether an e­ pisodic memory, which feels like ‘mine’ and part of ‘me’, actually originated in the scene I recall, and its implications for personal and group identities, that the rest of this chapter addresses. But first it is necessary to consider some arguments for the view that specific kinds of episodic memory, what the philosopher Richard Wollheim calls ‘centred event memories’, play a privileged role in processes of personal identity (Wollheim, 1986). While Tulving was developing his concept of episodic memory from within the empirical traditions of neuropsychology and experimental psychology, Wollheim was developing a similar concept in parallel. His, however, is informed by his psychoanalytic experience, personal reflections and skills as an analytic philosopher deeply interested in the visual arts. The claim is that such memories are self-­authenticating phenomenologically and constitute identity’s ‘thread’ or sense of continuity over time. But is this supported by the literature on false memories? Were it possible with new immersive technologies to generate phenomenologically convincing but false episodic memories, then all manner of roads open up for the infiltration and shaping of heart-­felt personal and group identity. Thirty years after first suggesting the idea of episodic memory, Tulving describes it as ‘a recently evolved, late-­developing, and early-­deteriorating past-­oriented memory system, more vulnerable than other memory systems to neuronal dysfunction, and probably unique to humans’ (2002, p. 5). In such remembering we seldom confuse it with the feeling of current awareness of the world, imagining or dreaming. This feeling he calls autonoesis. Self is intimately involved in remembering episodically. This capacity to search memory deliberately, and the associated ‘time-­travel’, is, as far as we can tell, unique to humans. It is a memory system focusing not just on ‘what’ is remembered, but also on ‘when’ and ‘where’. The particular value added by coming at it from the perspective of Wollheim is that the ‘who’ who is remembering is his central concern, in addition to the what, where and when. Specifically, he builds on the significance of the point of view intrinsic to the remembered scene.

Selfhood, Kinds of Episodic Memory and Uncertainty about Their ‘Factuality’ Wollheim’s key distinction is between ‘centred’ and ‘acentred’ event ­memories, a distinction that applies analogously to imagined or ‘iconic’ states of consciousness. In the first case the memory is ‘seen’ from the actual in situ first-­person perspective of the person as he or she was situated at the time of the event. It is phenomenologically centred, so to speak, on the

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point-­of-­view (the egocentre) of the person remembering. In the second ‘acentred’ kind of remembering, the person feels situated ‘outside’ the scene remembered, but also witnesses him-­or herself as a player within the scene. Alison Gopnik (2009, p. 136) nicely illustrates this distinction: … (W)hen I remember my first kiss, I remember it as if I were looking at the two figures in the rain on the garden bench outside the museum. Of course, I wasn’t actually looking in from the outside, I was looking out from the inside. A real DVD of my experience would show the edge of my nose and a looming face.

Her recovered episodic memory of the kiss is, in Wollheim’s terms, acentred: her DVD memory, were she capable of recovering it as such, would be a centred event memory. Do acentred and centred episodic memories contribute differently to my sense of who I am? Philosophers and psychologists disagree as to just how dependent the constitution of ‘self ’ is on memory. Wollheim is amongst those who argue that ‘self ’ is not constituted by memory because memory requires self for it to be a memory in the first place. If, however, our focus is on the unity or felt coherence of selfhood over a lifetime, as narrated from any point along the timeline of that life, then memory is crucial, and distinctively specific work is done by centred event-­memories. In a centred memory of any event I am a player and therefore the impact of the remembering on my current mental state will tend to be richer than if I remember from the point of view of someone merely observing the event. In centrally remembering an event I am more likely to be repossessed by it, and to experience the rich effects of that repossession. In parallel in the 1980s, cognitive psychologists were beginning to focus on the role of point of view in episodic memory (Nigro & Neisser, 1983). A linguistic clue to the analogous difference between centred and acentred imagining is this: ‘I imagined that the horse fell down in the street’ is to express the non-­iconic imagining of an event, whereas ‘I imagined the horse falling down in the street’ is the expression of the event imagined iconically (Wollheim, 1986, p. 64). An experiential or centred event-­memory is always, Wollheim argues, of some event that the person has lived through. Whether he remembers it centrally (suggested by a tendency to express it directly in the present tense – ‘My father, holding my hand, is walking ­into a building, talking to a man, …’), or acentrally (‘I remember that my father was holding my hand as he walked into a building …’), the person remembers it as he himself experienced it. When he remembers it centrally, the person always remembers it from his point of view, and with that comes a complex repertoire of thoughts, feelings and urges to act, and these are

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related to what is remembered as having happened. In Wollheim’s account, centred event-­memory (i.e., centred episodic memory) plays a key constitutive role in creating the sameness over time that is a person’s identity. Wollheim is further indebted to Freud for a distinction between memory and phantasy, both of which originate in a person’s past and both of which continue to influence a person’s present, though in different ways. Routes of memory are routes of influence of the past. When I remember episodically, whether in a centred or acentred way, then I will be affected once again by the originating scene, though not with the same vividness and fullness. A recurring phantasy will also influence my current state of consciousness. The difference is that the memory will carry with it information about the originating event, whereas a phantasy will tend not to. This similarity between a phantasy and the forgetting of the source of a memory is something I will return to below when I briefly consider phenomena of false episodic memory. Even a single event of sufficient significance can be woven into the ‘inner life’ of a child in such a way as to give rise to lifelong dispositions which then regulate that person’s behaviour and sense of identity (Wollheim, 2004). If these dispositions are phantastic, then their influence will not be accompanied by the information needed to make them intelligible to the person. There is another difference in this account between memory and phantasy, and that has to do with a failure of phantasy to discriminate between the idea of something and the reality to which it refers. This results in a belief about the power of thoughts, which gives rise to the tendency to believe that merely thinking the thoughts can bring about what the thoughts are about. The mere thought of something desirable is believed enough to satisfy the desire. Wollheim suggests two further ideas about the role of phantasies that will be of use to us: ‘They can provide substitute satisfaction, and they can provide concealment’ (1986, p. 149). Because of this substitution and concealment, phantasies feel unintelligible to the person who has them. They cannot pin down their origins or the reasons why they harbour them. This unintelligibility is emotional in origin: ‘(T)he person can no longer see what it is about the object of the desire that makes anyone – not just himself, but anyone with a similar psychology – want it’ (1986, p. 160). The person can be made unhappy ­when some part of the desire is unsatisfied, but also they cannot be made satisfied from the part that is satisfied. Because of this bind, they feel compelled to rerun an experiment that can deliver no results. Wollheim writes: ‘It is still the neurotic’s past that makes him suffer, but what is pathogenic

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is no longer to remember that, it is to forget why. It is no longer to remember what he did or what happened to him; it is to forget why he desired this or why he believed that’ (1986, p. 161). The empirical literature on ‘false memory’ is not unsupportive of this idea of the significance of forgetting why. However, before considering this in more detail here is a brief review of the ways in which new technologies of art are moving towards that more complete, Deweyan vision of art as experience.

Emerging Technologies, Artistic Points-­o f-­V iew, Feelings of Agency and Subjective Uncertainty about What Is Remembered There can be no proper understanding of how art shapes subjectivity without understanding the dynamics of points of view. This is especially true of film and of all subsequent media that build on it. One of the earliest theorists of film, Béla Balázs (the Hungarian Herbert Bauer) wrote in the 1920s: I do not watch Romeo and Juliet from the pit, I look up to the balcony with Romeo’s eyes and down at Romeo with Juliet’s eyes … I look at the world from their point of view and have none of my own … Nothing like this kind of identification … has ever occurred in any other art.9

In the visual arts, since the Renaissance invention of linear perspective that required an optimal viewing position/point of view to gain the benefits of three dimensionality, and on into modernism’s advance beyond perspective and towards a new kind of inwardness, artists have developed novel ways of exploiting the creative possibilities of points of view. In more recent times, the American artist James Turrell, by creating a ‘Ganzfeld Sphere’, generated for participants a kind of novel subjectivity that attends the removal of a point of view per se (Benson, 2001, chapter 12). The subjective sense of not having a point of view  – what I have called ‘The No Point of View Phenomenon’  – suggests the constitutive role that intentional objects play in stabilizing and shaping the spectator’s point of view. Similar experimentation advanced the novel as writers developed kinds of ­narrator and narration to shape readers’ entrance into, and participation in, their stories (Walton, 1993). Cinema fuses the developments in both forms (Choi, 2005).

9 Quoted by Eliot Weinberger, ‘The man who wrote everything’, The New York Review of ­Books, 25 November 2010, p. 52.

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Sight and sound have so far been the dominant perceptual capacities recruited by the arts, albeit not exclusively. Their power to shape imaginative transports is clear. What is remembered of such experiences, unsurprisingly, will be largely visual and auditory. In the visual arts the development of performance and installation art have moved those art forms closer to participatory theatre and have put their defining adjective, ‘visual’, into question. These new directions in art actively incorporate other elements of the world into the created experiences. To illustrate, here is yet another of my episodic memories. In 1997 the artist Alastair MacLennan represented Ireland in the Venice Biennale. The venue for the Irish Pavilion was on the Giudecca, and MacLennan created an installation that commemorated the names of everyone who had died in Ireland as a result of the political ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland from 1969 up to the day the show opened. The installation felt cold and morgue-­like, as was intended. As I walked into the space and before I registered anything visually, I was struck by an unpleasant smell of putrefaction. This smell immediately transformed my sense of the entire show and made it even more powerful. But the odour was actually serendipitous. The artist had taken pieces of wood from the canal walls to use in the show and it was those pieces that carried the smell of rotting. But they added a powerful and unforgettable new dimension to a dark theme. Smell, as we know with Proust, is a powerful and immediate agent in the recovery of memory, especially memories of close-­up events (Magnussen & Helstrup, 2007; Wollheim, 2004). Installations allow many kinds of information to be used in creating new art in real time, but so too will new virtual technologies. Reports of the first virtual technology – the ‘Virtual Cocoon’ – to allow a person to see, hear, smell, taste and touch appeared in March 2009.10 It forms part of a project called ‘Towards Real Virtuality’ which aims to provide a ‘real’ experience in which all senses are stimulated such that users have a fully immersive perceptual experience during ­which, if it works as hoped, they will not be able to tell whether it is real or not. When imagining the powers and capacities of this coming technology we must use the elements of the present. Increased perceptual richness comprises one set of elements; advancing means of controlling the flow of narrative and experience suggests the other (Žižek, 2008). The one closes the gap between the simulated and the real; the other introduces greater 10 The Virtual Cocoon is being developed by teams in ­the University of York led by Prof. David Howard and at Warwick University led by Prof. Alan Chalmers. The report was in Science Daily (4 March 2009).

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powers of agency. How these will be organized and developed is an open question for creativity. The world of video games in particular gives us a foretaste of what is to come.11 The means of merging spectators’ points of view with points of entry into an unfolding story, and temporarily shaping both it and what is to viewed, will continue to command the attention of artists and others just as it has over recent centuries. They may well have hitherto unknown phenomena to play with and deploy. We reviewed the idea of an egocentre in the preceding text and noted how it may be the point of convergence for the viewpoints of different senses. This concerns the creation of a ‘unified perceptual viewpoint’ that forms an operational point of reference for organizing unfolding consciousness and its memory traces. But could that sense of a single ‘bound’ point of view be technologically undone? Work in the Ecole Polytechnique Féderále de Lausanne in Switzerland suggests it can (Aspell, Lenggenhager, & Blanke, 2009; Blanke & Metzinger, 2008; Lenggenhager et al., 2007). Olaf Blanke and his colleagues have been investigating ­body-­perception and self-­consciousness. They have been specifically interested in the phenomenon of ‘out-­of-­body’ experience. Their focus is on the simplest forms of self-­consciousness, what they call ‘minimal phenomenal selfhood’. Having demonstrated how self-­location and self-­identification – consciousness of one’s body  – can be experimentally altered to simulate reported out-­of-­body experiences, they then concentrated on whether this illusion can alter touch perception. To do this they used what is called the ‘rubber hand illusion’ (Botvinick & Cohen, 1998). This illusion occurs when a rubber hand is attached to a person’s arm while the real hand is hidden from the person’s sight. Her actual hidden hand and the visible ‘rubber’ hand are then touched simultaneously. The illusion is that the person feels the touch where she sees the rubber hand being touched. What if what the person saw was not a rubber hand but the equivalent of his or her whole body? How would the location of touch then be perceived? 11 This entertainment medium is currently worth about ­$50 billion (about £33 billion) per year with, reportedly, up to one-­third of U.K. adults participating. See Keith Stuart, ‘The seduction secrets of video game designers’, The Observer, Sunday 15 May 2011. Game designers are moving away from ‘reactive’ towards ‘active’ game formats where the players’ sense of agency, autonomy, control, authority, self-­respect  – all disproportionately rewarded – are being facilitated in ever more complex and realistic narratives. For example, Stuart notes that “thrillers such as Heavy Rain and forthcoming Raymond Chandler­style detective adventure LA Noire, are loaded with the sort of compelling plot twists and shock revelations we’re used to from movies. Indeed, narrative games have their own version of Hollywood’s three-­act structure, designed to keep us utterly hooked.”

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To address this question Blanke and his colleagues devised an experimental procedure in which participants had to identify where vibrations were occurring on their own bodies. A camera placed two metres behind the subject filmed his back. A head-­mounted display then projected the person’s own ‘virtual body’ two metres in front of them in 3-­D. Could people be induced to experience the virtual body they can see as their own? If they could, then that would involve a relocation of their sense of position from their actual to the virtual position. Amongst other conditions in these experiments, subjects had their backs stroked for a period while also seeing their ‘virtual’ back stroked in front of them. The feeling was that their back felt to be where their virtual back was. It is possible to induce a ‘full body illusion’ analogous to the ‘rubber hand illusion’.12 Other researchers have reported similar phenomena (Ehrrson, 2007). Ehrrson went further and swung a hammer at where the subjects sensed themselves to be and measured their emotional responses. Changes in skin conductance were registered and subjects reported feeling of anxiety although they knew they were in no danger.13 These ground-­breaking experiments, and others, show how ‘self ’ ­and ‘felt position’ are malleable and demonstrably more complex subjectively than could previously be demonstrated experimentally, though familiar as phenomena from clinical and aesthetic accounts. My reason for referencing them here is to suggest the expressive scope for any future artistic exploitation of technologies that could dissociate felt points of location. If one could subjectively position spectators where avatars of themselves are located, could one then cause them to experience the emotional consequences of what is seen to happen to that avatar in, say, an already predetermined narrative? The kind of scope for emotional expressiveness that Andrea Mantegna achieved by setting up conflicts of perspective in his fresco, St. James Led to Execution, in 1454–1457 (Kubovy, 1986, pp. 137–40) will have its direct descendants in the work of the coming time, which will undoubtedly

12 Blanke & Metzinger (2008, p.  12) conclude: “A first ­step has already been taken: bodily agency is a causally enabling, but not a constitutive condition, for phenomenal selfhood.” 13 V.S. Ramachandran (2011) adds this note to the discoveries of Blanke and Ehrsson: “Laura Case, Elizabeth Seckel, and I found that such illusions are enhanced if you wear a Halloween mask and introduce a tiny time delay together with a left-­right reversal in the image. You suddenly start inhabiting and ­controlling the ‘alien’ in the video image. Remarkably, if you wear a smiling mask you actually feel happy because ‘you, out there’ look happy!” (p. 326)

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play with the phenomena of subjective bodily location being revealed by research like that described earlier. Turning now to the other side of this approaching world, the ways in which agency is enabled or amplified or transformed, perhaps the best indicators of what is in store are the developments in brain–computer interfaces that are rapidly advancing the powers of rehabilitation. What is currently being developed in this area is easily transferable to entertainment. Projects such as BrainGate, led by John Donoghue of Brown University, are inventing ways in which objects can be moved by the power of thought.14 This wonderful work is geared towards those who have been afflicted with major paralysis (quadriplegics, multiple amputees, those suffering from ‘locked­in syndrome’ and Lou Gehrig disease, and so on). It involves implanting a microelectrode array in the primary motor centre of a patient’s brain. Its electrodes detect neuronal signals that it transmits to a ‘pedestal’ attached to the skull. Computer programs translate neural signals into the patient’s desired movements. The pedestal amplifies and transmits signals that allow the patient to move and control prostheses, computer cursors, or a wheelchair, simply by thinking the necessary thoughts. Donoghue’s team are now working to replace the pedestal with a ­wireless technology connecting thought and action.15 Technologies that can transform a thought of action into movement by some object or avatar, rather than of the body of the person thinking those thoughts, will clearly have applications far beyond the rehabilitation area. Connecting developments like those we have just briefly reviewed allows us to imagine a time when art, and entertainment, approaches a ‘completeness of experience’ that even Dewey never dreamed of. New kinds of virtual world in which avatars of ourselves, which we can literally feel as though we are ‘there’ as them, controlled by technologies that turn our thoughts into their actions, will vastly amplify our scope for agency, responsibility­taking/evading, and the emotional consequences that flow from them. These coming technologies will create hitherto unknown kinds of subjectivity in which the gap between what Kendall Walton (1993) called the ‘quasi-­emotions’, characteristic of encounters with art in which action on those emotions is not required, and ‘real’ emotions that impel a person to take the action appropriate to change a situation, will be narrowed. Why? 14 For an up-­to-­date range of publications from J. P. Donoghue and his team, please go to http://www.braingate2.org/publications.asp 15 This is just one instance of many. See, for example, ­Science Daily (21 February 2011) for reports on how researchers are developing ways of steering a car by thought.

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Because the technologies will allow participants to think actions that then happen, and that change the ‘fictional/virtual’ world in ways for which the person is then responsible. All of this will be remembered. Episodic memory will have compelling new cultural sources. But will they be false episodic memories of a kind that feed into the structure of identity, and what could that lead to? The ways of acting open to participants will increasingly involve the body, but without the kind of grainy friction that normal everyday engagement involves. John Gray (2003, p.  143) believes that ‘The cult of cyberspace continues the Gnostic flight from the body.’ He goes on to remark that ‘The world disclosed in ordinary perception is a makeshift of habit and convention. Virtual worlds disrupt this consensual hallucination, but in doing so they leave us without a test for a reality that is independent of ourselves’ (2003, p. 145). Perhaps, however, the new technologies are now moving in somewhat different directions, towards kinds of virtual reincarnation in which bodies play roles they have never been able to play before!

False Memories and Artistic Means of Implanting Them? Even relatively simple traditional artistic media can powerfully ­induce false memories of a kind that shock the remembering person once they become aware of the sequence of events that now shatters their certainty about the veracity of a memory. Here are some examples. W. G. Sebald, in his book Vertigo (Wood & Byatt, 2008), tells the story of Marie Henri Beyle, a seventeen-­year-­old soldier who crossed the Alps with Napoleon’s army in May 1800. Thirty-­six years later, the fifty-­three-­year-­old Beyle writes from memory of this crossing. For years Beyle could vividly remember his first sight of Ivrea and the mountains beyond (an acentred episodic memory). Sebald comments: It was a severe disappointment, Beyle writes, when some years ago, looking through old papers, he came across an engraving entitled Prospetto d’Ivrea and was obliged to concede that his recollected picture of the town in the evening sun was nothing but a copy of that very engraving. (Wood & Byatt, p. 350)

If created images could so effectively plant false memories, what of other symbolic forms? Could an imagined response to a letter, for example, form the basis of a later false memory? In 2005 Oliver Sacks recounted being shocked to discover that some of his ‘very vivid, concrete and circumstantial’

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memories, which he had recounted in his memoir Uncle Tungsten, were false (Wood & Byatt, 2008, pp. 365–7). One was an acentred episodic memory of a huge bomb falling beside his house during the London Blitz which he described in some detail. Some months after the book’s publication his older brother Michael told him that he could not have seen that particular bombing because he was not there. Their older brother David had written of it to them because they had been evacuated out of London. Oliver had been ‘enthralled’ by David’s letter, Michael remembered. Oliver accepted the truth of this but, notwithstanding that acceptance, the memory ‘still seems to me as real, as intensely my own, as before.’ This is familiar territory for cognitive psychologists (Neisser & Harsch, 1992). When the space-­shuttle Challenger exploded, the shock was palpable and a source of vivid flashbulb memories for many. To study these, Ulric Neisser immediately collected detailed recollections of the details about when and where students heard of the disaster. Three years later a group of the original students were contacted, filled out the original questionnaire again, and were asked to rate ‘their confidence in each aspect of their memory.’ The results were striking. Up to a quarter gave quite different accounts than they originally had but, most tellingly, about half of those gave very high confidence ratings for their latterly documented ‘memories’. ­These were called ‘phantom’ flashbulb memories. A feeling of confidence in the accuracy of one’s memories is no guarantor of that accuracy. Amongst the sources for such erroneous recollection Neisser says of one such student that she ‘would not be the only person who ever changed what began as a fantasy into what seemed like a memory’ (Wood & Byatt, 2008, p. 85). Considering what metaphors to use to describe such memory Neisser concludes that ‘Remembering is not like playing back a tape or looking at a picture; it is more like telling a story. The consistency and accuracy of memories is therefore an achievement, not a mechanical reproduction’ (Wood & Byatt, 2008, p. 88).16 There is now an extensive literature on false memories and their induction, especially among children. The work of Marcia K. Johnson and her colleagues has demonstrated that ‘False memories arise from the same encoding, rehearsal, revival, and source monitoring processes that produce true memories; thus, one can never be absolutely sure of the truth of any particular memory’ (Johnson, 2006, p.  767). Elizabeth Loftus and 16 Even simple experimental tasks can induce false ­memories as a side effect (Green & Brock, 2000, p.  713). My thanks to Brendan Rooney of University College Dublin for bringing this to my attention.

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her colleagues have also explored the dynamics of false memory creation (Loftus, 1997). Much research has focused on the dynamic interactions of imagination and false memories (Foley & Johnson, 1985; Garry & Polaschek, 2000; Garry et al., 1996; Goff & Roediger, 1998; Hyman & Pentland, 1996; Thomas & Loftus, 2002), and also on the relative powers of photographs and words to induce them (Garry & Wade, 2005; Wade et al., 2002). The consensus is that false memories can be readily induced, and that the engagement of imagination is a particularly potent means of doing so. Given that the arts are the most culturally powerful hosts of imagination (being any culture’s most prolific generators, and repositories, of images and stories), it is not unreasonable to suggest that an immersion in art – understood as experience in the Deweyan sense – is a royal road towards creating experiences that are enthralling, remembered but, in the sense above, ‘false’. Even images that, to our post-­cinematic eyes, seem somewhat ‘lifeless’ – such as the engraving that shaped Beyle’s memory of Ivrea – can be a source of vividly remembered but false episodic memories. Is it reasonable to think that technologies which can recruit and play with the spectator’s point ­of view in more sensorily rich, immersive narratives than has been possible before, and especially from an early age, could be a fertile source of false centred-­episodic memories of a kind that could be constitutive of a person’s personal and group identities? We know that episodic memories, whether centred or acentred, true or false, play a key role in constituting personal identities (nested within which are various group identities). Episodic memories are what add distinctive flavour to an identity, with cogent accompanying feelings to convince subjects of their veracity. If Wollheim’s argument (Wollheim, 1986) finds support, then centred episodic memories – or, as he calls them, event­memories – play an especially important role in the continuity or ‘thread’ of a life. Memories such as these are the seed-­bed for imagining the future, and imagining future scenarios prepares people for action. Does it matter that episodic memories are false? The answer of course depends on their significance in the scheme of a person’s or of a group’s lives. One just has to consider the ways in which groups – ethnic, religious, political, national, etc. – construe their own relationships to each other to realize the significance of what they imagine about each other. If that imagining is fuelled by authentic memories of grievance, for example, then the politics of memory plays a determining role in their relations. But what if that imagining is fuelled by false memories deliberately induced for vested interests? Here we are in the territory of propaganda and animosity.

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Will the coming technologies of art and entertainment move the powers of propagandists and ideologists onto a new level? Will they be able to introduce false collective memories into the very heart of personal identity, and subjectivity, by fabricating false, centred, episodic memories that are so forceful that they generate impulsive feelings of grievance towards another group? We know from work with children that ‘False memories can feel like true ones because we become equally, though mistakenly, certain that we know their source’ (Gopnik, 2009, p. 140). Sources of information, ‘source amnesia’ and suggestibility will potentially play a central role in John Gray’s dystopian view of the times to come. Forgetting the source for your memories of grievance towards some class of ‘others’ – particularly if they are ‘false’ – or being encouraged to forget it by being immersed in powerful ‘virtual worlds’ over prolonged periods especially when young (remember the ‘reminiscence bump’!) diminishes your power to discern their questionability. Powerful emotions, guaranteed by memory, will feel like they are ‘mine’ and therefore constitutive of ‘me’. This is a large issue and beyond the scope remaining here. One part of ­the issue, however, is this question: How, from what we have considered so far, could ‘collective’ memories be implanted as personal – and most powerfully as centred – episodic memories by the coming technologies of art?

Transmuting Collective, Cultural Memories into Personal Episodic Ones? Let me conclude by posing an illustrative question that pulls together a number of threads already reviewed. Will the new technologies be able to transform collective memories, especially those that breed grievance, into personal memories, more seamlessly than has been the case with – already very effective! – traditional media? We know that negative events are especially memorable (Goodman & Melinder, 2007) and that the breeding of grievance towards other kinds of people is a constant in human affairs. To render this idea into a rather dystopian question: Will these new forms of art, and entertainment, have more effective powers to suture personal and collective identities – and be able to do so more quickly and potently than their predecessors already achieve with less – given that they may build on a confusion between politically/artistically supplied ‘false’ memories and personally earned episodic ones? The arts and political power have always been closely entwined, with art sometimes a suborned or seduced agent of such power, and at other times in danger as an effective opponent. Rulers tend to understand the persuasive

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powers of the arts, and thus to see them as instruments in the pursuit of their objectives, benign as well as malign. The twentieth century is replete with examples of the arts serving, and being forced to serve, ideological ends. ‘Hitler credited the cinema – alongside radio and the motor-­car – with having made the Nazi victory possible’ (Grunberger, 1974, p. 477)! Imagine how Josef Goebbels would have remade the virulently anti-­Semitic Jud Süss if his particular ‘dream factory’ had the coming immersive technologies of art available to it! A narrative of one’s own tribe constitutes its identity, and the arts have always been central to this whether it is the epic poetry of the Serbs that shaped Radovan Karadžić, or the ballads that nourished Irish nationalism and the music and ritual marches that reproduce Northern Irish Loyalism. Jan Assman (1988) conceives of ‘cultural memory’ as residing in texts, images, rituals, and so on, which function both formatively (telling a people or society who and what they distinctively are) and normatively (telling them what they should do). Much can be said about ‘history’, ‘collective memory’, and ‘identity’, ­and interested readers will find essays on many aspects of the relations between these concepts in the literature (Boyer & Wertsch, 2009). The evidence supports some particular ideas that I would like to connect here. For instance, ‘Typically a collective memory … is understood to express some eternal or essential truth about the group – usually tragic … (and) … comes to define … an eternal identity, for the members of the group’ (Boyer & Wertsch, 2009, p. 126). The study of national histories in textbook format is a major vehicle for the construction and transmission of versions of national identity. Imagine a time when those textbooks are formally, or informally, supplemented by immersive virtual versions of the kind envisaged above (maybe highly engaging and ‘realistic’ new video history games?), or a time, perhaps, where ‘books’ are replaced by them! Add to this the finding that ‘In general, memories that are formed between the ages of 13 and 25 are the most striking events in our personal histories. It is not surprising, then, that historical memories are largely retained and passed on by people within this cohort’ (Boyer & Wertsch, 2009, p. 173). Now consider how a collective memory could become a personal memory through the agency of vivid artistic technologies, especially for the young during the establishment of their ‘reminiscence bump’. An artist, perhaps under instruction by other powers, creates a cultural artefact or event (an interactive memorial, a story, a song, a video game, an immersive virtual world, or whatever). This becomes an intentional object for any suitably equipped person. The result is an unfolding experience that, if successful, may involve passages of ‘self-­forgetfulness’ or ‘absorption’ during which

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the person’s subjectivity is strongly shaped, for that length of time, by the object of attention, and is thus prepared for memory. If the point of entry is a new and complex replacement and manipulation of the person’s ‘own’ point of view with another supplied one, however briefly that may last, the result will be either an acentred or, more potently, a centred passage of imagining, infused with, and somatically marked by, emotion. This in turn will be registered and encoded. It will then become available for remembering and may be reconstructed as a memory with an acentred viewpoint or, again more cogently, as a memory with a centred point of view. Over time its reconstruction will, like other memories, be subject to processes of distortion and forgetting, including those involved in ‘source amnesia’ (Engel, 1999). The ambient social climate will make its demands and have its impact. The person may forget the context of when and where they first witnessed what they remember, and when and where they began to feel as they now do about the content of the memory, and what it ­entails socially and politically. Over time the ‘reexperiencing’ comes to seem part of the person’s remembered past, feeling familiar to and owned by him or her. This adds to the formation of dispositions, and primes the sorts of ‘nudge’ to decision and action so favoured by behavioural economists.17 The inclinations they now have towards the group or kind of person, or whatever it is that was the subject of the original cultural artefact, will have become ‘theirs’, a part of who they feel themselves to be. There is much to suggest that this is what has long happened in the construction of group identities by cultural artefacts. What may happen next in the evolution of cultural technologies is that our ability to judge with certainty the ‘truth’ of memory will be even more contaminated by the apparent certainty of our accompanying feeling that it is ‘real’. The quality of that uncertainty would be quite a novel feature of subjectivity. These coming technologies of art and entertainment will build memories on subjective ‘scars’ of a kind that Vergil, two millennia ago, would have recognized. The dynamics of subjectivity will continue to be as before, but it is the intentional objects, and the composition of their sequencing, that will be new and differently demanding. The consequence will be that the balance of authority and subjective certainty as to what is real or virtual, 17 Considered from a political psychological ­perspective, this connects to possible wider cultural processes whereby personal memories are deliberately harmonized with orthodox cultural memories so that contradictions that might otherwise disturb or alert the person to such manipulation are ironed out. I thank Romin Tafarodi (personal communication, July 2011) for this idea.

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remembered or imagined, actually encountered or quasi-­actively received, will alter, and that the twenty-­first century may, in later centuries, come to be known as the Age of Phantasy. References Aspell, J. E., Lenggenhager, B., & Blanke, O. (2009). Keeping in touch with one’s self: Multisensory mechanisms of self consciousness, PLoS ONE, 4: 8, e6488. Assman, J., & Holscher, T. (Eds.) (1988). Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität. In Kultur und gedachtnis (pp. 9–19). Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Benson, C. (1993). The absorbed self: Pragmatism, psychology and aesthetic experience. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.   (2001). The cultural psychology of self: Place, morality and art in human worlds. London: Routledge.   (2003). The unthinkable boundaries of self: The role of negative ­emotional boundaries in the formation, maintenance and transformation of identities. In R. Harré & F. Moghaddam (Eds.), The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political and cultural contexts (pp. 61–84).Westport, CT: Praeger.   (2013). Acts not tracts: Why a complete psychology of art and identity must be neuro-cultural. In T. Roald & J. Lang (Eds), Art and identity: Essays on the aesthetic creation of mind (pp. 39–65). Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi. Blanke, O., & Metzinger, T. (2008). Full-­body illusions and minimal phenomenal selfhood. Trends in Cognitive Science, 13(1): 7–13. Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see. Nature, 391: 756. Boyer, P., & Werstch, J. V. (Eds.) (2009). Memory in mind and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bullough, E. (1957). “Psychical distance” as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle. In E. M. Wilkinson (Ed.), Aesthetics: Lectures and essays by Edward Bullough. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (1977). Aesthetics. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press. Choi, J. (2005). Leaving it up to the imagination: POV shots and imagining from the inside. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 63(1): 17–25. Conway, M. A., Wang, Q., Hnayu, K., & Haque, S. (2005). A cross-­cultural investigation of autobiographical memory: On the universality and cultural variation of the reminiscence bump. Journal of Cross-­Cultural Psychology, 36: 739–49. Damasio, A. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness, New York: Harcourt Brace. Dewey, J. (1958). Art as experience. New York: Capricorn Books, G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Donald, M. (2001). A mind so rare: The evolution of human consciousness. New York: W. W. Norton. Ehrrson, H. H. (2007). The experimental induction of out-­of-­body experiences. Science, 317: 1048. (www.sciencemag.org). Engel, S. (1999). Context is everything: The nature of memory. New York: W. H. Freeman.

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Foley, M. A., & Johnson, M. K. (1985). Confusions between memories for performed and imagined actions: A developmental comparison. Child Development, 56(5): 1145–55. Garry, M., Manning, C. G., Loftus, E. F., & Sherman, S. J. (1996). Imagination inflation: Imagining a childhood even inflates confidence that it occurred. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3(2): 208–14. Garry, M., & Polaschek, D. L. L. (2000). Imagination and memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9: 6. Garry, M., & Wade, K. A. (2005). Actually, a picture is worth less than 45 words: Narratives produce more false memories than photographs do. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12(20): 359–66. Goff, L. M., & Roediger, H. L. (1998). Imagination inflation for action events: Repeated imaginings lead to illusory recollections. Memory & Cognition, 26(1): 20–33. Goodman, G. S., & Melinder, A. (2007). The development of autobiographical memory: A new model. In S. Magnussen & T. Helstrup (Eds.), Everyday memory (pp. 111–34). Hove, U.K.: Psychology Press. Gopnik, A. (2009). The philosophical baby: What children’s minds tell us about ­truth, love & the meaning of life. London: The Bodley Head. Gray, J. (2003). Straw dogs: Thoughts on humans and other animals. London: Granta. Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79: 701–21. Grunberger, R. (1974). A social history of the Third Reich. Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin. Hassabis, D., Kumaran, D., & Maguire, E. (2007). Using imagination to understand the neural basis of episodic memory. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27(52): 14365–74. Huxley, A. (1932). Brave new world. London: HarperCollins. Hyman, I. E., & Pentland, J. (1996). The role of mental imagery in the creation of false childhood memories. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 101–17. Johnson, M. K. (2006). Memory and reality. American Psychologist, 61(8): 760–71. Kensinger, E. A., & Schacter, D. L. (2006). Neural processes underlying memory attribution on a reality-­monitoring task. Cerebral Cortex, 16: 1126–33. Kubovy, L. (1986). The psychology of perspective and Renaissance art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langer, S. (1953). Feeling and form. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Lenggenhager, B., Tadi, T., Metzinger, T., & Blanke, O. (2007). Video ergo sum: Manipulating bodily self consciousness. Science, 317: 1096–9. Loftus, E. (1997). Memories for a past that never was. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Special Issue: Memory as a Theater of the Past: The Psychology of False Memories, 6(3): 60–5. Magnussen, S., & Helstrup, T. (Eds.) (2007). Everyday memory. Hove, U.K.: Psychology Press. Neisser, U., & Harsch, N. (1992). Phantom flashbulbs: False recollections of hearing the news about Challenger. In E. Winograd & U. Neisser (Eds.), Affect and accuracy in recall: Studies of ‘flashbulb’ memories (pp. 9–31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Nigro, G., & Neisser, U. (1983). Point of view in personal memories. Cognitive Psychology, 15(4): 467–82. Ramachandran, V. S. (2011). The tell-­tale brain: Unlocking the mysteries of human nature. London: William Heinemann. Rubin, D. C., Wetzler, S. E., & Nebes, R. D. (1986). Autobiographical memory across the life span. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.), Autobiographical memory (pp.  202–21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, A. K., & Loftus, E. F. (2002). Creating bizarre false memories through imagination. Memory & Cognition, 30(3): 423–31. Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic memory: From mind to brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 53: 1–25. Wade, K. A., Garry, M., Read, J. D., & Lindsay, D. S. (2002). A picture is worth a thousand lies: Using false photographs to create false childhood memories. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(3): 597–603. Walton, K. (1993). Mimesis as make-­believe: On the foundations of the representational arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wollheim, R. (1986). The thread of life. Cambridge: Cambridge University ­Press.   (2004). Germs: A memoir of childhood. London: The Waywiser Press. Wood, H. H., & Byatt, A. S. (2008). Memory: An anthology. London: Chatto & Windus. Žižek, S. (2008). The plague of fantasies. London: Verso.

part iii Political and ­Institutional Perspectives

7 Radical Subjectivity and the N-­Row Wampum A ­General Model for Autonomous Relations Against and Beyond the Dominant Global Order?

Richard J. F. Day and Adam Lewis

Introduction: Autonomy, Radical Subjectivity and the Dominant Order in Settler Societies ‘The world’, as it is currently understood by mainstream conceptions ­within popular discourse and the social-­political sciences, is divided up into nation-­states. This system defines territories, within which a self-­identified ‘people’ have set themselves up as having a special relationship with a state, which allows them to exert relatively sovereign, differentially effective control over a territory. This control is relative and differential because there are, of course, suprastate structures such as what remains of the European Union or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and even that most fragile of federations, the United Nations. There are also other structures, such as the capitalist corporations, nongovernmental organizations, patriarchies, racisms, heteronormativities and so on, that simultaneously work within, alongside, and against the system of states, to comprise what we call in this chapter the dominant global order of the early twenty-­first century, or simply the dominant order.1 It is our assumption that none of these elements can be considered ‘foundational’ in any abstract, a priori sense. Rather, 1 For a more thorough discussion, please see (Day, 2005, pp. 5–7). What is there referred ­to as ‘the neoliberal project’ is here identified as ‘the dominant order’. The latter term is to be preferred because it goes even further than the former in de-­privileging any particular mode of domination and exploitation, as ‘neoliberalism’ is commonly thought of as being primarily a political-­economic discourse. Put differently, we would suggest that the dominant order could get along quite fine without neoliberalism – it could use some other hierarchical and all-­encompassing political-­economic paradigm, such as twentieth-­ century state communism.

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because they evolved together, in a complex network of mutual interaction,2 all make their contributions to any particular situation or ­identification. But, for the moment, so that the argument of this chapter can be clearly delineated, we want to keep our attention on the system of states. Perhaps, if the boundaries could ever be gotten right, this sort of arrangement could work reasonably well – each to his or her own space, doing their own things in their own ways. But the boundaries have not been gotten right – they are relatively fixed, but also hotly contested. That is, there is not a one-­to-­one identification between nation and territory, as the term nation-­state implies. Rather, within most state territories, there is a multiplicity of peoples, some of whom would like to control a sovereign apparatus of their own. These are referred to, by liberal multicultural theorists like Will Kymlicka, as ‘national minorities’, and would include, to name only a few, the Basque, Flemish, Tibetans, Mongolians, Quebecois (Kymlicka, 2010, p. 101). Although the claims of such groups are important, our interest in this chapter is in those who have also been incorporated into the system of states against their will, but rather than wishing for a state of their own, seek to base their lives on principles and traditions that are different from, and fundamentally at odds with, those of the dominant order. We are referring here to autonomy-­oriented Indigenous peoples, such as the Haudenosaunee (known as the Iroquois Confederacy within the European-­derived societies of Canada and the United States), the many peoples who are part of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, the Aymara and Mapuche of South America, some Aboriginal peoples of Australia, and the vast groundswell of those whose territories are claimed by the Indian state, and are known to the outside world as Naxalites.3

2 In Hegelian traditions, this kind of interaction might be called ‘dialectical’. This is not a tradition with which we are comfortable, however, preferring the Nietzschean approach as propagated through the lineage via Heidegger to Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari et  al. Perhaps the strongest reason, for us, to reject the Hegelian dialectic is because of its teleological nature  – that is, its assumption not only that tensions must be resolved, but also resolved by way of a transition to a ‘higher’, but related, system, in a march towards Absolute Spirit (in Hegel’s case), or the Classless Society (in Marx’s), or ­Multicultural Harmony (in Charles Taylor’s). In the Nietzschean world, sometimes nothing at all happens, things fall apart, or events are just too complex to comprehend analytically. Most importantly, though, for Nietzsche there is no Spirit at work in history, and ‘becoming aims at nothing’ (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 12). 3 In using the term ‘Indigenous’ we are following Alfred and Corntassel (2005, p. 597), who write: ‘The communities, clans, nations and tribes we call Indigenous peoples are just that: Indigenous to the lands they inhabit, in contrast to and in contention with the colonial

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These  – and other  – Indigenous peoples tend to exist within what are known as Settler societies, in which the territory of the nation was secured through violent invasion and expansion, abetted by various forms of assimilation, genocide, and land theft (Tobias, 1991; Todorov, 1984; Trigger, 1985). In most cases these strategies and tactics have succeeded to the extent ­that the invading nation has relatively effectively articulated itself with a state apparatus claiming the territory. But they have also failed to the extent that there is a relatively intact and politically active Indigenous population still struggling to retain and recover their traditional ways of life as well as their territories.4 Settler societies pose some interesting issues for twenty-­first century subjectivities, in terms of relations between Settlers and Indigenous peoples within and across the boundaries of the nation-­states. Obviously, for invasion and settlement to be justified, there have to be stark boundaries and hierarchies set up between the invaders and the peoples whose lands and social, political, economic, and cultural traditions they have (mostly) usurped. These boundaries are everywhere – on the ground, in everyday life, in the halls of power, and they serve to separate these two worlds, or at least to make it seem as though they are not connected. At the same time, all over the world, there is a growing number of Settlers who, recognizing these connections, are attempting to work alongside the Indigenous peoples, with whom they share a significant set of values, practices, and traditions, and against the dominant order, which they reject and wish to dismantle (Barker, 2009; Regan, 2010). It is these individuals, groups, and networks – anticapitalist, nonstatist, radical feminist, queer, anticolonial, antiracist, anti-­authoritarian, ecologically oriented  – that we refer to as participating in radical subjectivities. Rather than simply accepting the dominant order as it is (as do passive nihilist subjectivities), or attempting to make small changes to it (as do liberal reformist subjectivities), radical subjectivities set out to resist, revolt, and reconstruct, through the creation of sustainable alternatives to what is

societies and states that have spread out from Europe and other centres of empire. It is this place-­based existence, along with the consciousness of being in struggle against the dispossessing and demeaning fact of colonization by foreign peoples, that fundamentally distinguishes Indigenous peoples from other peoples of the world.’ 4 It could be argued, of course, that every state is a Settler state. Are not the Basques ­Indigenous to their territories? Is it not the case that the Ainu have been treated, by the Japanese, in very much the same way as the Anishnabe, the Aborigine, and the Apache? There are complexities and subtleties here that we simply do not have the space to get into in this chapter, but hopefully it will suffice to say that there is a very real risk of draining Indigeneity of the specificity that it has in Settler societies.

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‘given’ to them as ‘natural’ and ‘inevitable’ or even ‘the best possible’. Thus, although it is deeply important to continue to understand, critique, and propose remedies for the ongoing horrors of Settler states and their capitalist allies, in this chapter we want to focus on relations between resurging Indigenous nations and those among the Settler populations who seek to aid and participate in this resurgence, as part of their own processes of seeking autonomy from the dominant order. Although this is a global phenomenon, we further restrict our focus ­to North America, and within that, the Canadian case in particular. This is the situation with which we are most familiar, and with which we are ourselves engaged, as (hopefully) decolonizing Settlers, allies with Indigenous struggles, and opponents to the excesses of the dominant order. We share the linked imperatives of defending, regenerating, and living more lightly on this particular territory, for although we will never be Indigenous to this place, we do live here, and we do love and respect it. Although our analysis is based on one particular situation, we are well aware that radical subjectivities exist everywhere in the world and, indeed, as the discussion progresses, it should become clear that we believe that it is of the utmost importance that links continue to be made between these subjectivities, wherever and whenever possible, within, against, and beyond the dominant order. It is with these possibilities of linkage in mind that we turn to a discussion of the Two Row Wampum model. When Dutch Settlers arrived in what is now known as North America, they made a treaty with the Haudenosaunee peoples (the ‘Iroquois Confederacy’ in Settler discourses), who generously agreed to share the land with them. This agreement was symbolized, on the Indigenous side, by way of a wampum belt, known as the Two Row Wampum or Kaswentah. The Kaswentah contains two purple rows of beads, sewn on a white background,5 that ‘symbolize two paths or two vessels, travelling down the same rivers together. One, a birch bark canoe, will be for the Indian people, their laws, their customs and their ways. The other, a ship, will be for the white people and their laws…We shall each travel the river together, side by side, but in our own boat. Neither of us will try and steer the other’s vessel’ (Mitchell, 1989, pp. 109–10 cited in Day, 2005, p. 194). The white rows symbolize peace, respect, trust, and friendship that are supposed to keep the two vessels linked together in alliance and mutual dependence (Hill, 2008, p. 30). 5 There is also another version of the Two Row, which appears less common, and has two ­white lines set against a purple background. The understating of its symbolism appears identical, however (see Sedhev, 2010, p. 212).

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The original agreement with the Dutch contingent was signed in 1613 and was later affirmed by British Settlers in 1664. Susan Hill has shown that while the Dutch and British saw the Two Row primarily as a trading alliance, the Haudenosaunee people saw the relationship as one of ‘family’, closely binding the two nations together. This kind of relationship was supposed to ensure security for both parties and symbolize the ‘desire to be allies rather than to have one side be subjects of the other’ (Hill, 2008, p. 31). As previously mentioned, this ideal was not realized, and hence, as ­Paula Sherman suggests, the oft-­cited historical foundation of the Canadian state is ‘shaky’. ‘Canada is not the ideological result of long-­standing [peaceful] relationships going back thousands of years’. Rather, ‘Canada is a result of Settler societies’ establishment through conquest and the appropriation of Indigenous lands and resources’ (Sherman, 2010, p. 116). In this chapter we argue that, if this relationship of mutual respect and autonomy is to be revived and respected, the Two Row Wampum model can, and in some cases should, be seen as a ‘slice’ of a higher-­dimensional space. The Two Row highlights the fact that all Settlers stand in a certain sort of relation to all Indigenous people, and each of them to the land, while what we call the N-­Row model highlights the fact that neither of these identities is monolithic or totalizable. We get to this position by way of the theoretical paradigm of intersectionality6; but the path is cluttered and full of obstacles, some of which can be seen as inherent to the identity/oppression paradigm that produced theories of intersectionality in the first place. Yet, at the same time, intersectionality also offers us a way out of this impasse, a way that is relevant not only to other Settler states, but also to relations beyond the system of states itself.

Who Are We, and What Are We Trying (Not) to Say? Before proceeding with this argument, we would like to provide a little more background on who we are, and what we are trying to achieve in this chapter. For the first part of this discussion, we will switch out of a collective-­academic voice and into one that is personal-­individual. 6 For the classical statement of this paradigm  – or at least, of the related paradigm of ­‘interlocking’ analysis, see Collins (2000). For some more recent discussions see (Dhamoon, 2011) and (Nath, 2009). In this chapter, we are using the term ‘intersectionality’ to refer to the sometimes-­dissonant paradigms of ‘intersecting’ and ‘interlocking’ modes of analysis. Ultimately, our own preference is more for what Collins calls ‘interlocking’ analysis, inasmuch as this requires a holistic approach and is oriented to social change as well as interpretation.

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Richard J. F. Day: I am a mongrel Settler, descended from people on the Eastern (Jewish-­Russian) and Western (Irish) margins of Europe. I am a mostly straight man, of working class origins, but have many of the privileges of a late-­arriving semi-­bourgeois professor. I have been involved with various activist projects, including antiracist work, Settler–Indigenous solidarity, food and housing co-­ops, intentional communities, social centres, and community education. I am now doing my best to learn how to meet as many of my needs as possible, in a long-­term sustainable fashion, with ­minimal reliance on the dominant order. To that end, I live in a 1969 trailer on a few acres of land north of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, aided in my crazy schemes by my two teenage boys, who are with me half-­time. Although I have identified strongly with anarchism in the past, and still find that much of what I want to say and do resonates positively with this tradition, I tend to describe myself politically, these days, as an autonomy-­oriented theorist and practitioner. As a result of many lessons hard-­learned, many losses and sunderings, I seem to be headed towards a self-­conception based less on ideology and identity and more on resonance of values and practices across ideologies and identities. Adam Lewis: I find my heritage within the United Kingdom group of countries, namely Britain, Scotland, and Wales. I am a White, able-­bodied man who comes from a lower middle class background and who has been afforded the privilege of attending postsecondary education within a family that has had similar privileges. I am currently working on a master’s thesis that explores the possibilities for articulating an anarchist theory and practice that is firmly and overtly committed to anticolonial and decolonizing work. This work draws from my experiences working in solidarity with the People of Six Nations in their efforts towards land reclamation and anticolonial resistance, as well as working in Settler communities to oppose anti-­Native groups and work towards Settler decolonization. I self­define as an anarchist, committed to community-­based forms of resistance, empowerment, and creativity. As of late this has led to my arrest, and subsequent imprisonment, as a result of community organizing against the G20 in Toronto this past year. Thus I find myself specifically focused on my academic pursuits with the hope that anarchism can maintain an intersectional analysis of oppression that takes specific steps to account for and resist colonial realities. It is my hope that this chapter will expand the possibilities for alliances and solidarity work in the interests of anticolonial resistance. Both of us want to make it clear that we are not trying to take up a universal, or universalizing, position with respect to the issues at hand. Rather, we are trying to advance a position that we think makes sense from one among many Settler perspectives, while trying to take into account what has been said by, and might reasonably be expected as responses from, those whose

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positions are different from ours. We are trying to say – and do – something, rather than nothing, because the latter is, to us, among the easiest, most common, and most tragic recourses of the relatively privileged. We are also not trying to say that people should try to ‘forget’ or ‘ignore’ who they are, or who others think they are, as delimited by the dominant order, nor do we think that such a ‘forgetting’ is possible. That is, we are ­not advocating some kind of ‘colour-­blind’ ‘pluralism’ or ‘cosmopolitanism’, or even any sort of ‘multiculturalism’ or ‘politics of recognition’, as all of these paradigms leave the dominant order mostly in place, and in particular are deeply dependent on the state form, which we reject.7 These are not radical paradigms in the way in which we have defined that term. Rather, for us, and as the Two Row Wampum model suggests, differential positionings point to specific responsibilities of each position, which cannot be abrogated to the state or any other entity. For us, as Settlers, taking up our responsibility means striving to further decolonize and unsettle ourselves, and urging those around us to do the same – within the limits of the relative autonomies that must be granted to those others – a caveat that, by the way, arises from the core argument we want to present here. What we are advocating is a way of understanding and implementing our side of the Two Row model that allows us to better handle complexities such as the fact that although, for many Indigenous peoples, and for very sound reasons, a Settler is a Settler is a Settler, from the point of view of many Settlers, there are profound and important differences between us to which attention must be paid. That is, we are speaking as Settlers, about the Settler side of the relationship, and within that, from a White Settler perspective.

The Value and Necessity of the Two Row Model In a recent article, Paula Sherman reminds us of the myth of terra nullius or ‘empty land’ that has for many years structured European colonial exploration and settlement in the Americas (2010, p. 117). This myth relies on a

7 For an extended, book-­length discussion of why we reject all of these liberal-­statist ­discourses, please see (Day, 2000). This book also outlines a careful argument against the ‘politics of recognition’ and ‘dialogue’ as advocated by philosophers such as Charles Taylor. Basically, Taylor’s dialogic approach reinscribes hierarchy at the very moment that it allows the dominant Self-­identity to ‘recognize’ the subordinate/Other (or not), on the terms that the Self sets out, that is, without seeming to require any engagement with the terms that the Other may deploy, which may be not only radically different, but also at odds with those of the Self. With Taylor, recognition remains ‘one sided’, that is, fails to meet even the limited, hierarchical requirements of the Hegelian paradigm on which Taylor purports to rely.

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dual, contradictory, but very effective pair of premises. First, in the Settler narrative, Indigenous peoples are acknowledged as being present, living on and with the land. But second, precisely because they live on and with the land, rather than against it, they are seen as not worthy of consideration as ‘human beings’. Hence the land is, for Settler purposes, empty of people. ­It is this relationship of ignorance/domination that perpetuates, in the ‘New World’, the disconnection of Settler societies from nature that drove them away from the ‘Old Worlds’ in the first place. ‘In simplest terms’, Mar and Edmonds argue, ‘Settler colonists went, and go, to new lands to appropriate them and to establish new and improved replicas of the societies they left. As a result Indigenous peoples have found an ever-­decreasing space for themselves in Settler colonies as changing demographics enabled ever more extensive dispossession. Settlers, in the end, tended not to assimilate into Indigenous societies, but rather emigrated to replace them’ (2010, p. 2). Barker (2009) argues for the specificity of ‘Settler’ as a descriptive term to recognize ‘the historical and contemporary realities of imperialism that very clearly separate the lives of Indigenous peoples from the lives of late-­comers’ (p. 329). The fundamental attribute of Settler identities is their participation in colonial privilege, which is not ‘merely cultural’, but resonates across all aspects of society, polity, and economy. Settler privilege is about complex relations of power across all axes of difference. Because this privilege is based on the dispossession of Indigenous people from their lands and traditions, Settlers seeking to understand their obligations towards ‘unsettling’ (Regan, 2010) and decolonization must strive to understand more fully and deeply the presence and history of the places where we live. We must, as Gruner suggests, develop a ‘felt history’ that is grounded in our relations to others and the land. It is a history that is alive, not relegated to the past – a history that is more about relations than the chronological ordering of events (Gruner, 2010, p. 93). It is a history that requires us fully to take up and affirm our side of the Two Row Wampum treaty. As one of us has previously argued, ‘in travelling the same rivers together, Indigenous and non-­Indigenous peoples must be aware of their shared reliance upon the land and upon each other. But, in refraining from attempts to steer the other’s vessel, each acknowledges the right to maintain its particularity and difference’ (Day 2005, p. 194). Mohawk scholar and activist Taiaiake Alfred notes that ‘[i]n this respectful (co-­equal) friendship and alliance, any interference with the other partner’s autonomy, freedom or powers was expressly forbidden. So long as the principles were respected, the relationship would be peaceful, harmonious and just’ (2008, p. 77). In a

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similar vein, Dale Turner argues that, ‘respecting another person’s intrinsic value means that you recognize that they have the right to speak their mind and to choose for themselves how to act in the world’ (2008, p. 49). The Two Row Wampum thus offers a way to distinguish between the responsibilities and autonomies of Indigenous and Settler societies, and the ­relationships that should exist between them. In particular, given the fact that, historically, as we have mentioned, most Settlers most of the time have failed to hold up their end of the agreement, Settlers can take up the Two Row as a means to signify their acceptance of the responsibility to work within their own communities to combat colonialism and move towards a politics of decolonization (see, e.g., Barker, 2010). For their part, many Indigenous communities have made it clear that they require the ability to work on their own resurgence without external interference. As Bonita Lawrence (2004) has suggested, Indigenous communities have a degree of their own work to do on issues of identity. Similarly, Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel argue for the need for Indigenous communities to create ‘zones of refuge’ as a means to resist continued colonization and to ‘begin to achieve the re-­strengthening of our people as individuals so that these spaces can be occupied by decolonized people leading authentic lives’ (2005, p.  605). Importantly, the Two Row Wampum recognizes that Indigenous nations, while they continue to be strong and coherent, need to be strengthened and healed because of historic and continuing colonization (see Alfred, 2009; Alfred & Corntassel, 2005; Barker, 2009). Alfred’s other works (2005, 2008; see also Simpson, 2008) locate a similar form of work with the move towards reinvigorating traditional philosophies, values, and forms of governance. So, at the same time as it notes the fact that we are travelling down the river together, the Two Row model also emphasizes that there are, and need to be, certain kinds of separation between Indigenous and Settler communities. This does not mean that solidarity is impossible between the two vessels, but rather that autonomy and self-­determination within each community need to be respected if we are to move beyond the current impasse. For example, although Settlers may stand as allies with Indigenous peoples in their struggles, to attempt to direct such work, consciously or unconsciously, would be to reinscribe colonial dynamics. The Two Row Wampum is, therefore, important as a reminder that Settlers need to allow Indigenous communities to pursue their own resurgence and to ward off colonial impositions that may come from self-­described ‘allies’. The Two Row Wampum also reinforces the need for Settlers to take on the responsibility to resist Settler colonialism, statism, capitalism, White supremacy,

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and heteropatriarchy within their own communities. Settlers have their own work to do in order to decolonize their own communities, including freeing themselves from many of their ‘own’ institutions, before relations of peace, ­friendship, and respect can begin to be restored with Indigenous peoples.

Some Places Where the Two Row Cannot Go Although it offers an excellent model for autonomy and solidarity across fundamental difference, the Two Row Wampum, like any model, hides and obscures certain aspects of the phenomena it addresses at the same time as it reveals and highlights others. The fact that there are two separate rows is a necessary caution against any kind of totalization, any false one-­ness of the sort proposed by liberal-­statist multiculturalism, for example (see Bannerji, 1996; Day, 2000; Dhamoon, 2009; Thobani, 2007). Such propositions can only be seen, by autonomy-­oriented Indigenous peoples, as a continuation of colonial genocide. But although two is much better than one, it is not enough to entirely avoid totalization (see Coulthard 2007). For example, although the state and corporate discourses that are hegemonic within most Settler societies conceive – or perhaps better, fantasize – these societies as monolithic, or at least as monolithic with respect to the Indigenous societies they are trying to displace, there are many dissident understandings of Settler identity that challenge this conception. But there are many other divisions among Settlers, divisions that have been so thoroughly discussed and analyzed over the past few centuries that it is, in a sense, rather shocking that only now are we beginning to map out the discrete compartments of our Settler ship. We are of course referring here to differentials such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and age that operate not only among ‘mainstream’ Settlers, but also among those who are working hardest to live and act differently. For us, as Settlers, it is very clear that we are not all the same, and for some people, even the proposition that we are all Settlers is a matter of contention. This latter issue is quite important to our analysis, as it fundamentally challenges the Two Row model. It therefore needs to be explored further, which we do by engaging with a recent debate in Canadian antiracist theory and practice. The debate, which we will refer to as the LDSWA debate (after the surnames of the five authors involved), is multifaceted, interesting, and important on many fronts, but we focus here on the question of Settler identity, and what the delimitation of this identity means for those attempting to practice solidarity with Indigenous peoples. As previously mentioned, Barker’s (2009) definition of the term ‘Settler’ is based on the dichotomous

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understanding implicit to the Two Row Wampum model. That is, it clearly assumes that anyone who is not Indigenous is a Settler, no matter what other differentials might exist, in terms of the complex networks that ­structure all of our positionings. In two articles, coauthored first with Ena Dua and then with Zainab Amadahy, Bonita Lawrence has sought to add nuance and increased specificity to the understanding of the term Settler, while pointing to some of the drawbacks of a specifically identity-­based framework. In ‘Decolonizing Antiracism’ (2005), Lawrence and Dua argue for the increased centrality of an anticolonial orientation within antiracist theory, in order to recognize the complicity of Settler populations, and to some degree even antiracism itself, in the continued colonization of Indigenous peoples. They state: ‘If they are truly progressive, antiracist theorists must begin to think about their personal stake in this struggle [against colonialism], and about where they are going to situate themselves’ (p.  126). They argue that antiracist scholars, and by extension many activists and theorists committed to living the Two Row ideal, have failed to take up adequately an understanding of colonized land as a contested space. They argue that to ‘acknowledge that we all share the same land base and yet to question the differential terms on which it is occupied is to become aware of the colonial project that is taking place around us’ (Lawrence & Dua, 2005, p. 126). Their call is ultimately for all Settlers to recognize more fully their role in the continued colonization of Indigenous peoples. This in itself is unlikely to be a problematic request for most anti­oppression–oriented theorists and activists. The difficulties with which we are concerned here arise because Lawrence and Dua affirm that people of colour are Settlers just as much as those who partake of White privilege, because the former also ‘live on land that is appropriated and contested, where Aboriginal peoples are denied nationhood and access to their own lands’ (2005, p. 134). Although they are careful to acknowledge the many injustices suffered by people of colour, and specifically mention that the history of Black slavery must not be forgotten or relegated to the background, they argue that theorists and activists committed to resisting oppression on all fronts need to recognize that the settlement of former slaves in North America was facilitated by the theft of Indigenous lands. This complex situation continues today, as people of colour, although themselves marginalized by White Settlers, are invited to participate in the colonization of Indigenous peoples (Lawrence & Dua, 2005, p. 133). The fact that some people of colour have accepted, however unknowingly, this invitation by White Settlers requires that they be understood as Settlers as well.

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Of course, this argument has entailments not only for people of ­colour. White Settlers need to understand better the dynamics of Settler identity and history, to acknowledge, for example, the coercive deployment of racialized ‘non-­White’ bodies in the furtherance of colonial domination. Understanding the complexities of Settler identity and definition may also serve as a means of displacing the unmarked whiteness that continues as a result of colonialism, with respect to both Indigenous people and people of colour. Lawrence and Dua’s article thus adds much-­needed depth and complexity to the understanding of Settler identities in general, and in particular, helps to disrupt the common conflation of ‘Settler’ and ‘White’ identities. In an article entitled ‘Decolonizing Resistance, Challenging Colonial States’ (2008–9), Nandita Sharma and Cynthia Wright respond to the arguments put forth by Lawrence and Dua. They contend that the latter’s opening up of the category of Settler to include all non-­Indigenous peoples has arisen alongside, and is thus tainted by association with, neo-­racist and neoliberal ideologies of the 1980s that rely for their force on the assumption of ‘incommensurable “differences” between “cultures” imagined as separate and distinct’ (p. 122). Whereas Lawrence and Dua think they are reinforcing the connection between antiracism and anticolonialism, Sharma and Wright say that they are in fact ‘delinking’ these discourses, by conflating all modes of migration with colonization. Sharma and Wright also reject Indigenous nationalisms because they see, again, echoes of ‘neo-­racist’ ideologies (p. 128). They want to see decolonization as equally relevant to all peoples, to avoid the implication that the struggles of Indigenous peoples should rank first on a hierarchy of oppressions. To this end, instead of appealing to particularlist nationalisms, they argue for conceptualizing relationships across difference in the form of the ‘commons’: By understanding colonialism as the theft of the commons, the agents of decolonization as the commoners, and decolonization as the gaining of a global commons, we will gain a clearer sense of when we were colonized, who colonized us, and how to decolonize ourselves and our relationships. (Sharma and Wright, 2008–9, p. 133)8

Although it may seem to founder on certain misunderstandings and ultimately to arrive at an impasse, this debate is extremely productive in a 8 It should be noted that many Indigenous people are wary of the idea of a global ­commons, as such a construct fails to respect the specificity of Indigenous connections to the land. That is, it blurs the distinction between Settler and Indigenous identities, and therefore, potentially makes decolonization more difficult.

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number of ways. Lawrence and Dua’s position helps us to more deeply ­and critically appreciate the separation of the two vessels in the Two Row model, while Sharma and Wright’s argument highlights the need to pay close attention to the river itself, which of course is ever changing. However, it can be seen that both of the sides in this debate remain locked into the fundamental dualism of the Two Row model. Also of interest to our purposes here is the fact that these apparently clashing positions can be attributed, at least partially, to the intersectionality/identity-­oppression paradigm that drives the analyses on both sides of the debate. In what might be seen as a characteristic modality, at the same time as this paradigm enables discussion and exploration, it also hinders understanding, and even further engagement, at a certain critical point. This critical point occurs as both sides seek to claim a position of ‘nonoppressive’ or ‘least oppressive’ subjectivity, as well as that of ‘most radical’. Here, again, we see the effects of dualistic modes of thinking that are in fact deeply at odds with the intersectionality paradigm. Fortunately, this paradigm offers a way out of the impasse as well as a way into it, as is made clear in a further article by Lawrence, writing with Zainab Amadahy (2009). In this intervention the authors strive to avoid a simple equation of, in this case, White and Black Settlers. ‘The reality’, they argue, ‘is that Black peoples have not been quintessential “Settlers” in the White supremacist nature of the word; nevertheless, they have, as free people, been involved in some form of settlement process’ (Amadahy & Lawrence, 2009, p. 107). The nuanced understanding of the situation of people of colour as Settlers seems to us to break down a number of dualisms at once, by acknowledging that although Black peoples are still under the domination of White supremacy, their position in the hierarchical structure of Settler colonialism is crucially different from that of Indigenous peoples. Amadahy and Lawrence (2009, p. 107), while recognizing the complex and necessary existence of both Settler and Indigenous identities, suggest that perhaps it is most important of all to focus on what sorts of relationships people of colour and Indigenous peoples may be able to create across the bounds of difference to foster resistance against colonialism. As White Settlers seeking to decolonize our own lives, while standing in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and people of colour, we take this as a call to understand more fully the complexities that occur in our own relationships with others. For example, in keeping with Indigenous understandings, it seems incumbent on us to acknowledge that people of colour are in fact Settlers. At the same time, in keeping with antiracist critiques of White supremacy, we must acknowledge that they are not ‘Settlers like us’ because we ­benefit

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from the history and privileges of White supremacy whereas they do not. White Settlers alone have this benefit, and as such must recognize that part of our task is to maintain the attack against White Supremacist histories, dynamics, attitudes, and actions. Thus, although we may face some of the same enemies some of the time, we are also constantly at odds with each other. There is no simple dichotomy here, no right side of the line, at least not in any pure sense. Our processes of decolonization, whether as Indigenous people, people of colour, or White Settlers, will not and cannot be identical, because of our specific histories and contexts. It is with this aim to emphasize the deeply historical play of complex, multiple relationships, in a context of what can sometimes seem to be dualistic identity poles, that we now turn to a discussion of what we call the N-­Row Wampum model.

Towards ‘N’-­D imensional Networks of Relations Of course, by even suggesting that the Two Row model could be improved on, we risk being seen as breaking our treaty commitments. Therefore, we wish to make it clear that we are not in any way seeking to evade our obligations under the Two Row Wampum. What we are proposing carries with it the model of autonomy, based on relations of peace, respect, trust, and friendship, as laid out in this treaty. We see these principles as essential and non-­negotiable. Indeed, we understand the N-­Row as a model with which to take them further. Here Robinder Kaur Sehdev’s application of the ‘bridge’ to Indigenous– Settler relationships is instructive. In ‘Lessons from the Bridge: On the Possibilities of Anti-­Racist Feminist Alliances in Indigenous Spaces’, Sehdev suggests that antiracist feminist alliances with Indigenous peoples, and specifically Indigenous women, need to go beyond simply incorporating Indigenous perspectives and contexts into antiracist feminism. Rather she points to the Two Row Wampum as a bridge, with peace, friendship, and respect linking Settler and Indigenous peoples. This bridging, she suggests reinforces ‘treaty’ as ‘not something to be agreed to and then forgotten about’ but something that must be renewed, ‘done and done repeatedly. In this sense, treaty is kinetic. Put another way, it is more verb than a noun, more an action than a thing, and is always in the process of becoming’ (Sehdev, 2010, p.  112). Sehdev suggests ‘Third World Women’s’ feminist ‘bridge work’ as a means to span borders and ‘connect the edges of political action and cultural recognition’, an idea that resonates with Anzaldua’s borderland to ‘span an otherwise uncrossable breach’. Such bridging e­ fforts

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involve constant work, with ‘stretching and grasping, the threat of slipping or crossing’ (pp. 117–118) as ongoing concerns. Although Sehdev focuses on antiracist feminists of colour, she asks all Settlers to consider the possibilities of bridgework as part of the Two Row Wampum. In a similar vein Settler academic and activist Celia Haig-­Brown suggests that we see the Two Row Wampum as a space of meeting as well as separation for Indigenous and Settler peoples. ‘…[A]s the canoe and the boat move on the river, there is a chance for people in them to see what happens across differences, across the space between the vessels’ (Haig-­Brown, 2008, p. 260). She argues that there is a chance in this ‘third space’ to move beyond the reduction of knowledges to pure and homogeneous Indigenous and Settler paradigms. Between the two vessels, both ‘everything and nothing is possible’ as the knowledges and perspectives on one vessel ‘inform and/or affect the knowledge’ in the other to ‘shift understandings, but not the direction or the separation of the [two] paths’ (Haig-­Brown, 2008, p. 260). Importantly, Haig-­Brown clarifies, each of the knowledges remains separate; they do not become one. ‘If this should happen’, she argues, ‘the purpose of the two rows is annihilated, parallelism is lost, the treaty is broken’ (Haig-­Brown, 2008, p. 261). Haig-­Brown further argues that dismissing sources of critique based on their unfamiliarity deprives us of potentially useful tools and blinds us to the limitations of current models and theories (Haig-­Brown, 2008, p. 264). Her work points to a space of meeting that accepts the knowledges and perspectives of others, in this case Indigenous peoples, as legitimate and useful. It suggests that Settlers have much to learn from Indigenous peoples and their models, such as the Two Row, and urges us to employ such learning as long as it is in the spirit of the Two Row Wampum. Both of these writers, then, gesture towards the possibility of creating a ‘third space’ between Settler and Indigenous communities, a space that can give rise to ever-­more complex, intimate, and powerful communities of resistance. It is in this spirit that we have taken up the Two Row Wampum as a starting point for thinking a little differently about relationships of solidarity, in the context of an intersectional analysis of oppression. This model9 is based on a commitment to nonhegemonic modes of analysis 9 The general conception of human relations as n-­dimensional networks comes from ­systems theory and phase-­space diagrams, which are used in various physical sciences. The application of this model to the Two Row Wampum concept model arose in a discussion between the authors and Auden Cody Neuman in R. J. F. Day’s graduate seminar at Queen’s University. Neuman declined our offer to participate as a coauthor of this ­chapter, but has graciously allowed us to continue to develop the concept here.

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and action: It suggests that ‘[r]ather than longing for total communion, ­we must understand communities as multiplicities that cannot be totalized, as n-­dimensional networks of networks that spread out infinitely and are infinitely connected’ (Day 2005, p. 182, emphasis ours). Here the term ‘N’ is deployed in the mathematical sense, to indicate an infinite number of axes of identity/oppression, each of which is always operating to some extent in every situation, but some of which are more strongly operative in some situations than in others. This is to say, for example, that although we know that White privilege works everywhere and always, there are situations in which it might be trumped by, say, class privilege, for example in a roomful of professors at an Ivy League university, or vice versa, in another situation. Working from the Two Row model, ‘N’ would stand in as an infinite number of communities that might be in solidarity but apart from one another, an infinite number of autonomous vessels on the same river. In this model, for example, anarchist activists might align, on request, with autonomy­oriented Indigenous peoples carrying out a land reclamation, or social justice activists with a feminist consciousness might support Indigenous women working to change or evade patriarchal dynamics embedded in Settler laws that attempt to govern their communities. Or, people of colour and White Settlers might set aside, momentarily, some of the struggles between them to come together in solidarity on issues that affect both of them, or one of them, or neither of them. In our discussion so far we have been careful to limit ourselves to consideration of what the N-­Row Wampum model might mean for those of us on the Settler ship. As we have mentioned, this is in keeping with the fundamental precept of autonomy that must govern relations between Settlers and Indigenous peoples. However, the Indigenous canoe is no more of a monolith than the Settler ship, so that when we become involved with each other certain questions are raised that problematize any simple understanding of the concept of noninterference. For example, in two different situations we have been involved with, we have supported land reclamation struggles being carried out by autonomy-­oriented/traditionalist groups who are at odds with other forces in their communities, such as the band council. Although, from the Settler perspective, we can say that we are carrying out our obligations to support decolonization and return of land, from the Indigenous perspective we are, at least implicitly, taking sides on an issue that should, strictly speaking, be decided only by those within ­the affected community. Here we face a dilemma: either we violate the rule of noninterference, or we violate the rule of acting from and with our privilege to stand in

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solidarity. It is not possible to absolutely respect both principles at the same time so, in practice, most Settlers involved in Indigenous solidarity tend to limit their work to fighting against the relevant actions of Settler institutions and supporting those on the Indigenous side with whom they most strongly identify. That is, they tend not to explicitly critique, or actively and directly work against, those on the Indigenous side who are working against their allies. Things can get quite a bit more complex, though, the more mixing there is between the ship and the canoe. Let us suppose that a group of youth within an Indigenous community want to pressure the band council to put funds towards a new youth centre, citing concerns of lack of social and leisure opportunities and drug and alcohol use among youth. Suppose that this group of youth appeal to a network of Settler allies of similar age and interests, who have collaborated with them on various projects and social activities in the recent past. Some of these efforts involved supporting land reclamation efforts with the same Indigenous community, efforts that were undertaken by the men’s wing of the traditional governance structure, which is separate from the band council, and also has some issues with certain female elders. To make things even more complex, it turns out that several of the traditionalist men who supported the reclamation do not support the youth centre, which, however, does have the backing of most of the female elders. What are the Settlers to do in this case? Some might say that the Two Row principle says: do nothing, but as we have already mentioned, another position consistent with the Two Row principle says we must be ‘good allies’. But what exactly is a good ally in this case? Should we respect, say, nonheteronormative principles, which suggest one position, or band­specific matriarchal principles, which suggest another? Should we privilege our relatively abstract commitment to all of these principles over our personal obligation to those with whom we have worked before, and who are depending on us? Again, it is not at all clear to us that this kind of situation can be dealt with based on any abstract principle, including the abstract principle that one should not make such judgements on the basis of abstract principles. Each situation has to be worked out for itself, in itself, by those involved. And, to the extent that we take into account the multiplicity that exists in both vessels, we only arrive at ever-­more complex and difficult issues, ­as the number of possibilities for alliance or contestation between various groups approaches infinity. Sometimes, perhaps, some Settlers and some Indigenous people will decide that the N-­Row model does in fact allow for mutual conversations about issues where what is seen to be at stake are just

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and nondominating relations for all. At other times, the N-­Row will collapse back into the Two Row, and a relation of strict noninterference will be arrived at. At any rate, it is our hope that this model, along with other critical perspectives put forth in response by Indigenous peoples, people of colour, and all who have a stake in the decolonization process, can help to enhance our ability to work together in a spirit of respect, peace, and friendship.

Conclusion: Infinities upon Infinities We have based our discussion of the N-­row model in the context of Indigenous–Settler relations, where it first came to the attention of Settler societies. But ‘N’ suggests fluid and ever-­changing possibilities for other relations as well. Our vessels can align and realign as they need to for specific purposes in specific contexts, based not only, or primarily, on racial/ ethnocultural identifications, but on resonances of values, practices, and goals, such as anti-­authoritarianism, anticapitalism, anti-­imperialism, defying neoliberal agendas, or, on the ‘positive’ side, sound land-­based practices, alternative models of governance, and so on. Of course, this sort of thing happens all the time right now. The N-­Row model, at least on the Settler side, is in some ways alive and well, as a fundamental tenet of the intersectionality paradigm. It can also be seen at work in concepts like ‘groundless solidarity’ (Elam 1994), in which individuals and communities work together on axes of oppression that they may experience differently. This kind of relation, Elam contends, ‘is a stability but not an absolute one; it can be the object of conflict and need not mean consensus’ (p. 109). However, although intersectionality might be seen to lead intrinsically to N-­dimensional analyses, it also can be deployed – as we have tried to demonstrate via the LDSWA debate – in ways that subtly reproduce dualisms and hierarchies. Attention to the N, then, serves primarily as a reminder of the promise of intersectional analysis in the context of all relations across difference, a call to always remember the complexity and multiplicity that make up all of our positions, and to try to honour as many of our diverse commitments and responsibilities as we can, as often as we can. In pushing on as many axes of oppression as possible, and pushing as ­far as possible away from the dominant order, we would argue that the N-­row model of political action represents a powerful, radical alternative to liberal conceptions of multiculturalism, pluralism, and the ‘politics of recognition’. As we have previously mentioned, all three of these discourses not only leave the state form in place, but they also rely on it for their very existence.

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By doing so, they rob us of, or allow us to abdicate from, our responsibilities to each other and the land. We do not have to worry about what we are doing or not doing, there is a policy and a bureaucracy that are doing it for us. A similar problem exists with respect to capitalism, which is rarely critiqued, and in many cases applauded, by liberal discourses. The same can be said for every other axis of oppression, to varying degrees. The burnt­out husk of twentieth century modernism, with its focus on colonialism, capitalism, ‘development’, and the domination of nature, has left us with an ever-­intensifying list of challenges that we can no longer ignore. Our suggestion is that piecemeal reforms that do not challenge the currently dominant order can only serve to perpetuate its worst excesses and stupidities. For that reason, we need radical subjectivities, working together as effectively as possible, to resist, revolt against, and create a complex and interconnected web of viable alternatives to things as they are. References Alfred, Taiaiake. (2005). Peace, power, righteousness: An Indigenous manifesto. Toronto: Oxford University Press.   (2008). Wasase: Indigenous pathways of action and freedom. Peterborough, ON: Broadview.   (2009). Colonialism and state dependency. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 5(2): 42–60. Alfred, Taiaiake, & Corntassel, Jeff. (2005). Being indigenous: Resurgences against contemporary colonialism., Government and Opposition, 40(4): 597–614. Amadahy, Zainab, & Lawrence, Bonita. (2009). Indigenous peoples and Black people in Canada: Settlers or allies? In A. Kempf (Ed.), Breaching the colonial contract: Anti-colonialism in the US and Canada (pp. 105–136). New York: Springer. Bannerji, Himani. (1996). On the dark side of the nation: Politics of multiculturalism and the state of “Canada”. Journal of Canadian Studies, 31(3): 103–29. Barker, Adam. (2009). The contemporary reality of Canadian imperialism. American Indian Quarterly, 33(3): 325–51.   (2010). From Adversaries to allies: Forging respectful alliances between Indigenous and Settler peoples. In Lynne Davis (Ed.), Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-­non-­Indigenous Relationships (pp. 316–33). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Collins, Patricia Hill. (2000). Black feminist thought (2nd ed.). Boston: Unwin Hyman. Coulthard, Glen. (2007). Subjects of empire: Indigenous peoples and the “politics of recognition” in Canada. Contemporary Political Theory, 6: 437–60. Day, Richard J. F. (2000). Multiculturalism and the history of Canadian diversity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.   (2005). Gramsci is dead: Anarchist currents in the newest social ­movements. Toronto: Between the Lines.

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Dhamoon, Rita Kaur. (2009). Identity/difference politics: How difference is produced and why it matters. Vancouver, B. C.: University of British Columbia Press.   (2011). Considerations on mainstreaming intersectionality. Political Research Quarterly, 64(1): 230–43. Elam, Diane. (1994). Feminism and deconstruction: Ms. en abyme. London: Routledge. Gruner, Sheila. (2010). Learning relations and grounding solidarity: A critical approach to honouring struggle. In Leanne Simpson & Kiera Ladner (Eds.), This is an honour song: Twenty years since the blockades (pp. 91–104). Winnipeg, MAN: Arbeiter Ring Publishing. Haig-­Brown, Celia. (2008). Working a third space: Indigenous knowledge in the post/colonial university. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 31(1): 253–67.   (2010). Indigenous thought, appropriation, and non-­Aboriginal People. Canadian Journal of Education, 33(4): 925–50. Hill, Susan M. (2008). ‘Travelling down the river of life in peace and friendship, forever’: Haudenosaunee land ethics and treaty agreements as the basis for restructuring the relationship with the British crown. In Leanne Simpson (Ed.), Lighting the eighth fire: The liberation, resurgence and protection of Indigenous nations (pp. 23–45). Winnipeg, MAN: Arbeiter Ring Publishing. Kymlicka, W. (2010). The rise and fall of multiculturalism? New debates on inclusion and accommodation in diverse societies. International Social Science Journal, 199: 97–112. Lawrence, Bonita. (2004). “Real” Indians and others: Mixed-­blood urban Native peoples and Indigenous nationhood. Vancouver, B. C.: University of British Columbia Press. Lawrence, Bonita, & Dua, Enakshi. (2005). Decolonizing antiracism. Social Justice, 32(4): 120–43. Mar, Tracey Banivanua, & Edmonds, Penelope. (2010). Introduction: Making space in Settler colonies. In Tracey Banivanua Mar & Penelope Edmonds (Eds.), Making Settler colonial space (pp. 1–24). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Nath, Nisha. (2009). Rediscovering the potential of feminist theories of intersectionality. Paper presented at the Canadian Political Science Association Conference, 29 May 2009, Ottawa, Ontario, pp. 1–28. Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1968). The will to power. New York: Vintage. Regan, Paulette. (2010). Unsettling the Settler within: Indian residential schools, truth telling and reconciliation in Canada. Vancouver, B. C.: University of British Columbia Press. Sedhev, Robinder Kaur. (2010). Lessons from the bridge: On the possibilities of anti-­Racist feminist alliances in Indigenous spaces. In Leanne Simpson & Kiera Ladner (Eds.), This is an honour song: Twenty years since the blockades (pp. 105–24). Winnipeg, MAN: Arbeiter Ring Publishing. Sharma, Nandita, & Wright, Cynthia. (2008–9). Decolonizing resistance, ­challenging colonial states. Social Justice, 35(3): 120–38. Sherman, Paula. (2010). Picking up the Wampum Belt as an act of protest. In Lynne Davis (Ed.), Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-­non-­Indigenous relationships (pp. 114–30). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Simpson, Leanne (Ed.) (2008) Lighting the eighth fire: The liberation, resurgence and protection of Indigenous nations. Winnipeg, MAN: Arbeiter Ring Publishing.

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Thobani, Sunera. (2007). Exalted subjects: Studies in the making of race and nation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Tobias, J. L. (1991). Protection, civilization, and assimilation: An outline of Canada’s Indian policy. In J. R. Miller (Ed.), Sweet promises. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Todorov, T. (1984). The conquest of America: The question of the Other. New York: Harper & Row. Trigger, B. (1985). Natives and newcomers: Canada’s ‘heroic age’ reconsidered. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-­Queen’s University Press. Turner, Dale. (2008). This is not a peace pipe: Towards a critical Indigenous philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

­8 The Theory of New Individualism Anthony Elliott

In this chapter I seek to accomplish two main objectives. The first is to review and reiterate the theory of a “new individualism” that I have detailed in recent writings in social theory (Elliott, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013; Elliott & Lemert, 2009a,b; Elliott & Urry, 2010). My argument is that we ­witness today the conditions and consequences of a new individualism sweeping the globe, especially evident in the new economy of high finance, media and technology industries. I then want to ask how the theory of new individualism differs from other influential standpoints in recent social theory. For my purposes in this chapter, the conceptual points of comparison with the theory of new individualism will be (1) the theory of ‘technologies of the self ’ as elaborated by Michel Foucault and various neo-­Foucaultians; and (2) the notion of ‘reflexive individualization’ outlined by Anthony Giddens. Second, I discuss the wider sociological ramifications of the new individualist thesis. New individualism, I shall argue, is not merely about individuals or their psychological dispositions; rather it penetrates to the very core of cultures and institutional life. New individualism is thus a kind of shorthand for the variety of modalities shaping, and shaped by, global social transformations. The key institutional drivers of new individualism that I shall elaborate are (1) continual reinvention, (2) instant change, (3) speed, and (4) short-­termism or episodicity. I conclude the chapter with a consideration of the likely future sociological consequences of life lived in the new individualist fast lane.

The New Individualist Thesis: The Sociological Backcloth The theory of the new individualism, as originally formulated, comprises four core dimensions: a relentless emphasis on self-­reinvention; an endless hunger for instant change; a fascination with social acceleration, speed and dynamism; 190

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and a preoccupation with short-­termism and episodicity (Elliott, 2013; Elliott & Lemert, 2009b; Elliott & Urry 2010;). The argument, broadly speaking, is that a new individualism can be deciphered from the culture ­in which people live their lives today – especially (but not only) those living in the polished, expensive cities of the West. Corporate networking, short-­term project work, organizational downsizing, self-­help manuals, compulsive consumerism, cybersex, instant identity makeovers and therapy culture: these are just some of the core features of global individualist culture, and in this previous research the argument was developed that immersion in such an individualist world carries profound emotional consequences for the private and public lives of people. The thesis of new individualism rests on the claim that individualism, the moral and social ideal, has undergone, in our times, still another of its many transformations. “Individualism”, the concept, was coined in the 1830s by Alexis de Tocqueville to describe the bourgeois gentlemen he observed in America who, having acquired means and manners, lived as if to cut themselves off as individuals from the masses. Thereafter, the individualism Tocqueville associated with the brash inventions of the still adolescent American culture of the nineteenth century more or less came to be one with the older ideals of the European bourgeoisie. In the 1920s and 1930s, however, all this began to change as European critical theorists challenged the liberal ideal of the cut off individual freed from the fetters of common life. The global wars and holocausts of the twentieth century required the concept to adjust to the evidences that individuals, hence individualism, were subject to terrible manipulations of political ideologies, social forces, capitalist economies and the like. Thus the emergence of “manipulated individualism” in the discourse of critical social theory. In the 1950s and 1960s, following the wars of the first half of the twentieth century, another vision of individualism arose. In the affluent superabundance of postwar America, then in time of reconstructed Europe, individualism appeared neither heroically arrogant (as Tocqueville had it) nor tragically threatened (as the German critical theorists thought) but now tragically isolated. David Riesman, in The Lonely Crowd (2001), put forth the idea of a mature modern individualism in which the productive force of the entrepreneur had fallen into to a sad sort of conformism. The theory as it turned out was ironic. As individualism lapsed into conformism, so the individual became increasingly isolated, cut off, hence isolated individualism. Then, as the earlier revisions were responses to perturbations of the tragic 1920s and the confirmist 1950s, in the 1990s, still another new individualism was called forth by the then (and still) strange effects of globalization. What has been termed reflexive individualism is a way of

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underscoring that globalization, whatever its benefits, entails risks and ­risks require new individuals able to reflect coherently on their changing circumstances – thus to assess the real risks of a global life and hence to revise their interior and exterior agendas to risks and costs of the new global order. It is precisely to better grasp the confluence of interior and exterior changes in people’s lives today that has led me to develop the notion of “new individualism”. At the core of this new individualist orientation lies a deep cultural fascination for, and institutional pressure towards, self-­reinvention. Today’s culture of reinvention carries profound consequences for reorganizing the relations between self and society. In sociological terms, “new individualism” cuts both externally and internally. The triumph of globalization is that it operates not only on a horizontal axis, universalizing the operations of multinational capital and new digital technologies across the globe; it operates also, and fundamentally, on a vertical axis, reorganizing identities and pressing the ethos of new individualism into its service. This is not an argument about subjective dispositions in relation to the social world, but rather a deeply sociological engagement with the constitution of the self in conditions of advanced globalization. In current social circumstances – in which personal lives are reshaped by technology-­induced globalization and the transformation of capitalism – it is not the particular individuality of an individual that is most important. What is increasingly significant is how individuals re-­create identities, the cultural forms through which people symbolize individual expression and desire, and perhaps above all the speed with which identities can be reinvented and instantly transformed. It is this stress on instant transformation – and in particular the fears and anxieties it is designed to displace or lessen – that distinguishes the theory of the new individualism from notions such as “reflexive individualization” and “technologies of the self ”, as we will now see.

Situating the Self: Reflexivity, Technologies Discussions of the contemporary self, identity and individualism in contemporary social science appear in two major bodies of literature. One is the literature surrounding the theory of reflexive individualization, as formulated by Anthony Giddens and others.1 The other is that of the notion of 1 In addition to the work of Giddens, the German social theorist Ulrich Beck has also ­advanced similar ideas that grant prominence to reflexivity in his account of ‘individualization’. For a useful overview of the similarities and differences between Giddens and Beck on these points see Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash’s (1994) Reflexive modernization. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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‘technologies of the self ’, as originally advanced by the late French ­historian Michel Foucault. Let us turn briefly to consider these standpoints. The theory of ‘reflexive modernization’ centres on the claim that increasing levels of reflexivity (at once reflection and reflex) arise in conditions of advanced modernity. Reflexivity, in this viewpoint, is seen as a self-­defining process that depends upon monitoring of, and reflection on, psychological and social information about possible trajectories of life. Such information about self and world is not simply incidental to contemporary social life; it is actually constitutive of what people do and how they do it. ‘The reflexivity of modern social life’, writes Giddens, ‘consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character’ (1990, p. 38). Consider, as an example of how reflexivity operates in contemporary societies, the connections between marriage, the family and self-­identity. There are few areas of social life that more directly affect the self than that of marriage and the family. Traditionally, the marriage tie was structured primarily as an economic arrangement: the husband used the marriage as a place from which to organize his activities in the public world, while the wife concentrated on children and the home. The idea of romantic love significantly weakened the power of such economic considerations, although marriage as an institution within patriarchy has undoubtedly remained intimately interwoven with economic power. Marriage of the late modern type, in Western societies at any rate, has provided an institutional context in which men and women can pursue the achievement of intimacy, respect, love, equality, autonomy and self-­integrity. Notwithstanding changes in the relationship between the sexes in recent decades, the notion of romantic love remains psychologically central to the pursuit of personal and sexual fulfilment within marriage. Alongside this, marriage has been a key arena for the psychic development of the self, as this is organized through attitudes associated with childhood, adolescence and the nurturing of intimate sentiments within general social relations. According to Giddens, individuals today actively engage with fresh opportunities and dangers that arise as a consequence of dramatic and shattering transformations affecting self-­identity, sexuality and intimacy. For Giddens, divorce is undeniably a crisis for the self  – involving pain, loss and mourning. Yet many people, he argues, take positive steps to work through the emotional dilemmas generated by marriage breakdown. In addition to dealing with financial issues and matters affecting how children should be brought up, separation and divorce also call into play an

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emotional ­engagement with the self. Charting territory of the past (where things went wrong, missed opportunities, etc.) and of the future (alternative possibilities, chances for self-­actualization, etc.) necessarily involves experimenting with a new sense of self. This can lead to emotional growth, new understandings of self and strengthened intimacies. Against the conservative critique of irredeemable breakdown, Giddens sees the self opening out to constructive renewal. Remarriage and the changing nature of family life are crucial in this regard for Giddens (1990). By contrast to the theory of reflexive individualization, identity in the work of Foucault (and authors inspired by him) is less a matter of self­monitoring than of self-­surveillance. In his late work, Foucault conceptualized technologies of the self and their associated practices of coercion, constraint and domination in terms of the idea of ‘governmentality’. (On Foucault’s ‘archaeological’ reconstruction of the self see Elliott, 2007). In a lecture given at the College de France in 1978, he explained that governmentality referred to all endeavours involving “how to govern oneself, how to be governed, how to govern others, by whom the people will accept being governed, how to become the best possible governor” (1991, p. 87). Like the theme of ‘care of the self ’, governmentality focused largely on the productive transformation of proposals, strategies and technologies for self-­conduct. What subsequently emerged in social theory during the 1980s and 1990s, with the so-­called school of governmentalities, was a style of critique that revolved on the socio-­historical shaping, guiding and directing of conduct of individuals. Indeed one of Foucault’s acolytes summarizes governmentality as capturing “the ways in which one might be urged and educated to bridle one’s own passions, to control one’s own instincts, to govern oneself ” (Rose, 1999, p. 3). In post-­Foucaultian approaches to the self, such as that advanced by Niklas Rose in for example Governing the Soul (1990) and Inventing Our Selves (1996), the ‘psy’ professions (from counseling to psychotherapy), as well as medicine, education, welfare and the social sciences and humanities, are said to lead individuals into scrutinization of their own self-­conduct, thereby implicating the self within oppressive structures that underpin society. For Rose, technologies of the self represent the powers of shaping language  – seducing people to conform to what is acceptably sayable in day-­to-­day life. It is the power of authenticating ways of doing things, certificating modes of conduct, and thus inscribing the self in multiple modes of power. Whilst both approaches to identity and individualization have ­significant merit, they are not without their problems. The Foucaultian image of

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technologies of the self sets, for the most part, society over and above identity. Politically speaking, this is a covertly libertarian account of the self, which distrusts virtually all arenas of social activity and uncritically celebrates the ‘minority politics’ of resistance to the organized and systematized power of governmentality. At the individual level, Foucault theorizes processes of personal transformation as the result of discursive forms of technology involving scrutiny of self and others. From this angle, the individual is not only free to construct new cultures of the self, but indeed is obliged under the force of governmentalities to do so. The difficulty with this standpoint, however, is that it provides no adequate account of human agency because the self simply appears as the decentred effect of an analytics of technology and governmentality. At the social level, this kind of analysis is generally too eager to overlook long-­term historical trends in its excessive concentration on the ‘technological’ aspects of governmentality. In short, inadequate attention is given to the active, creative struggles of individuals as they engage with their own social and historical conditions (see Elliott, 2007). By contrast, the theory of reflexive individualization advanced by Giddens and others does accord more analytical weight to human agency. In my view, the thesis of reflexivity captures core aspects of contemporary social experience  – especially processes of individualization and social acceleration. That said, the theory of reflexive individualization has been sharply criticized for its privileging of cognition over affect, rationality over emotion (Elliott, 2004; Lash & Urry, 1994). My claim here is that the reflexivity and revisable contours of modernity, whilst key features of current social transformations, do not fully extend to what is most significant in the logic of society’s structural and cultural development: namely, the imaginative contours of reinvention. We cannot adequately grasp the consequences of modernity unless we add the imaginative substratum of personal and institutional reinvention. This takes us now to the theory of the new individualism.

The Theory of the New Individualism: Key Institutional Drivers Ours is the era of a new individualism: our current fascination for the instant making, reinvention and transformation of selves is, in some sense or another, integral to contemporary living. Living in the global age of a new individualism requires individuals capable of designing and directing ­their own biographies, of defining identities in terms of self-­actualisation and of

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deploying social goods and cultural symbols to represent individual expression and personality. In current social circumstances – in which our lives are reshaped by technology-­induced globalization and the transformation of capitalism – it is not the particular individuality of an individual that’s most important. What is increasingly significant is how individuals create identities, the cultural forms through which people symbolize individual expression and desire, and perhaps above all the speed with which identities can be reinvented and instantly transformed. It is this stress on instant transformation – and in particular the fears and anxieties it is designed to displace or lessen – that distinguishes the theory of the new individualism from notions such as reflexive modernization and individualization in current social science literature. In the following part of this chapter I wish to review and reiterate the core sociological ideas that comprise the thesis of the new individualism. There are four major points to consider in this connection. 1. The new individualism is marked by a relentless emphasis on self­reinvention. The twenty-­first century craze constantly to reinvent identities is fast becoming integral to contemporary living and often involves a ‘tipping point’ into addictions, obsessions and compulsions. Today this is nowhere more evident than in the pressure consumerism puts on us to “transform” and “improve” every aspect of ourselves: not just our homes and gardens but also our careers, our food, our clothes, our sex lives, our faces, minds and bodies. If a cultural stress on self-­reinvention is increasingly evident in the ways that contemporary women and men negotiate their personal lives today, this is equally true at an organizational or institutional level. Ceaseless corporate reinvention, organizational downsizings and institutional remodellings have become the only game in town in the wider context of the global electronic economy. Such a faith in the powers of plasticity and plurality is evidenced by the huge numbers of multinational corporations undertaking endless reinventions of their organizational cultures, markets and products. The Finnish communications multinational Nokia has become a classic instance of such organizational refashioning (Haikio, 2002; Merriden, 2001). Engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices for the convergent communications and Internet industries, Nokia employs staff in 120 countries and has achieved global annual revenues of more than 50 billion euros with sales in more than 150 countries. Yet this telecommunications giant actually began life as a paper manufacturer and subsequently expanded into rubber works and the manufacture of galoshes; it was not until the 1960s that ­the company moved into electronics and then subsequently in the 1970s into

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telecommunications. Today, in the early years of the twenty-­first century, the grip of an imagination for reinvention continues as Nokia refashions itself away from mobile phones and towards mobile devices. If some corporate reinvention is geared to product and market refashioning, some other companies extend the remodelling principle all the way to the very fabric of organizational structure. This is clearly true of Cisco Systems, one of America’s leading technology giants. Cisco is a very important guide on the centrality of reinvention to the corporate world. In early 2000, Cisco enjoyed a market capitalisation of $US550 billion  – making it the world’s most valuable company. Twelve months later, following the tech-­wreck, its stock-­market value crashed to $US100 billion. Ever since, the company has aggressively sought to move beyond its core business of Internet guiding data and into new diversifications, such as Internet telephony and optical networks. In a world that has fetishized outsourcing and just-­in-­time deliveries, Cisco has been a corporate leader. Manufacturing has been outsourced at Cisco for some years, and so too has Research and Development. Such corporate remodellings operate not only at the level of production and the search for new markets, however. They extend to the very core of Cisco’s institutional structure. Under CEO John Chamber’s leadership, Cisco has established a complex set of committees comprising managers from different sections of the company – engineering, manufacturing, marketing and the like. Under Chamber’s reinvention plan, Cisco has set up ‘Boards’ charged with identifying new markets that might reach $US1 billion. Then there are ‘Councils’, charged with identifying new markets that could reach $US10 billion.2 Both committees are serviced by ‘working groups’. Cisco is unable to calculate how many working groups exist throughout the company, such is the fast assembly and even faster disassembly of these structures in the context of new global markets. A growing faith in dismantling, destabilizing and deconstructing existing organizational structures and institutional processes is likewise echoed throughout corporate life, and perhaps nowhere more so than in the rise of short-­term contracts, fast-­paced networking and multiple working identities. The performance of endless corporate reinvention and personal makeover strenuously advocated by the global electronic economy touches on the related issue of social acceleration – from the speeding up of production and technological innovation to industry adjustments to constant fluctuations in consumer demands. I turn now to consider how cultural demands

2 See “Reshaping Cisco: The world according to Chambers”, The Economist, 27 August ­2009.

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f­ or reinvention unleash other fundamental social changes in organizational forms, new technologies and new lifestyles. 2. The new individualism is driven by an endless hunger for instant change. This individualist trend is discernable throughout contemporary societies, not only in the rise of plastic surgery and the instant identity makeovers of reality TV but also in compulsive consumerism, speed dating and therapy culture. In a world that places a premium on instant gratification, the desire for immediate results has never been as pervasive or acute. We have become accustomed to e-­mailing others across the planet in seconds, buying flashy consumer goods with the click of a mouse, and drifting in and out of relations with others without long-­term commitments. Is it any wonder that we now have different expectations about life’s possibilities and the potential for change? In our quick-­fix society, people want change and, increasingly, they want it instantly. There are various market-­directed solutions that now offer the promise of instant transformation. More and more, such market-­directed solutions – from self-­help to therapy culture, from instant identity makeovers to plastic surgery – are reduced to a purchase mentality. There is an emerging generation of people whom might be called the “Instant Generation” and who treat individualism as on a par with shopping: consumed fast and with immediate results. Today’s ‘want­now’ consumerism promotes a fantasy of the self ’s infinite plasticity. The message from the makeover industry is that there’s nothing to stop you reinventing yourself however you choose. But your redesigned sense of individualism is unlikely to make you happy for long. For identity enhancements are fashioned with only the short term in mind. They are until “next time”. This relentless emphasis on self-­reinvention thus equates to a culture of ‘next-­ness’ (Elliott & Urry, 2010). Of the current compulsive obsession with accumulating experiences and acquiring goods, Zygmunt Bauman writes of consumerism as an “economics of deception”. Here is the sociological reasoning Bauman gives in his book Liquid Life: Consumer society rests its case on the promise to satisfy human desires in a way no other society in the past could do or dream of doing. The promise of satisfaction remains seductive, however, only so long as the desire stays ungratified; more importantly, so long as there is a suspicion that the desire has not been truly and fully gratified. Setting the targets low, assuring easy access to goods that meet the target, as well as a belief in objective limits to ‘genuine’ and ‘realistic’ desires – that would sound the death knell of consumer society, consumer industry and consumer markets. It is the non-­satisfaction of desires, and a firm and ­perpetual

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belief that each act to satisfy them leaves much to be desired and can be bettered, that are the fly-­wheels of the consumer-­targeted economy. (2005, p. 80)

The consumer’s world is one of frustrated desires, dashed hopes; deceit – the broken promises of producers – is the sine qua non of consumerism and its ever-­expanding terrain of new needs, wants and desires. How does consumerism multiply itself? If deceit, excess and waste are built-­in to the functioning of consumer markets, what keeps people anchored in consumer culture? For Bauman, the consumer industry deploys two key strategies in keeping people orientated to its markets. The first consists in the devaluation of consumer products soon after, and increasingly as they near, saturation point in the market. Yesterday’s DVD player is today outperformed by digital recording; the mobile phone purchased recently from the high street is already out-­of-­date, supplanted by new features of the latest stock. Such degradation of product durability, says Bauman, goes hand-­in-­hand with stimulation of new elements, designer markets and products. Moreover, this degradation of durability is nothing new; it is a method known to, and practised by, the consumer industry since its inception. What is new, however, is the dissolution in the time frame by which consumer products are thought to remain of lasting value. What used to last five years may be lucky now to last several months, such is the spread of transience throughout consumer culture. In the global intermeshing of human affairs, not least in as a tumultuous space as the service and technology sectors of the new economy, it is no easy matter to decide whether a purchased product is still relevant or desirable to today’s lifestyle of accelerated consumption. For what the consuming self confronts is not simply some exterior set of guidelines regarding product or service durability, but those guidelines ‘internalized’ in the course of preparing oneself to be ‘fully prepared’ and ‘always ready’ for new consumer offerings, which now looms over individuals as a benchmark for measurements of the adequacy of the self. In today’s society of consumers, the main task is ‘to develop new desires made to the measure of new, previously unheard-­of and unexpected allurements, to “get in” more than before, not to allow the established needs to render new sensations redundant or to restrain the capacity to absorb and experience them’ (Bauman, 2005, p. 77). The second strategy developed by the consumer industry for the stimulation of consumer’s desires, according to Bauman, is more subtle yet effective. This consists, he explains, in ‘the method of satisfying every need/ desire/want in such a fashion that it cannot but give birth to new ­needs/ desires/wants’ (2005, p. 73). This kind of exploiting of consumerist attitudes

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involves the continual cross-­referencing of products, labels, brands and services. When people come to buy things, consumer marketing is now at work (and overtime) to ensure that the product on offer does not result in the closure of the consumer’s consumption of goods. This it does through the linking of products and services with other consumer options. Consumers of skincare moisturiser, for example, may wish to reenergize their skin, but in shopping for the desired product they are likely to be cross-­referred to endless related products  – UV protection, pure ginseng extract creams, vitamin E and C products – all sold with the marketing hype of ‘how to look radiant’. The capacity to keep all consumer options open, the willingness to embrace the fluidity and cross-­currents of market-­supplied services and substances: these are the key traits of contemporary consumption. ‘Desire’, writes Bauman, ‘becomes its own purpose, and the sole uncontested and unquestionable purpose’ (2005, p. 73). Such desire is that which feeds spontaneity in shopping. The desire not simply to consume more, but to consume the endless possibilities offered by the consumer industries for the reconstruction and reinvention of the self. As Bauman reflects: ‘The code in which our “life policy” is scripted is derived from the pragmatics of shopping’ (2005, p. 74). If the deep drivers to self-­reinvention are essentially culturalist, the institutional parameters underpinning instant change are corporate. Consider, for example, the global expansion of the cosmetic surgery industries over recent years. Although precise figures relating to levels of investment and returns across cosmetic surgical industries are very difficult to specify, it is clear that we are dealing with a multibillion-­dollar industry (Elliott, 2008). In the United States alone, the cosmetic surgical industry generated in excess of $20 billion in 2012. Whilst this may still fall short of other beauty businesses, such as the $25 billion-­a-­year cosmetics industry and the more than $30 billion-­a-­year diet industry, cosmetic plastic surgery is the fastest growing makeover corporate concern in the world today. And in all products – from Botox and collagen fillers to liposuction and mini-­facelifts – the message from the industry is one of instant change. This is a corporate message that the self can be changed however the individual so desires: literally, there are no limits. Various factors, in conditions of advanced globalization, prompt individuals to demand instant change, as well more specifically contemplate undergoing the plastic surgeon’s knife to obtain what may be perceived as both a personal and professional edge over others. The ‘new economy’ has ushered into existence changes of enormous magnitude, in which ­people are under intense pressure to keep pace with the sheer speed of social transformations.

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Seemingly secure jobs are wiped out literally overnight. Technology becomes obsolete almost as soon as it released. Multinational corporations move their operations from country to country in search of the best profit margin. Women and men clamber frenetically to obtain new skills or be discarded on the scrapheap. In this new economy of short-­term contracts, endless downsizings, just-­in-­time deliveries and multiple careers, objective social transformations are mirrored at the level of everyday life. The demand for instant change, in other words, is widely perceived to demonstrate an appetite for – a willingness to embrace – change, flexibility and adaptability. 3. The new individualism is constituted through a fascination with speed. The novelist Milan Kundera, in his book Slowness (1996), suggests that contemporary societies have become intoxicated with what he calls “pure speed”. ‘Speed’, writes Kundera, ‘is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man. As opposed to a motorcyclist, the runner is always present in his body, forever required to think about his blisters, his exhaustion; when he runs he feels his weight, his age, more conscious than ever of himself and of his time of life. This all changes when man delegates the faculty of speed to a machine: from then on, his own body is outside the process, and he gives over to a speed that is noncorporeal, nonmaterial, pure speed, speed itself, ecstasy speed’ (1996, p. 2). For Kundera, the contemporary epoch has raised speed to the second power. There is a huge social science literature documenting the rise of social acceleration, speed, dynamism and accelerated change in conditions of advanced globalization (Eriksen, 2001). ‘We now live’, writes Paul Virilio, ‘in an era with no delays’ (quoted in Eriksen 2001, p. 51). With the acceleration of speed, according to Virlio, space is compressed. Speed compresses distance, global telecommunications transcend state boundaries and our very experiences of self and world become squeezed, rushed, hurried and harried. As Scheuerman captures this social acceleration: ‘Everywhere we turn – from the 15-­second “sound bites” of television news, our high-­speed capitalist workplace, to our culture’s eroticization of fast automobiles and fascination with high-­speed sports  – contemporary society exhibits an obsession with speed’ (2005, p. 453). This obsession with speed flows is, in turn, linked to massive changes in social processes. As German social theorist Hartmut Rosa (2003) has argued, our individual experiences of living life faster, busier and speedier is tied to fundamental technological transformations  – especially high-­speed digital technologies, ­communication networks and just-­in-­time global production processes. Objective technological and temporal speed-­up, in other words, results in the experience of life in the fast lane.

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How might “accelerated life” be best approached from the vantage point of the new individualism? If today’s absorption in reinvention is fundamentally culturalist and the underlining of instant change is essentially corporate, then our fascination with speed is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in demands for, and dramas of, consumerism. In the high-­speed flows of cosmopolitan culture, consumption emerges as the most sublime phenomenon, attempting to reconcile the apparently contradictory forces of desire and disappointment, beauty and terror. If there is something mesmerizing about consumerism it is not only because it trades in extravagant expectations of pure speed, but because it discards and deceives as well as seduces. At once promising scintillating satisfaction and yet frustrating fulfilment, consumerism inhabits a terrain of lethal ecstasy  – each repeated frustration of desire helping to unleash, in turn, new wants and fresh appetites. These wants and appetites, needless to say, emerge faster and faster – and the demand is for instantaneous response. A realm of deception, there is something always excessive about consumerism, and to that extent it represents both cultural continuity and antisocial rupture. In one sense, consumerism is enthralling, overwhelming, transgressive and traumatic. As such, it promises to lift one beyond the known world to a power of pure speed and instantaneous pleasure. But in another sense, these fearful powers of the consumer society are brought low, rendered dazzlingly empty, by the frustration of fulfilment. Consumerism thus oscillates between the utopic immensity of its promises and the non-­satisfaction rendered by its products. The speed of consumerism is addiction incarnate. I offer, as a metaphor for grasping how speed creates new individualist effects, the image of the broadband ‘download’. Just like watching a computer screen downloading software with the latest updates, the want-­now consumerism of contemporary women and men indicates a fascination with speed, acceleration, swiftness and rapidity. The message issuing from the global consumer economy, if effect, is: “Have you had your latest identity update today? New individualism 4.2.1.” The rapid-­fire speed of everyday life in turn correlates with developments in the global electronic economy, which takes us to my final point. 4. The new individualism is shaped in and through a preoccupation with short-­termism and episodicity. In this connection, there are important new links between the advent of the global electronic economy and socioeconomic logics of intensive globalism on the one hand, and the popular explosion of interest in reinvention or makeover industries and ­short-­term identity reconstruction on the other. The root of the problem is largely cultural, driven by a new corporate ethos that flexible and ceaseless reinvention

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is the only adequate response to globalization. Clearly, globalization is a world of transformations, affecting every aspect not only of what we do but what we think about our lives. For better or worse, globalization has given rise to the 24/7 society, in which continual self-­actualization and dramatic self-­reinvention have become all the rage. Globalization has become one of the key buzzwords of our times – and our lives in these times (Giddens, 2003). One needs to be careful assessing arguments about the consequences of globalization, as what people call “globalization” has many different meanings, not all of them coherent and few reconcilable. One central part of what globalization means for many critics is advanced capitalism in its broadest sense, and thus by implication the term has come to revolve around Americanization. This is the view that globalization is a central driver in the export of American commerce and culture, of the vast apparatus of mass consumerism, of the unleashing of U.S.-­controlled turbo-­capitalism. Others view globalization through the lens of a much longer historical perspective, beginning with the age of discovery and the migrations from the Old to the New World. A full discussion of the many facets of globalization goes beyond the scope of this chapter. But I do want to stay with the theme of our globalizing world for much of the remaining section of this chapter, as I will go on to suggest that there are important new links between the speed and dynamism of processes of intensive globalization on the one hand and the popular explosion of interest in the makeover industries and cosmetic surgical culture on the other. In this connection, it is the impact of communications media and new information technologies that is perhaps of most importance in grasping what is truly new about globalization. Political theorist David Held captures this point well when he contends: ‘What is new about the modern global system is the chronic intensification of patterns of interconnectedness mediated by such phenomena as the modern communications industry and new information technology and the spread of globalization in and through new dimensions of interconnectedness: technological, organizational, administrative and legal, among others, each with their own logic and dynamic of change’ (1991, p.  145; see also Held et al., 1999). Transformations in the organizational and corporate dimensions of global interconnectedness, to anticipate my argument, are creating the conditions in which instant self-­reinvention through processes of ­new individualism occur. The impact of multinational corporations, able to export industrial production to low-­wage spots around the globe, and to restructure investment in the West away from manufacture to the finance, service and communications

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sectors, has spelt major changes in the ways people live their lives, how they approach work, as well as how they position themselves within the employment marketplace. Whilst employment has become much more complex than in previous periods as a result of the acceleration of globalization, one key institutional fact redefining the contemporary condition has been the rapid decline of lifetime employment. The end of a job-­for-­life, or of a career developed within a single organization, has been interpreted by some critics as heralding the arrival of a “new economy” – flexible, mobile, networked. Global financier and philanthropist George Soros (1998) argues that ‘transactions’ now substitute for ‘relationships’ in the modern economy. A range of recent sociological studies emphasize such global trends towards short-­termism and episodicity  – in personal relationships, family dynamics, social networks, employment and work. American sociologist Richard Sennett (1998) writes of the rise of “short-­term, contract and episodic labor”. Yesteryear’s job-­for-­life, Sennett argues, is replaced today by short-­term contract work. Today’s corporate culture of short-­termism is producing a thorough-­going erosion of loyalty and trust that employees vest in their workplaces. In a corporate world where people are always thinking about their next career move, or preparing for major change, it is very difficult to remain loyal to any one company or organization, and is ultimately dysfunctional. Authors such as Sennett see the flexibility demanded of workers by multinational corporations as demonstrating the reality of globalization, promoting a dominant conception of individuals as dispensable and disposable. It is against this sociological backdrop that he cites statistics indicating that the average American college student graduating today can expect to hold twelve positions or jobs in his or her lifetime, plus that they will be required to change their skills base at least three times. No wonder flexible capitalism has its discontents, who find to their dismay that the alleged benefits of free markets are less and less apparent. In a subsequent work, The Culture of The New Capitalism, Sennett spells out the deeper emotional consequences of such big organizational changes thus: ‘people fear being displaced, sidelined, or underused. The institutional model of the future does not furnish them a life narrative at work, or the promise of much security in the public realm’ (2005,p.  132). Today’s corporate culture of short-­termism is producing a thorough-­going ­erosion of loyalty and trust that employees vest in their workplaces. ‘Work identities’, writes Sennett, ‘get used up, they become exhausted, when institutions themselves are continually reinvented’ (2005, p. 141). Likewise, Gene Grossman and Esteban Rossi-­Hansberg (2006) have undertaken research on global economic outsourcing – which centres on

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the virtually instant transfer of service jobs to low-­wage economies – and reports of workers “at risk” not only in unskilled or semiskilled jobs but also the skilled and highly skilled (those working in finance, legal, medical and hi-­tech sectors). The outsourcing of industrial production over recent decades, say Grossman and Rossi-­Hansberg, finds its counterpart today in the outsourcing of knowledge-­intensive jobs. Grossman and Rossi­Hansberg call this “global electronic offshoring”, which they argue is fast changing our ways of living and working – and will continue to do so in dramatic ways over the coming years. Electronic offshoring, for Grossman and Rossi-­Hansberg, refers to more than the rise of call centres in countries such as India. For any service job can be electronically outsourced if it involves substantial reliance on information technology and involves little face-­to-­face interaction. And this is the really dramatic part of this research: it is estimated that somewhere between 30 and 40 million service jobs in the United States will become open to electronic offshoring in the near future. 30 to 40 million jobs! The fast, short-­term, techy culture of globalization is unleashing a new paradigm of self-­making. In a world of short-­term contracts, endless downsizings, just-­in-­time deliveries and multiple careers, the capacity to change and reinvent oneself is fundamental. A faith in flexibility, plasticity and incessant reinvention  – all this means we are no longer judged on what we have done and achieved; we are now judged on our flexibility, on our readiness for instant makeover. The culture of short-­termism promoted by globalization puts pressure on people to try to ‘improve’, ‘transform’ and ‘reinvent’ themselves. Driven by desire and fear of such metamorphosis, individuals desperately attempt to “refashion” themselves as more efficient, faster, leaner, inventive and self-­actualizing than they were previously. Day­in day-­out, society in the era of the new individualism is fundamentally shaped by this fear of disposability.

Conclusion New individualism, I have suggested, hinges on the emergence of a ­cultural imperative to reinvent. This imperative, advanced by business leaders, politicians, personal trainers and therapy gurus, emphasizes that flexible and ceaseless reinvention is the only adequate personal response to life in a globalizing world. It is a paradigm that pervades the mission statement of countless makeover service providers: personal trainers, spas, gyms, weight-­loss and detox centres, cosmetic dentists and plastic surgeons all chasing the money that people will spend to realize their reinvention ideal.

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Various factors, in conditions of advanced globalization, directly influence why individuals turn to the ‘reinvention craze’, as well more specifically contemplate undergoing the trials and tribulations of makeover culture in order to obtain a career edge. I do not claim that new individualist practices are wholly shaped or determined by recent changes in the global economy. But the new economy has ushered into existence changes of enormous magnitude, and in such a world people are under intense pressure to keep pace with the sheer speed of change. Seemingly secure jobs are wiped out literally overnight. Technology becomes obsolete almost as soon as it released. Multinational corporations move their operations from country to country in search of the best profit margin. Women and men clamber frenetically to obtain new skills or be discarded on the scrapheap. In this new economy of short-­term contracts, endless downsizings, just-­in-­time deliveries and multiple careers, one reason for new individualist self-­reinvention through our pervasive makeover culture is to demonstrate a personal readiness for change, flexibility and adaptability. The reinvention craze paradigm extends beyond the core of the self to the body, that distracting reminder of mortality in a world where disposability has been elevated over durability, plasticity over permanence. The culture of speed and short-­termism promoted by the global electronic economy introduces fundamental anxieties and insecurities that are increasingly resolved by individuals at the level of the body. Bodies today are pumped, pummelled, plucked, suctioned, stitched, shrunk and surgically augmented at an astonishing rate. It is not my argument that the cosmetic redesign of the body arises because of the appearance of completely novel anxieties. Previous ages have been plagued by anxiety too, and certainly insecurities pertaining to employment and career prospects are hardly new (Giddens, 1991). But the method of coping with, and reacting to, anxieties stemming from the new paradigm of self-­making in our global age is quite different from that in previous times. In contrast to the factory-­conditioned certainties and bureaucratic rigidities of yesterday’s work-­world, in which personal insecurities ‘locked in’ tightly with the organizational settings of economic life, today’s new corporatism is a world in which individuals are ­increasingly left to their own devices as regards their working life and its future prospects. This is a societal change that creates considerable scope for personal opportunities, but it is also one that involves severe stresses and emotional costs. Today’s faith in flexibility, plasticity and incessant reinvention throughout the corporate world means that employees are judged less and less on previous achievements, on their records. Rather people are assessed, and ever more so, on their willingness to embrace change, their adaptability for

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personal makeover. In such circumstances, anxiety becomes free-­floating, detached from organizational life. Consequently, anxiety rounds back upon the self. In such circumstances, many feel an increased pressure to improve, transform, alter and reinvent themselves. Today’s makeover culture arises in this social space, in response to such ambient fears. Just as flexible capitalism engages in ceaseless organizational restructurings, so now do people  – employees, employers, consumers, parents, children. Don DeLillo argues that global capitalism generates transformations at “the speed of light”, not only in terms of the sudden movement of factories, the mass migration of workers and the instant shifts of liquid capital, but also in ‘everything from architecture to leisure time to the way people eat and sleep and dream’ (1998, p. 786). In thinking about the complex ways in which our emotional lives are altered by the socioeconomic changes wrought by globalization, I seek to add to the wealth of transformations mentioned by DeLillo by focusing on people’s changing experiences of their identities, emotions, affects and bodies as a result of new individualist social practices. My argument is that global forces, in transforming economic and technological structures, penetrate to the very tissue of our personal and emotional lives. Most writers agree that globalization involves the dramatic rewriting of national and local boundaries. The overnight shifts of capital investment, the transnational spread of multipurpose production, the privatisation of government-­owned institutions, the endless remodellings of finance, the rise of new technologies and the unstable energy of 24/7 stock markets: such images of multinational capitalism bring starkly into focus the extent to which today’s globe is being remade, and daily. I have been suggesting that such changes seep deeply into daily life, and are affecting greater and greater numbers of people. The values of the new global economy are increasingly being adopted by people to remodel their lives. The emphasis is on living the short-­term contract lifestyle (from what one wears to where one lives to how one works), of ceaseless cosmetic transformations and bodily improvements, of instant metamorphosis and multiple ­identities. This is the field of new individualism, as it continues to spread across the polished, expensive cities of the West and beyond. References Bauman, Z. (2005). Liquid life. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press. Beck, Ulrich, & Beck-­Gernsheim, E. (2001). Individualization. London: SAGE. Beck, Ulrich, Giddens, Anthony, & Lash, Scott. (1994). Reflexive modernization. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press. DeLillo, Don. (1998). Underworld. London: Picador.

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Elliott, A. (2004). Subject to ourselves (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press.   (2007). Concepts of the self (2nd ed.). Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press.   (2008). Making the cut: How cosmetic surgery is transforming our lives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.   (2009). Contemporary social theory. London and New York: Routledge.   (2010). The new individualism after the great global crash. The Journal of Studies in Contemporary Sociological Theory, 4: 54–66.   (2013). Reinvention. London and New York: Routledge. Elliott, A., & Lemert, C. (2009a). The new individualism: The emotional costs of globalization (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Elliott, A., & Lemert, C. (2009b). The global new individualist debate: Three theories of individualism and beyond. In A. Elliott & P. du Gay (Eds.), Identity in question (pp. 37–64). London: SAGE.: Elliott, A., & Urry, J. (2010). Mobile lives. Oxford: Routledge. Eriksen, T. (2001). Tyranny of the moment. London: Pluto Press. Foucault, Michel. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault Effect. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press.   (1991). Modernity and self-­identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press.   (1992). The transformation of intimacy. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press.   (2003). Runaway world: How globalisation is reshaping our lives. New York: Routledge. Grossman, Gene, & Rossi-­Hansberg, Esteban. (2006). The rise of off-­shoring: It’s not wine or cloth anymore. In The new economic geography: Effects and policy implications (pp. 59–102). 2006 Jackson Hole Symposium. Kansas City, MO: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Haikio, Martti. (2002). Nokia: The inside story. Boston: Prentice Hall. Held, David. (1991). Democracy, the nation-­state and the global system. Economy and Society, 20(2): 138–72. Held, D., McGrew, A., Perraton, J., & Goldblatt, D. (1999). Global transformations. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press. Kundera, Milan. (1996). Slowness. New York: HarperCollins. Lash, Scott, & Urry, John. (1994). Economies of signs and space. London: ­SAGE. Merriden, Trevor. (2001). Business the Nokia way: Secrets of the world’s fastest moving company. Oxford: Capstone Publishing. Riesman, D., Glazer, N., & Denney, R. (2001). The lonely crowd: A study of the changing American character (Revised ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rosa, Harmut. (2003). Social acceleration: Ethical and political consequences of a desynchronized high-­speed society. Constellations, 10(1): 3–33. Rose, Nikolas. (1990). Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London: Routledge.   (1996). Inventing our selves: Psychology, power & personhood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   (1999). Powers of freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Scheuerman, William E. (Summer 2005). Busyness and citizenship. Social Research, 72( 2): 447–70. Sennett, Richard. (1998). The corrosion of character. New York: W. W. Norton.   (2005). The culture of the new capital. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Soros, George. (1998). The crisis of global capitalism: Open society endangered. New York: PublicAffairs. Virilio, Paul. (1986). Speed and politics. New York: Semiotext(e).

­9 Feminism, Foucault, and Globalized Subjectivity Margaret A. ­M cLaren

In this chapter I offer a Foucauldian feminist framework for analyzing subjectivity in the twenty-­first century. I demonstrate that Foucault’s ideas about how power produces subjectivity illuminate the complex and contradictory ways that individuals are situated within power relations, and nonetheless exercise agency. I identify significant feminist contributions to reconceptualizing subjectivity from the abstract, rational man central to many traditional philosophical views, to an embodied, interdependent, relational person within a social and historical context. I use a feminist lens to discuss the ways in which gender specifically constructs subjectivity in complex and contradictory ways, especially in the context of globalization. At first blush, “globalized subjectivity” sounds like an oxymoron: how can something as individual and personal as subjectivity be global? Here I argue that an understanding of subjectivity as embodied and social implies that subjectivity is best understood in the context of a broader social, historical, and political context. Drawing on feminist insights about the importance of developing a theory of subjectivity out of the realities and diversity of lived experience, I argue that thinking about subjectivity in the twenty-­first century requires recognizing not only the relationship between the personal and the political, the individual and the social, but also the local and the global. Using a decolonized feminist framework to examine some of the ­discourses that structure subjectivity in particular instances, I aim to illuminate intersections of the personal-­political and the local-­global and the way that larger social structures, policies, and discourses inform individual subjectivity in complex and contradictory ways. After ­providing

My heartfelt thanks to the following individuals who provided feedback on an earlier ­version of this chapter: Romin Tafarodi, Ann Ferguson, Kathryn Norsworthy, Rachel Newcomb, Creston Davis, Scott Rubarth, and Mechthilde Nagel.

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a ­theoretical framework for a concept of subjectivity informed both by recent feminist work and by the work of Michel Foucault, I use the example of Moroccan female agricultural workers in Spain to illustrate how processes of ­globalization shape subjectivity in the twenty-­first century. Moroccan female agricultural workers are subject to a variety of policies and practices that both privilege and penalize them as women. They are preferentially selected as temporary migrant workers because they are Moroccan women. Yet they must be married with young children, and the work they are hired for, though legal, is physically demanding and underpaid. This example provides a fruitful site for analyzing the construction of subjectivity as it illustrates the ways that discourses about gender, labor, femininity, and motherhood operate on multiple levels, simultaneously drawing on and challenging social and cultural norms.

Globalization Twenty-­first century subjectivity must be discussed within the context of globalization. Though some argue that globalization is not a new phenomenon, but has been going on as long as commerce, trade, travel, and immigration, there are undeniably new aspects of globalization in the contemporary world. Inda and Rosaldo point out five important flows typical of contemporary globalization: images, ideologies, capital, people, and commodities (Inda & Rosaldo, 2003, p. 4). Arjun Appadurai offers a similar fivefold framework for thinking about the cultural dimensions of global flows: ethnoscapes (people); mediascapes (media/images); technoscapes (technologies); financescapes (monetary flows); and ideoscapes (ideologies usually connected to the state) (Appadurai, 1996). Technology, specifically the Internet, social media, and cell phones, makes transnational communication easier than ever. David Harvey argues that globalization changes our conception of space and time by reducing the time it takes to communicate and to make transactions across distances; this results in time–space compression. Put simply, globalization is the “intensification of global interconnectedness” (Inda & Rosaldo, 2003, p. 4). However, simply seeing globalization as the intensification of interconnectedness overlooks the fact that globalization has exacerbated economic inequality between the Global South and the Global North. Globalization results in economic changes because of the spread of neoliberal ideologies of capitalism, such as the requirements of privatization and trade liberalization foisted upon many countries as a result of the structural adjustment programs (SAPs) imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a precondition for lending. Yet these economic changes

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often undermine local economies; consequently immigration ­increases.1 This in turn often results in transnational families as one person migrates to work and sends money home to her or his family. The trend of increasing mobility and shifting of populations due to immigration creates diasporas and the dislocation of people from places of national, cultural, and ethnic origin. In addition to policies imposed by the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), economic change also results from the creation of Free Trade Zones (FTZs) and Export Processing Zones (EPZs) and the relocation of transnational corporations to the Global South in search of cheap and outsourced labor. Moreover, globalization’s effects are gendered. The privatization required by the structural adjustment programs including cuts in public support of education, health care, and other public services increases women’s burden of unpaid labor. With respect to paid labor, globalization also differentially affects women: there has been a feminization of the global labor force in the formal sector, although women continue being recruited into low-­paying jobs. In addition, more women are working in the informal labor market (which was already dominated by women). In this sphere, there are no legal structures protecting workers such as minimum wage, benefits, or job security (Naples & Desai, 2002). To be fair, globalization has positive as well as negative effects. Globalization fosters transnational ideas and concepts such as human rights and gender equality. It helps to promote the discourse of human rights and gender equality through a wider circulation of international treaties, documents, and so forth, through increased access to political, cultural, and social situations and circumstances outside of one’s own via media, social media, and the Internet, and through the increased possibility of transnational activism. As I discuss later, globalization affects the ways that subjects are produced and act within the world materially, by changing the circumstances of people’s lives, and also by broadening the discourses that help to shape subjectivity. In this chapter I discuss the ways that globalization has differentially impacted women with regard to labor and citizenship, and using specific examples I show how ideologies, economic processes, and public policy work together as networks of power within which individual subjectivity is produced, negotiated, and represented. 1 Migration occurs both within countries and between countries. Intranationally, ­migration from rural to urban areas is most common especially when local agricultural is undermined by trade agreements or subsidized imports, such as United States sending corn to Mexico. Here I focus on international migration that is also often the result of policies that undermine national economies and/or increase economic disparities among countries.

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Feminist Contributions to ­C ontemporary Philosophical Theories of Subjectivity: Embodiment, Relationships, Social Location In this section I introduce three significant feminist contributions for ­conceptualizing subjectivity: embodiment, relationships, and social location. Here my focus is on the initial challenge to the masculinist concept of subjectivity prevalent in philosophical discussions prior to feminist interventions. In a later section, I discuss feminist approaches that recognize the intersection of gender with other social categories such as race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, nationality, ability, and religion and their impact on identity. Each of the contributions to thinking about subjectivity that I discuss in this section – embodiment, relationships, and social location – provides a starting point for theorizing subjectivity as a locus of particularity and difference structured by social categories and discourses that is important to the intersectional, postmodern, postcolonial, transnational, and decolonized feminist approaches I discuss later. Feminist theorists offer a comprehensive critique of traditional philosophical and political conceptions of subjectivity. The Cartesian view that grounds the Enlightenment version of the epistemological subject is characterized by an Archimedean point of view associated with objective knowledge, transparency, and a monological mode of knowledge. Similarly, political theory often assumes an Enlightenment version of the subject at its core: independent of social and historical context, devoid of identity, and independent of all relationships. Both models abstract from all particularity and assume a disembodied subject. Feminists challenge the Enlightenment model of subjectivity in a variety of ways. First, feminists reject the mind/body dualism underlying the Enlightenment version of subjectivity. Second, feminists draw attention to the fact that the radical independence of atomistic individualism is neither based in empirical fact nor an ideal to be strived for. Third, feminists point to the importance of social location for understanding subjectivity. By addressing issues of embodiment, relationships, and social location, feminists made significant contributions to conceptions of subjectivity. Embodied Subjectivity As I have discussed elsewhere, subjectivity cannot be thought without the body (McLaren, 2002). Grounding subjectivity in the body accounts for both its individuation and its interdependence. Almost all feminist

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constructions of subjectivity begin with the rejection of the mind/body ­dualism that underlies traditional Enlightenment views. Rejecting dualism has a number of implications. One obvious implication is that thinking of subjectivity as embodied means that the diverse particularity of bodies must be accounted for as well as the specificity of bodily experience. Feminist analyses go beyond the mere focus on “the body” to reveal the ways that bodies are gendered (Bartky, 1990b; Bordo, 1993; Young, 1990). Because women’s bodies have been alternately ignored (presumed to be irrelevant) or degraded (sexually objectified and/or subject to violence), focusing on sexual difference became central to feminist theory and practice during the women’s movement in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. Some feminists focused on celebrating women’s biological capacity to reproduce and the social institution of motherhood. Revaluing women’s traditional work of social reproduction served an important role in making the often invisible and invariably undervalued work of women visible. This in turn elevated women’s status. Recognizing the importance of the institution of motherhood and the unequal distribution of the labor of social reproduction included practical concerns such as affordable, available childcare, compensation for housework, and a more gender-egalitarian distribution of unpaid domestic and care work. Other feminist activists organized around violence against women (rape and domestic violence), reproductive issues (access to birth control and abortion, campaigns against the sterilization of women and unnecessary medical procedures, such as routine Caesarean sections and episiotomies), and sexual harassment. Attention to the body in theorizing subjectivity and experience brought sexual difference to the fore. And as noted earlier, the revaluing of ­women’s labor both raised women’s status and contributed to a number of new organizations and institutions addressing women’s specific needs. But as ­discussed later, focus on biological and sexual difference led to criticisms of biological essentialism. Leaving aside questions about whether or not these criticisms were justified, acknowledging that sex and gender are important categories of analysis both for individual experience and social organization countered the traditional gender-­neutral “man as normative” model. Recognizing sex/gender as a significant category for analyzing lived experience represents an important shift from previous gender-­blind models. But some argued it ran the risk of reinscribing women’s devaluation by associating them with the body and nature. In her classic essay “The Traffic in Women,” Gayle Rubin distinguished sex, as biological, from gender, as a sociocultural category (Rubin, 1975). Differentiating sex from gender separates biology from culture and allows for interpretation and cultural variation of gender

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expression. Feminists found this distinction very ­useful in discussing the concept of woman as socially mediated and prescribed by gender norms.2 Gender norms serve not only to mark out the boundaries of the category woman, but also mark individual bodies; gender roles and expectations are not merely external but are internalized as gender norms (Bartky, 1990a,b; Bordo, 1993; Butler, 1990 and 2004). Internalized gender norms express themselves in a variety of ways. Gender norms are pervasive; they structure modes of dress, self-­expression, types of work, and social responsibilities. Moreover, normative gender roles include assumptions about one’s sexual desires and orientation. In many ways, the feminist movement and feminist theory popularized the idea of an interdependent connection between the society and the individual, or in Foucault’s terms discourse and subjectivity. The corpus of feminist scholarship addressing this connection is thorough and growing, for instance, essays on the beauty ideal, anorexia nervosa, and the norms of femininity (Bartky, 1990b; Bordo, 1993; hooks, 1992; Wolf, 1991; Young, 1990). Feminists persuasively demonstrate both the pervasive effects of cultural and societal messages as well as the possibilities for resistance to them. Indeed, some feminist analyses of gender, such as the work of Sandra Bartky and Susan Bordo, utilize Foucault’s concept of micro-­power, the ways in which networks of knowledge and power shape subjectivity and conversely, how subjectivity reproduces power relations. The norms of femininity serve to define the category of woman in narrow and exclusive ways, for only those who fit the norms are included. In the final analysis, gender norms are socially produced and perpetuated. They act on individuals by rewarding behavior that corresponds to gender norms and expectations. What is more, they also organize individuals into groups subject to certain treatment, for instance, the spatial and social organization of women and men into men’s clubs, women’s colleges, and occupational gender segregation. Gender categories can be disrupted both by individual acts of resistance and institutional and organizational changes. Institutional and organizational changes are collective acts that may change the meaning of gendered categories or the ways they are applied to individuals. As we shall see in the example of Moroccan female agricultural workers in Spain, categories may function complexly and contradictorily both to empower and ­disempower individuals because of their social group memberships, for example, as women, as workers, as mothers. 2 Subsequently, feminists challenged this distinction, arguing that it recapitulates the ­nature/culture distinction and occludes the fact that sex is shaped by gender ­categories and that both are shaped by heteronormativity. See, for example, Butler (1990, 1993, 2004); Gatens (1996); and Grosz (1994).

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Dependence, Interdependence, and Relationality If one starts with lived experience to conceptualize subjectivity, then the facts of human dependence and interdependence must be accounted for. Feminists revealed how social contract theorists assumed that political subjects were independent of one another and devoid of any significant relationships (Benhabib, 1987 and 1992; Pateman & Gross, 1986; Shanley & Pateman, 1991). The following quote by Thomas Hobbes graphically illustrates this assumption: “Let us consider men…as if but even now sprung out of the earth and suddenly like mushrooms, come to full maturity without all kind of engagement to each other” (quoted in Benhabib, 1987, p. 161). Given the inevitability of dependence at the beginning of the life cycle, and the frequent dependence at the end, assuming the radical independence and separateness of persons ignores the actual social conditions of human life. Notably, the work of mothering is discounted by the assumption that human beings magically appear as fully mature, independent adults. More generally, the work of caring for those who are young, elderly, disabled, sick, or vulnerable is rendered invisible by this account. Challenging the predominant view of moral and political subjectivity as isolated and completely independent individuals, feminists developed alternative views that accounted for dependency, mothering, embeddedness in and attention to relationships, care, and the importance of social context.3 I cannot do justice here to the wide range of views and the specifics of each argument behind these ideas. Here I will take mothering as the paradigmatic example that humans exist in a network of social relations and at some point in their lives are dependent on another person (or persons) to meet their basic physical needs for survival.4 Most often, the person providing sustenance and nurturance to dependent children is their mother. Even if this is not the child’s biological mother, mothering constitutes an activity and practice that goes beyond a biological relationship.5 Even though mothering is a practice and an activity, not merely a ­social role or biological necessity, it is usually women who mother. Sociologist Nancy 3 See, for instance, Ferguson (1986, 1989); Held (1984, 2006); Kittay (1987); Meyers (1994, ­1997, 2002); and Ruddick (1989). 4 Two of the most well-­known pieces of early feminist scholarship on mothering are Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking and Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born. 5 See Ruddick’s classic work on this for an account of how mothering is a practice. The ideal mother nurtures, cares for, and protects her children. But as many feminists have pointed out, mothering is a form of work, albeit usually seen as a labor of love (which contributes to the lack of acknowledgment of it as work). Not all women mother, but all women ­(and men) have mothers. And, as Ruddick points out, under this characterization men can also be mothers. My focus here on mothering aims to reveal the ways that normative social roles and expectations shape one’s possibilities and self-­understandings. “Mother” as a social category functions like “woman” in terms of reinforcing gender normativity and heteronormativity.

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Chodorow explores the ways that mothering as a social role is ­reproduced for women through gender socialization. She provides an object-­relations account of the cycle of gender socialization based on women’s primary role in mothering. She claims: “Women’s mothering is one of the few universal and enduring elements of the sexual division of labor … women’s mothering is of profound importance for family structure, for relations between the sexes, for ideology about women, and for the sexual division of labor and sexual inequality inside the family and in the non-­familial world” (Chodorow, 1978, p. 3). Chodorow’s work contributed to highlighting the importance of the institution of mothering and its role in the reproduction of gender roles; however, she was criticized for sociological essentialism because of her identification of women as mothers and her lack of attention to differences in mothering across races, ethnicities, classes, and cultures.6 Despite differences in the practice of mothering cross-­culturally and across differences of race, ethnicity, and class, there is a general expectation that most women will be mothers. And, in fact, the majority of women will: “Statistics show that most women do become mothers…approximately 88 percent do so by the age of 45” (Peach, 1998, p. 223). The biological capacity of females to bear children combines with the social expectation for women to have children; motherhood is often viewed as a natural aspect of women’s lives. In this way, motherhood is a strongly prescriptive social category that overlaps with and reinforces stereotypical gender norms. The ideology of motherhood is associated with stereotypical feminine qualities of nurturing, care, and self-­sacrifice Thus, “good mothers” are “good women,” and vice versa. As we shall see, historically the ideology of motherhood has been used to exclude women from the sphere of paid labor, but conversely in the case of Moroccan female agricultural workers the ideology of motherhood is used to select temporary workers who are more likely to return to their country of origin at the end of the harvesting season. It is a short step from acknowledging the fact of dependency during the course of a human life to acknowledging the reality of interdependence. As noted earlier, traditional masculinist views of the political and ­moral subject assume an isolated subject engaging in a decontextualized process of moral and political reasoning. However, Carol Gilligan’s research on women’s moral reasoning challenges prevailing views of abstract, justice-­based, moral reasoning as superior (Gilligan, 1982). Her empirical studies revealed that women are more likely to take their relationships with others into account as they make moral decisions. She proposed an alternative model of moral reasoning that values care as well as justice. Care-­based reasoning takes into account the 6



For example, see Hill Collins (1994).

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impact of one’s decisions and actions on one’s relationships. Gilligan claimed that both men and women engage in both justice-­and care-­based reasoning but that women, because of their socialization to feel responsible for others, are more likely to engage in care-­based reasoning. Not surprisingly, the standards that measure moral reasoning rank justice-­based reasoning higher on a scale of moral development. Subsequent feminist work developed Gilligan’s initial insights to argue that relationships, social context, and particularity play important roles in moral reasoning.7 Viewing social context and relationships as the basis for moral reasoning, rather than as an impediment to it, feminists refigured agency as a competency of a subject enmeshed in (but not determined by) social relationships.8 As we shall see later, it is not only individual social relationships that play a role in constructing subjectivity, but also social relationships resulting from structural inequalities. Politics of Location: Standpoint Theory9 Feminist standpoint theory constitutes another significant challenge to the traditional Modern subject.10 It adopts Marx’s historical materialist view in There are a number of anthologies with essays by feminist moral and political theorists ­that come directly out of Gilligan’s work; see, for instance, Cole & Coultrap-­McQuin (1992); Kittay & Meyers (1987); and Larrabee (1993). 8 See, for instance, Benhabib (1987, 1992); Freidman (2003); and Meyers (1994). 9 Standpoint theory and the politics of location differ in a number of ways, but both ground perspective and subjectivity in concrete material circumstances that can account for particularity and difference, and both recognize the connection between social structures and subjectivity. Adrienne Rich introduces the idea of a politics of location in her essay, “Notes Towards a Politics of Location.” In this essay she discusses the importance of understanding “how a place on the map is also a place in history.” She also notes that to avoid abstraction one must begin with particularity, for example, not “the body” but “my body.” Her essay also warns against making claims about all women (false universalization). In addition, she stresses the importance of recognizing that scholars write from particular embodied social locations. 10 Sandra Harding and Nancy Hartsock introduced the idea of a feminist standpoint in 1978 at the American ­Philosophical Association, and versions of their papers were published in the early 1980s. Harding’s work focuses more on objectivism and science, whereas Hartsock adapts Marx’s view in Capital of a two-­class system into a two-­gender system, in which, as she says, “I wanted to translate the notion of the standpoint of the proletariat (including its historic mission) into feminist terms” (Hartsock, 1998, p.  228). Feminist standpoint theory has been criticized for biological essentialism and insufficient attention to racial differences among women. In her response to some of these criticisms Hartsock admits to the latter but says the former is a misinterpretation of her project, which is firmly grounded in Marx’s historical materialism and therefore not essentialist or ahistorical. For my purposes here, I am tracing significant feminist contributions to rethinking subjectivity. The enduring significance of standpoint theory is evident in the ways that it has been criticized, for instance, by Fraser & Nicholson (1990; expanded, for instance, by Hill Collins, 1991), and taken up more recently, for instance, by Weeks (1998). 7

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order to critique his phallocentrism (male-­centeredness) ­while preserving his insights about the privileged epistemological standpoint of the oppressed. Nancy Hartsock’s classic essay lays the groundwork for an entire generation of feminist theorists by utilizing Marx’s idea that “socially mediated interaction with nature in the process of production shapes both human beings and theories of knowledge” (Hartsock, 1998, p. 106). She argues that a feminist standpoint will allow us to understand patriarchal relations as unjust and inhumane, and that this understanding may provide the basis to engage in political struggle to transform oppressive relationships into more humane ones. Hartsock bases her argument in part on the gendered division of labor. As discussed previously, women are responsible for social reproduction both through their unpaid domestic labor of cooking, cleaning, and maintaining a household and through their role in human reproduction. Hartsock makes a number of important points in this seminal essay. She contends that the feminist standpoint is an engaged vision that requires analysis and education; it is an achievement that is the result of a struggle rather than simply the result of holding a particular identity or being a member of a specific social group. The advantage of feminist ­standpoint theory is that it makes (the social organization of) gender central to both epistemological and political issues. She adopts Marx’s view that human beings are shaped by material conditions, which represents a significant departure from human beings as disembodied rational consciousnesses. For Hartsock, who one is shapes what one knows (or can know). And, conversely (following Foucault), what one knows shapes who one is. Another influential proponent of standpoint theory, Sandra Harding, contrasts the subject of knowledge of standpoint theories with that of empiricism. She notes that the subject of standpoint theories is visible, embodied, and socially located. Moreover, the construction of knowledge is rightly viewed as a collective, not an individual endeavor. Finally, epistemological subjects in feminist standpoint theory are multiple, heterogeneous, and contradictory. This claim refers both to the diverse positions that make up a “feminist standpoint” (because it starts from the experience of women, but women are not a unitary category); and to the notion that oppressed subjects adopting the feminist standpoint must understand reality not only from their own perspective, but also from the perspective of the dominant group, and so have a dual or bifurcated consciousness (Harding, 1993). Early formulations of standpoint theory were criticized for biological essentialism and for ignoring racial diversity. Hartsock dismisses the first criticism as misguided because

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it overlooks the fact that the theory is grounded in Marx’s historical ­materialism. She acknowledges, however, that her initial formulation of standpoint theory did not explore racial or ethnic differences among women. Since then others have extended standpoint theory to include race as well as gender. Patricia Hill Collins articulates a black feminist standpoint based on the idea of core themes in black feminist thought, for example, work, family, motherhood, stereotypes, self-­definition, sexual politics, and activism. She claims that “[d]eveloping adequate definitions of Black feminist thought involves facing this ‘complex nexus of relationships among biological classification, the social construction of race and gender as categories of analysis, the material conditions accompanying these changing social constructions and Black women’s consciousness about these themes” (Hill Collins, 1991, p. 22). Hill Collins’s articulation of a Black feminist standpoint focuses on the intersection of race and gender and makes more explicit the implicit ideas of diversity of experience within social categories. Her characterization of a Black feminist standpoint as depending on Black women’s consciousness about these themes highlights Hartsock’s idea that a standpoint is an achievement based on analysis, education, and political struggle ­rather than the starting point. The key here is that standpoint theory begins with assumptions about subjects occupying particular social locations based on actual structural social inequality. Although the social location does not necessarily produce specific knowledge or lead to particular political action, standpoint theory does claim that the oppressed can more easily see the relationships of power and oppression that are all too often invisible to those who benefit from structural inequality. I want to retain the insight of historical materialism that actual material conditions shape human subjects and that knowledge of one’s own oppression or exploitation may lead one to action to resist oppression. As discussed later, each person stands in multiple relationships to power and privilege contingent on his or her social location and on structural relations of social inequality. I argue using Foucault’s notion of power that these multiple and often contradictory forces that produce subjectivity do not result in a passive subject, but produce resistance as well. The discourses that create social categories are fluid and mobile. Moreover, these categories may operate not only negatively to impose some norm, but also positively to enable collective action. This can be seen in the ways that imposed categories, such as “temporary agricultural worker,” in the case of Moroccan female strawberry pickers, are taken up to make claims for better treatment.

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From Gendered Subjectivity to Feminist Subjectivity So far I have introduced three main feminist contributions to re-­conceiving subjectivity: embodiment, relationality, and standpoint theory. As ­mentioned, many second-­wave feminist analyses in the United States in the 1980s focused on sex and gender to the exclusion of other significant identities, such as race, ethnicity, class, caste, nationality, religion, sexuality, and ability. Grappling with the issues of essentialism and false universalization are crucial for feminists insofar as they are interested in making political demands on behalf of women. Critics of essentialism argue that taking sex or gender as the fundamental division of lived experience mistakenly unifies women’s experience irrespective of their differences from one another. Social categories such as race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality are also salient for thinking about subjectivity as embodied. Simply put, the question is: How can political demands be made in the name of women while acknowledging that “woman” is not a homogeneous ­category? Recognizing that the category woman operates in a normative way to represent the dominant group (in academia in the United States this often means Western, White, middle class, heterosexual, Christian women) and exclude women who do not hold dominant identities, feminists from a variety of backgrounds, holding diverse social identities and using various theoretical approaches, offer methods for approaching this issue. Feminists advocating a postmodern approach question the usefulness of the category “woman” altogether because social categories operate normatively to exclude as well as to include; thus the problem of a norm is inherent to the problem of categorization. Other feminists, such as Kimberle Crenshaw and Deborah King, propose a theory of intersectionality looking at the ways that systems of domination of sexism, racism, and classism did not just amplify the oppression of poor, Black women, but mutually impacted on one another. They argued that these categories could not be thought of in isolation from each other, but must be seen as mutually informing one another, that is, what it means to be a Black woman in the contemporary United States is different than what it means to a Black man or a White woman. Race cannot be abstracted from sex or class, and vice versa. Theories of intersectionality account for the diversity of women and theorize the link between social structures and identity in a more complex way. Postcolonial feminists recognize the importance of a systemic analysis that accounts for particular complex identities (power differences between individuals within nation-­states) and the history of imperialism and colonialism (power differences among nation-­states). They draw attention

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to issues of nationalism, imperialism, culture, and religious identity as important factors for feminists to include when theorizing about women (Mohanty, 2003; Narayan, 1997; Spivak, 1987). Focusing solely on gender neglects the complexity of the multiple social identities each person holds and ignores social context and history. Thus, making claims about women’s experience ignores the diversity of women and homogenizes the category. Chandra Mohanty proposes a decolonized feminist politics. Drawing on Franz Fanon, she says that de-­colonization “involves profound transformations of self, community and governance structures “ (Mohanty, 2003, p. 7). In reflecting on theoretical influences that informed her important essay, “Under Western Eyes,” Mohanty writes, “I drew [too] on Maria Mies to argue for the need for a materialist analysis that linked everyday life and local gendered contexts and ideologies to the larger, transnational political and economic structures and ideologies of capitalism” (Mohanty, 2003, p.  225). I adopt this decolonized feminist approach through my use of ­a particular example to draw out the ways that subjects are produced through multiple and complex power relations, yet actively transform them through collective action and by negotiating their own course within the power relations. Challenges to the essentialism and false universalization of early feminist theories that focused solely on sex or gender coalesced around the idea that although all women are subject to patriarchy, not all women are subject to it in the same way. Attention to social identity, social context, and history are important. Different women are positioned differently in systems of domination and subordination, and so are complexly related to one another in systems of privilege and power. Recognizing that women may share some, but not all, interests because of this, political action is best pursued through coalitions that acknowledge diversity and disagreement (Reagon, 1983). Whether adopting a historical materialist view, or believing that the diversity of lived experience provides fertile ground for feminist theorizing and action, many feminists concur that social institutions and practices significantly shape subjectivity. Notably, feminists argue that so long as there are power differentials, gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, and religious identity are salient frameworks for understanding subjectivity. Attempting to negotiate between the essentialism of what she calls the cultural feminist view and the anti-­essentialism of the poststructuralist view, Linda Alcoff develops a theory of positionality to describe subjectivity (Alcoff, 1988). Positionality views the notion of gender as an inherently political position. This view recognizes that the concept of “woman”

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is always articulated within an ever-­changing context and that positions are in fact locations in which identity is constructed rather than discovered. However, identity is constructed with respect to the material circumstances of systemic inequality and social differences. What is more, positionality takes into account both social location and the politics of the production of that social location. This recognition of the possibility of shared experience or common ground (occupying the gender category woman) without assuming that the category is natural or given (being a woman) or that being a member of a particular category means that all members of that category have the same experiences is important for feminist theory and action. Positionality reveals the historical and political contingency of the production of subjectivity, while accounting for the possibility of shared interests and collective action; one’s social location is based on one’s position in ­a complex and changing network of power relations. Genealogies of Subjectivity Many feminists find Foucault’s ideas about power useful for feminist analysis because, as discussed earlier, his notion of the microphysics of power, specifically the ways that disciplines operate on the body, aptly captures the way that gender norms become embodied. And as discussed later, he views power as relational and fluid and this captures the complexity of different intersecting power relations. However, not all feminists are sympathetic to Foucault’s ideas. Some feminists view Foucault ’s move to problematize the subject with suspicion. Rosi Braidotti questions the wisdom of giving up the idea of subjectivity just at the moment that women have access to it. She says: “The combination of conceptual elements is quite paradoxical; deconstructing, dismissing, or displacing the notion of the rational subject at the very historical moment when women are beginning to have access to the use of discourse, power and pleasure… The truth of the matter is: one cannot deconstruct a subjectivity one has never been fully granted” (Braidotti, 1994, pp. 140–1). Nancy Hartsock wants to retain the idea of human subjectivity as essential to liberatory political struggle and action. She asks: “Why is it that just at the moment when so many of us who have been silenced begin to demand the right to name ourselves, to act as subjects, rather than objects of history, that just then the concept of subjecthood becomes problematic?” (Hartsock, 1990, p. 163). As I point out, their questions about women’s exclusion from being considered subjects ironically demonstrate Foucault’s point that the construction of subjectivity is an historical, normative process that results

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in exclusion. Foucault sees subjectivity as constituted through relations of power. As discussed later, relations of power operate through discourses, disciplines, and governmentality (tactics and strategies exerted on individuals to produce certain ends); on the micro-­level they affect individual bodies, and on the macro-­level they affect groups and populations. I have argued elsewhere that Foucault does not reject the notion of the subject tout court, but specifically attacks the modern subject of the Enlightenment and humanism (McLaren, 2002). Foucault provides a genealogy of the subject asking: How has the concept of subjectivity been produced historically? Here I explore how collective and individual subjectivities are produced within the contemporary context of globalization. Focusing on the ways that the dominant discourse positions women vis-­á­vis work, citizenship, and motherhood, I demonstrate that the ­production of gendered subjects is complex and contextual. In the following section I use a Foucauldian feminist framework to analyze the ways that discourses, institutions, and practices both produce and are transformed by subjects. By using a current example and starting from the lived daily experience of a particular group of women’s lives, I aim to provide a partial genealogy that illuminates broader questions about how subjects negotiate and transform the power relations that produce subjectivity in our contemporary globalized world. As we see in the next section, with regard to thinking about subjectivity, Foucault has much to offer.11

Foucault’s Toolbox Foucault makes several important contributions to understanding subjectivity in the contemporary world that parallel the significant feminist contributions to rethinking the traditional subject discussed earlier: subjectivity is non-­dualistic, it develops within historical and social contexts, and it emerges from the nexus of individual and social practices. For Foucault, bodies as material and culturally inscribed serve as the basis for subjectivity. Rather than asserting that subjectivity is the condition for the possibility of experience, Foucault claims that it is experience that results in a subject. Foucault is not referring here to a prediscursive, lived experience; he Foucault referred to his work several times as a ­“tool box,” meaning that theories are meant to be useful; and he encouraged his readers to take up whatever ideas they can use especially to short-­circuit systems of power. See Foucault (1994, p. 523) and Lotringer (1996, pp. 76 and 149).

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claims that experience is “the rationalization of a process, itself provisional” (Foucault, 1985, p. 12). He calls this process of becoming a subject, “subjectivization.” Significantly, subjectivization – to become a subject – implies a historical and social process rather than subjectivity as a starting point for experiencing the world. Foucault’s focus on the genealogy of the subject, rather than on a theory of subjectivity, highlights the importance of particular historical and social conditions for producing subjects, similar to Alcoff ’s notion of positionality. Foucault discusses power, discourses, and disciplines as normalizing processes through which subjectivity is constituted. His idea of governmentality is also useful for articulating the manner in which subjectivity is produced, especially in the context of ­globalization because governmentality operates on groups, and is not confined to the state. Thus, it can help to illuminate the ways that transnational processes, policies, and discourses produce subjectivity. Power One of Foucault’s distinctive contributions to theorizing subjectivity is his introduction of an analytics of power and his insights into the ways that subjectivity is produced through various practices and institutions. Foucault counters the traditional idea of power as hierarchical, negative, and unilateral. The standard view holds that one person exercises power over another. The prime example is of a ruler or sovereign exercising power over his subjects. Power is also characterized as negative, repressive, and limiting; it tells one what one cannot do. On this model power is also thought to be asymmetrical and unidirectional. The sovereign has more power than the subject and unilaterally exerts his power over the subject. By contrast, Foucault makes the case that power is pervasive, productive, and multivalent. He claims that individuals cannot possess power because it is not an entity, but a relation. Furthermore, power relations occur not just among individuals, but also between discourses and individuals. Foucault articulates a link between power-­knowledge and shows how social categories introduce norms through processes of inclusion and exclusion. Power is productive because new knowledge creates new categories and these categories produce individuals of a certain type. In History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Foucault discusses this process in terms of categories of sexuality. For instance, with regard to homosexuality he says, “Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy into a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual

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was now a species” (Foucault, 1980a, p.  43). In this way, power permeates social relations, as well as our relationship to ourselves. Power works through discourses, ­disciplines, practices, and governmentality to produce subjectivity. Recognizing that social and historical context significantly shapes subjectivity and that Foucault views power as pervasive led some critics to claim that subjects are determined by these forces and thus lack agency. However, a careful look at Foucault’s analytics of power offers resources for understanding agency as produced through power relations rather than outside of them. First, one must recognize that power is fluid, multiple, and dynamic. Because of this, power relations are never fixed, but constantly shift. So, the power “exerted” by social institutions or other individuals ­is not unidirectional, and thus does not completely determine their behavior. However, contrary to critics, Foucault’s analytics of power can account for asymmetries of power and domination.12 Second, wherever there is power, there is resistance. Practices of resistance challenge the normalizing force of institutions and discourses. Resistance is another avenue through which to conceptualize the agency of the subject. Discourses In History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Foucault traces the way that scientific, ­medical, and religious discourses work together to produce subjects that understand themselves as sexual subjects. Religious discourse urges us to confess our deepest desires, thus reinforcing the connection between sexual desire and the truth about ourselves. Medical and scientific discourses proliferate categories that specify individuals according to their sexual practices and desires. These discourses serve to normalize through the imposition of categories and judgments. Some of Foucault’s critics argue that his view of subjectivity results in a passive subject completely determined by outside forces. However, Foucault is clear that resistance is always possible, but that it occurs from within power relations, not from outside of them. Indeed, it can even be said that the creation of subjectivity is at the same time the creation of the possibility of resistance. Critics claim that Foucault’s analytics of power does ­not allow for asymmetries in power or systematic inequality. However, Foucault’s analytics of power does not imply that power is distributed equally. Foucault discusses asymmetries of power and domination in Foucault 1979, 1980b, 1982, 1997). Moreover, he employs the concept of domination in his later work. Domination is a form of power that is static; it is a condition he describes as “the locking together of power relations with the relations of strategy” (Foucault, 1982, p. 226).

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Foucault provides an example of this when he talks about “reverse ­ iscourses,” which is the way that stigmatized identities can be taken up to d make political demands, and garner social recognition.13 Reverse discourse captures the idea that although identity categories may be imposed ­upon individuals, individuals may in turn use the identity to transform the category itself. Transforming the category may mean broadening it to include those who were excluded, for example, the inclusion of women in the category of political citizenship; transforming the social meaning of the category, for example, the reclaiming of the word gay as a positive term for homosexuality rather than a derogatory one; or using the category to make demands for justice, for example, when workers make claims as workers for better working conditions and higher pay. Disciplines While discourses shape our self-­understandings and provide social and historical frameworks for interpretation, disciplines operate directly upon the body. Disciplines emerge from spatial relationships and from institutional arrangements. They are a form of micro-­power operating upon the body even at the level of gestures. Foucault offers several examples of disciplines’ direct effect on the body: in schools students sat, kneeled, and opened their books in time with a bell; in the military the action of firing a rifle was broken down into individual steps that took place in concert, and the synchronized march of the military was also composed of discrete movements. The idea that settings, institutions, and social context affect bodies even at the level of gestures demonstrates the salience of historical and social context for producing subjectivity. Moreover, discipline can be self-­imposed. Foucault’s well-­known description of Bentham’s Panopticon epitomizes the role of surveillance and self-­monitoring. The Panopticon is a prison designed with a central guard tower in the middle with windows all around so that the guard can see into the individual cells surrounding it. The prisoners modify their behavior in response to the surveillance. But the windows of the guard tower are such that the prisoners do not know when they are being observed. Still, the very possibility of surveillance Here again Foucault’s example is of homosexuals taking up an identity to lobby for gay [and lesbian] rights. But more generally this can be seen in a number of social movements, for example, the women’s movement and the Civil Rights ­movement. These social ­movements can be seen as the “insurrection of subjugated knowledges”: “Subjugated knowledges…are concerned with a historical knowledge of struggles” and “it is through the re-­appearance of this [subjugated] knowledge, of these local popular knowledges, these disqualified knowledges, that criticism performs its work” (Foucault, 1980b, pp. 82–83).

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means that the prisoners modify their behavior as though they were ­being observed. Although Foucault uses the prison as the model for the effects of ­surveillance on behavior, the same thing can be observed in society at large. For instance, he talks about the horizontal effects of power as ­employees in factories and offices monitor each other’s productivity and comings and goings. In “On Psychological Oppression,” Sandra Bartky points out that this idea of surveillance translating into self-­monitoring resonates with Sartre’s “the gaze.” Sartre claims that we come to recognize ourselves (as both a subject and object) through the gaze of the Other. Just as we modify our behavior in response to the gaze of others, subjectivity is shaped by the (perceived) expectations of others and by social norms. Foucault’s discussion of how disciplines operate on the body and on behavior helps to demonstrate the ways that subjectivity is produced not only in social, historical, and institutional contexts, but also in the context of unequal power relationships both at the macro-­ and the micro-­level. This obviously has implications for views of subjectivity that assume universality and uniformity, such as traditional philosophical views. As we have seen, Foucault is not alone in his challenge to these traditional philosophical views; feminists also argue that the “rational man” as the model for subjectivity does not do justice to the diversity of lived experience, nor to inequalities of power. Biopower and Governmentality One of the most useful things for feminist critique about Foucault’s analytics of power is that it encompasses the link between the social body and the individual body. While the concept of discipline addresses the way that power operates on individual bodies, the idea of biopower concerns the way that power functions through the social body. Biopower involves the control of populations with the aim of regulating birth, death, reproduction, health, life expectancy, and migration (Foucault, 1980a, pp. 139–40). Biopower and biopolitics operate at the state level and must be seen in the context of the management of state and local forces. According to Foucault, biopolitics “aims to treat the ‘population’ as a set of coexisting living beings with particular biological and pathological features, and which as such falls under specific forms of knowledge and technique” (Foucault, 2007, p. 367). The knowledges and techniques of biopolitics serve the interests of capitalism. Foucault claims: “This biopower was without question an ­indispensable

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element in the development of capitalism; the latter would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the ­machinery of production and the adjustment of the population to economic processes” (Foucault, 1980a, p.  141). Biopower  – the control of life through policies, practices, and regulations  – arises within the context of the increase in knowledges and administration. It clearly articulates a connection between the microphysics of power (bodies, identities) and macropower (populations/identity categories). Although Foucault explicitly states that biopolitics is a strategy at the state level, in the context of globalization in the twenty­first century it is also used at the transnational level, and operates through a variety of institutions: economics, laws, policies, and social norms. Like the concept of biopolitics, Foucault’s work on governmentality links the idea of state power to individuals; the state operates upon individuals through tactics and strategies. However, Foucault’s idea of governmentality is not the same as government or state. Governmentality on Foucault’s account does not replace a sovereign state or a disciplinary society but exists in tandem with them. He describes the relationship among sovereignty, discipline, and government as a triangle that works through apparatuses of security and whose primary target is the population (Foucault, 1991, p. 102). Governmentality includes a range of strategies and tactics used to achieve certain ends, such as population control or public health. This may include laws, policies, institutions, programs, or the circulation of specific information. Foucault’s idea of governmentality makes sense in light of globalization and the changing role of the state, because it encompasses a broader notion of government than politics or the state; it includes government, population, and political economy. Hence governmentality is a form of power that exceeds state boundaries and is not primarily legislative or judicial. It is a form of power that precedes the formation of the state (Foucault, 2007, p.  109). As a form of power not confined to state territory or limited by exercising forms of state power, governmentality may be useful in discussing the ways power operates both within and across state boundaries. Foucault’s concepts of governmentality, biopower, and biopolitics are useful in analyzing the ways that policies may be targeted toward women. The relationship between populations, government, and political economy transcends national borders and state regulation. It is not just capital but human capital (labor) as well that flows over borders. Increasingly, it is women who migrate to take up jobs outside their home countries. “Throughout the 1990’s women outnumbered men among migrants to the United States, Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Israel.

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Moreover, women make up over half the Filipino migrants to all countries, and 84% of Sri Lankan immigrants to the Middle East” (Ehrenreich ­& Hochschild, 2002, p. 6). The spread of global capitalism, the increase in transnational ­corporations, and the regulation by international institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization lead some to argue that the sovereignty of the nation-­state has been undermined. Foucault, too, questioned the importance of the state: “But the state, doubtless no more today than in the past, does not have this unity, this individuality, and ­rigorous ­functionality, nor, I would go so far as to say, this importance. After all, maybe the state is only a composite reality and a mythicized abstraction whose importance is much less than we think” (Foucault, 2007, p. 109). Although the state alone is not responsible for all the institutions that regulate the life of its citizens, it can play an important role in securing basic rights within state boundaries, and providing resistance to some of the negative effects of globalization. But it also may support policies that have contradictory effects on its citizens, as we shall see in the case of Moroccan women migrant workers.

Gendered Discourses of Labor and Citizenship As noted earlier, both Nancy Hartsock and Rosi Braidotti point out that historically women had been excluded from being considered full political and moral subjects. Women’s exclusion from the notion of subjectivity goes some way to proving Foucault’s point and underscoring the importance of seeing the construction of subjectivity as an historical process. A brief exploration of the discourses of labor and citizenship with respect to women may help to illuminate the ways that subjectivity is complexly constructed through social categories, as individual subjects are both constructed by and construct the categories. Historically, women have been excluded from the public sphere and relegated to domesticity. The public sphere here includes politics and paid employment and is juxtaposed to the private sphere of the home.14 Political theorists based citizenship on the “man as neutral” model discussed ­earlier.15 Correspondingly, some moral philosophers claimed that women had Here I am using public/private sphere in the sense ­used by political theorists to differentiate between politics and economic activity on the one hand and family and domestic life, on the other, not in the Habermasian sense. Evelyn Nakano Glenn points out that the nature of the public/private split varies by race, class, and ethnicity (Glenn, 1991). 15 See, for instance, Hobbes (1968) and Locke ­(1976). 14

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separate virtues such as compassion and sensitivity that suit them particularly well for family life.16 Moreover, according to Victorian ideology women were seen as “the angel in the house,” fragile, yet oddly morally superior. As many feminists have since argued, women do not constitute a homogeneous category, and therefore one cannot make claims about “women” in general, but must be sensitive to racial, class, and other differences among women.17 Here I am concerned with the ideology that constructs the category “women” as marked in relation to men but undifferentiated in itself, that is, the ideology of gender that posits white, middle-­class, heterosexual, able-­bodied, Christian women as the norm. Viewing women as “the Other” of men, and restricting women’s participation in the public sphere results in a logic of exclusion (not only of White, middle-­class women from the public sphere, but also of women of color from the category “woman”). Through social movements and legal reforms, women have fought for full inclusion in the public sphere of politics and work. However, once women are viewed as full citizens and legitimate wage-­laborers, new discourses of gender normativity may be mobilized. For instance, as I discuss later, gender norms reinforce the stereotype that women’s delicate hands suit them well for certain types of work (the nimble fingers discourse). Nonetheless, I argue that globalization does present some liberatory possibilities for women through local activism and transnational feminist organizing. Who counts as a citizen is defined both by the theoretical definition of citizen and also by the practical scope of citizenship, that is, who enjoys full political rights. From the outset women were excluded both from the definition and scope of citizenship: “Women, our bodies and distinctive capacities, represented all that citizenship and equality are not. ‘Citizenship’ has gained its meaning through the exclusion of women, that is to say (sexual) ‘difference’ ” (Pateman, 1992, p. 19). For women to be included as citizens they had to appeal to their similarity to men as rational beings, but simultaneously their exclusion from the category of citizen also positioned them as different from men. It is both because of their bodily “difference” from ­men and their socially prescribed gender roles that women have not only been excluded from the category of citizen but also excluded from the category of the political altogether; “the tradition of Western political thought rests on a conception of the political that is constructed through the exclusion See, for instance, Kant (1960) and Rousseau (1993). For instance, Paula Giddings points out that the “cult of true womanhood” hindered Black and White women’s ability to work together in the United States even as far back as the mid-­1850s (Giddings, 1985).

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of women and all that is represented by femininity and women’s bodies“ (Shanley & Pateman, 1991, p. 3). During the suffrage movement in the United States, women mobilized the discourse of rights that undergirds citizenship; they argued that the notion of rights applied to them and they ought to be included in the political community.18 In spite of the fact that women have been enfranchised by gaining the right to vote in most countries, and have been increasingly active in the economic sphere of paid labor, globally the concept of rights retains a male bias. Currently, some transnational feminists argue that the concept of rights ought to be extended to women globally.19 They argue that “women’s rights as human rights” can serve as a counter-­discourse to discourses that rely on stereotypical gender norms to discriminate against women. In terms of labor, gender norms limited White, middle-­class women’s employment, while racial and ethnic discrimination limited the opportunities not to work for women of color because they needed to help support their families. The history of labor with respect to gender, race, and class even within the United States is complicated, and I cannot address the ­issue fully here.20 Here my aim is to examine the ways that discourses of gender normativity operate in relation to citizenship, work, and motherhood. During the 1970s in the United States feminists argued for women’s inclusion in the paid labor force, with equal opportunities and equal wages (neither of which are fully realized today; currently in the United

This is obviously a vast oversimplification. Women ­in the United States were in the strange position of being citizens without the right to vote. Supreme Court cases such as Minor vs. Happersett 1872, upheld the idea that women were citizens in the eyes of federal law, but that states conferred the right to vote. Missouri, like most states at the time, did not grant women the right to vote and Virginia Minor lost the case (Rowland, 2004, pp. 24–5). 19 There is by no means agreement on this; some socialist feminists criticize extending human rights to women because of its focus on legal and political rights rather than social and economic rights. Alternatively, some postcolonial feminists argue that privileging rights perpetuates neo-­colonialism and Western imperialism. For feminist approaches that advocate a “women’s rights as human rights” approach, see Cook (1994) and Peters & Wolper (1995). 20 Women’s exclusion from paid labor varied ­depending on race and class. As many feminists have pointed out, the idea popularized by Betty Freidan and others in the 1970s that paid work was liberatory for women applied to women who had had the luxury of not working, primarily middle-­class White women. For a well-­known critique of this idea, see hooks (1984). For an excellent history of women’s work in the United States that integrates a gender and racial analysis, see Amott & Matthaei (1996). For further discussions of women and work that are attentive to race and ethnicity, and trace labor history in the United States as well as elsewhere, see Blumberg (1991); Milkman (1985); and Sacks & Marrone (2004). 18

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States women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn).21 In the past four decades, women have entered the paid workforce in record numbers. As noted, women’s ­participation in the workforce varies by race and class. But as Teresa Amott and Julie Matthaei report in their multicultural economic history of women’s work in the United States, “…[c]hanges in the supply of and demand for labor brought increases in women’s labor force participation rates for all racial-­ethnic groups and classes during the twentieth century… “ (1996, p. 304). Globally women’s participation in paid employment increased dramatically as well, often because of the new employment opportunities offered by multinational corporations discussed later. Justification for women’s exclusion from the public sphere of politics and paid labor was often based on their role as mothers (or potential mothers): “Childbirth and motherhood have symbolized the natural capacities ­that set women apart from politics and citizenship; motherhood and ­citizenship, in this perspective, like difference and equality, are mutually exclusive” (Pateman 1992, p. 18). Until passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978 in the United States, women could be forced to take unpaid leave months before and after the birth of a child, with no guarantee of employment when they returned. Recalling the 1960s, Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court, said, “If you were a school teacher in Texas, you could be told you had to quit if you got pregnant, or you’d be fired” (quoted in Rowland, 2004, p. 157). As discussed later, at least as recently as the 1980s multinational corporations located in the Global South gave pregnancy tests to women job applicants. In some cases, not only does the ideology of motherhood pose an ideological ­barrier to women’s participation in the public sphere, but also laws and policies prevent mothers’ full participation. Here we can see one of the ways that the biological “facts” about females’ capacity to bear children gets transformed into restrictive normative social roles and expectations, motherhood as liability. Similarly, stereotypes of femininity were sometimes used to exclude women from work, for example, femininity equals weak, vulnerable, passive, dependent, fragile, docile, delicate. Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech often cited as evidence of Black women’s historical inclusion in the workforce challenges these stereotypes of femininity that presume that women are weaker than and inferior to men. With respect to This, too, varies by race. The National Committee on Pay Equity breaks down the wage gap by gender and three racial groups: White, Black, Hispanic. White men are the top earners, followed by Black men, then White women, then Black women, then Hispanic men; Hispanic women earn the least. The report also breaks down median wages by ­gender, race, and education (Sacks & Marrone, 2004).

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work she said, “I have ploughed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me. And ain’t I a woman?” Further addressing women’s presumed weakness, she states, “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and helped over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages or over mud ­puddles or gives me the best place. And ain’t I a woman?”22 Truth was addressing the prevalent (raced) gender stereotypes. Her remarks simultaneously challenge the association of women with stereotypical femininity and highlight the racist construction of the category woman. As Foucault illustrates in many of his genealogies, norms operate through exclusion. Attention to the way that gender norms function reveals that the category “women” operates to perpetuate racial norms as well as gender norms. Norms of femininity simultaneously worked to ­exclude middle-­class White women from paid employment and Black women from the category of women. Social change and theoretical intervention have mitigated both; women of all races and classes are now more than ever part of the global labor market. And feminist analyses recognize the intersections of race, class, gender, and other social categories. As we shall see in the example of female Moroccan agricultural workers, the norms of femininity that once served to limit women’s participation in paid labor in this case function to increase the desirability of women as workers.

Gendered Labor and Globalization Globalization is not a gender-­neutral phenomenon; it serves both to ­re-­create and re-­shape traditional gender roles. Not surprisingly, because women are placed differently in particular cultures and societies than men, globalization has a differential effect on women. With the rise of ­multinational corporations and the switch to “light industries” of clothing and electronics manufacture as opposed to the “heavy industries” of construction and mining, women became the preferred employee. Multinational corporations prefer to employ women for a variety of reasons. Seen as supplementary workers rather than as the main wage earners, they are paid less than men. Women are also viewed as more “docile” and better suited to tedious repetitive tasks. “Multinationals want a workforce that is docile, easily manipulated and willing to do boring, repetitive assembly work. Women, they claim, are the perfect employees, with their I have paraphrased Sojourner Truth’s well known ­speech here without the dialect, based on the original version in Peach (1998, pp. 78–9).

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‘natural patience’ and ‘manual dexterity’” (Fuentes & Ehrenreich, 1983, p.  12). Sometimes states collude with corporations, trading on the same gender stereotypes. For example, the Malaysian government published an investment brochure boasting that: “The manual dexterity of the oriental female is famous the world over. Her hands are small and she works with extreme care… Who, therefore, could be better qualified by nature and inheritance to contribute to the efficiency of a bench-­assembly production line than the oriental girl” (Kabeer, 2000, p. 6)? Women are presumably sought after for their “natural feminine” qualities of patience and small hands with nimble fingers. But in actuality employers target women as employees because they can be paid less than men and are less likely to strike or organize unions. As evidenced by the Malaysian government brochure, it is the state as well as employers that reinforce this ideology of the natural feminine abilities of young women as workers. This ideology serves the interests of global capitalism and goes well beyond the state. The ‘nimble fingers’ discourse is used to justify the hiring of women in Mexican maquiladoras, Malaysian ­assembly lines, the Colombian flower industry, and as we shall see, in Spanish strawberry fields. In addition to using the stereotypes and discourse of femininity to justify preferential hiring of women to low-­paid, exploitative factory work, multinational corporations seek to regulate women’s reproduction as well. Employers prefer not just any women, but young, single women without children. In fact, some companies give pregnancy tests to potential employees, prefer to hire women who have been sterilized, or even offer prizes to women employees who undergo sterilization (Fuentes & Ehrenriech, 1983). This regulation of reproduction through practices and policies can be understood as an instance of Foucault’s biopower. In contrast to the preference for young, single women to work in the factories in the FTZs (Free Trade Zones) and the EPZs (Export Processing Zones), strawberry farmers in Spain prefer to hire married Moroccan women with young children to perform the seasonal agricultural work. Antonio Martin Gonzalez, a strawberry farmer in Cartaya, Spain says: “We don’t take women without children because we run the risk they’ll run away, that they will remain in Spain and not return to Morocco” (der Spiegel, May 11, 2007). Far from being the exploitative policy of a single individual or business, the idea of “circular migration,” temporary legal migration for seasonal workers, is supported by both the Spanish and Moroccan governments. Workers are recruited in Morocco and given temporary three-­ to nine-­month legal contracts to work in Spain. Some in the European Union see circular migration as a solution to the need

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for cheap labor and a way to control illegal immigration (der Spiegel, May 11, 2007). Indeed, the circular migration program between Morocco and Spain was supported with 1.2 million euros in funding from the EU (OSCE, 2009, p. 53). Interestingly, the same nimble fingers discourse that justifies young, single, Mexican women working in maquiladoras is used to justify the choice of married Moroccan mothers as strawberry pickers. As the mayor of Cartaya told the Moroccan press, “Experience has shown that Moroccan women are sensitive and hard-­working and with their slender hands that is something the strawberries really appreciate” (quoted in Zeneidi, 2011, p. 5). Although it is not clear the strawberries appreciate the slender hands of the Moroccan women, it is clear that the discourse of femininity that characterizes women as well suited to repetitive tasks that require manual dexterity as well as characterizing them as docile, and easy to control is employed transnationally in various contexts and in different working situations (agriculture, textiles, electronics manufacturing). It is a ­discourse with global circulation. Although motherhood is an explicit criterion for selection of the Moroccan women workers, pregnancy or birth during the time that they are working in Spain is prohibited and results in immediate dismissal from the job (Zeneidi, 2011). In 2008, twenty-­five Moroccan women were sent back to Morocco after giving birth in Huelva, Spain (Thomas, 2009). Here we can see how their status as mothers functions in a complex and ambivalent way: it both qualifies them for work (albeit exploited labor) if they already have children and disqualifies them from work if they have children while employed. In this way reproductive capacity is controlled through the distribution of opportunities, policies, and expectations. The individual body (micropower) is controlled through the social body (biopower/biopolitics). Moreover, the policy to select mothers to work puts pressure on women to have children in order to qualify as a seasonal worker. “These women face demands to have children so that they will be eligible for immigration. This condition creates problems. The negative repercussions include divorce and family break-­up” (Ali, 2011). Economic changes due to globalization, state policies and interstate agreements, regional alliances, and gender ideology about femininity (women’s work) and motherhood all contribute to shaping the opportunities available to poor, rural Moroccan women. Both literally and metaphorically, their subjectivity is formed through a politics of location: as women, as mothers, as rural, as poor, as Moroccan, and as (temporary) immigrants. Nonetheless, some of the women reported a sense of independence and

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freedom.23 Earning a living (even a meager one) increased self-­esteem: “They are [also] proud that they are able to make a ­valuable economic contribution to their families and children” (Zeneidi, 2011, p.  11). Migrating alone means that the women may be living on their own for the first time. Some enjoyed this newfound independence and not being subject to traditional gender roles and male scrutiny. They “found temporary relief in being able to escape their traditional roles at home.” As one interviewee said: “Nowadays girls’ lives resemble boys lives: they have to fight, they travel to find work and earn a living” (Zeneidi, 2011, p.  11). Ironically, the gender traditional role of motherhood qualifies Moroccan women for the nontraditional gender roles of wage earner, traveler, and independent woman. Changes in location, situation, and circumstances may help to contribute to new possibilities for constructing identity. Or it may provide opportunities for exercising agency by choosing to return to Spain for seasonal work, or to not return to Morocco after the seasonal contract is over. The complex construction of subjectivity through discourses, institutions, policies, and social location serves not only to enable individual agency, but also to promote collective action. The experience of being a wage earner mobilized some women; in March 2009 Moroccan women participated in a demonstration in Seville, Spain demanding labor improvements in the agricultural sector in Andalucia, Spain where they worked. On returning to Morocco, some women who had worked in Spain demanded higher wages for their agricultural work in Morocco, saying: “How come you are only paying us 3 Euros a day? We know you can’t pay as much as in Spain, but our salary is ridiculous. We won’t work for less than 10 Euros a day” (Thomas, 2009, p. 28). The policies that selected married Moroccan mothers as seasonal agricultural workers because of their “feminine qualities,” including docility and attachment to their children, seem to have transformed their identities into workers able to engage in collective action and make demands. Transnational feminism often mobilizes human rights discourse to secure women’s rights. The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) The women experienced independence and ­freedom from traditional gender roles, while as workers they encountered new restrictions. It is in part the contradiction, that is, using motherhood as a qualification for wage laborer, and in part the reshaping of identity through new social categories, that is, identifying as a worker, that opens up new possibilities for self-­understanding and negotiating subjectivity within the discourses, practices, and policies that shape it. Still, ethical issues remain for scholars and women’s rights workers about how to avoid making attributions of false consciousness while maintaining that the subjectivity of the workers is not all that matters in making claims about their situation. I owe this point to Romin ­Tafarodi.

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“has consistently promoted and defended the human rights of all migrants and their families with a special focus on women, against the threat of an increasingly globalized labor market” (Thomas, 2009, p. 6). Nerea Thomas authored GAATW’s report on the situation of temporary migrant workers in the strawberry sector in Spain which discusses the shift from male undocumented workers in the agricultural sector to circular migration schemes with Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania (until they were admitted into the EU) and since then, the change to a circular ­migration agreement with Morocco. This increasing feminization and ethnification of the strawberry sector relies on the use of gender stereotypes (women are more careful, work harder, and are less problematic than men) and cultural stereotypes (Moroccan women are less problematic than Eastern European women) (Thomas, 2009). Thomas notes that the requirement of marriage and children for Moroccan strawberry workers discriminates not only against women who do not meet both of these requirements, such as single mothers, but also against men. Protecting women’s rights in this case means recognizing that some, but not all, women benefit from preferential hiring. But it also means examining the conditions of the work for which married women with children are hired, and advocating for better labor conditions. Finally, in this example in which circular migration itself is targeted toward women, there remain questions about whether it protects rights by providing a legal contract for work and a visa before leaving one’s country of origin or whether the requirement of return and the prohibition against having children while employed violates rights. In this case transnational feminist activism must negotiate the contradictory effects of particular policies as well as the complex intersections of the processes of global economics and discourses about gender, labor, and migration.

Conclusion As the complicated situation of Moroccan women migrant workers shows, in the twenty-­first century processes of globalization contribute to the shaping of subjectivity in multiple ways. While discourses of femininity often circumscribe women’s options, here the preference for “the slender hands” of Moroccan women offers the opportunity for women to legally migrate and earn money. However, one might note that being poor, rural, female, and Moroccan may initially narrow one’s options so that exploitative, poorly paid, temporary agricultural work seems preferable only by comparison to poverty. Yet far from being immobilized by the networks of power that shape their lives, Moroccan female agricultural workers articulate the ways that they

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have agency and are empowered and they also engage in collective action. Moreover, transnational feminist organizations advocate a human rights approach to deal with issues of gender discrimination, exploited labor, and migrant rights in this situation. This example shows how a Foucauldian, feminist framework illuminates the ways that subjectivity is both structured through material circumstances and ideologies and resists them. Foucault’s work on power offers a rich framework for analyzing ­subjectivity in the context of globalization because it accounts for power both at the level of the construction of identity and agency and at the level of multiple transnational and state institutions and processes: “There is not a sort of break between the level of micro-­power and the level of macro­power, and [that] talking about one [does not] exclude talking about the other. In actual fact, an analysis in terms of micropowers comes back without any difficulty to the analysis of problems such as those of government and the state” (Foucault, 2007, p. 358). In an age of globalization, subjectivity is produced through a complex negotiation of multiple and conflicting practices and policies, both local and global, that shape identity and often transform identity to offer new possibilities. As demonstrated through the example of the temporary migrant Moroccan women strawberry workers, individual subjects negotiate their own identities by drawing on the complex web of social relations and meanings and engaging in individual and collective resistance. References Alcoff, L. (1988). Cultural feminism versus poststructuralism: The identity crisis in feminist theory. Signs, 13: 405–36. Ali, S. (2011). Moroccan female farmworkers struggle in Spain. Retrieved from: http://www.magharebia.com (Accessed June 10, 2011). Amott, T., & Matthaei, J. (1996). Race, gender and work: A multi-­cultural economic history of women in the United States. Boston: South End Press. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bartky, S. (1990a). On psychological oppression. In Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression (pp. 22–32). New York: Routledge.   (1990b). Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression. New York: Routledge. Benhabib, S. (1987). The generalized and concrete other. In E. F. Kittay & D. T. Meyers (Eds.). Women and moral theory (pp. 154–77). Totowa, NJ: Roman & Littlefield.   (1992). Situating the self: Gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. New York: Routledge. Blumberg, R. L. (Ed.) (1991). Gender, family and economy: The triple overlap. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

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Index

absorption, 148–49 Adams, David, 89 Adler, Alfred, 37 Alcoff, Linda, 222–23 Alfred, Taiaiake, 176 Alice in Wonderland (Burton), 140 Amadahy, Zainab, 178–82 ambiguity of freedom, 20 The American Nervousness (Beard), 126 Anti-­Semite and Jew (Sartre), 105 Arnett, J., 52 arts, political power, 161 Axial Age, Great Disembedding, 13–17, 35–36 Bakhtin, M., 34 Balázs, Béla, 153 Baraister, Lisa, 96 Bartky, Sandra, 228 Bauman, Zygmunt, 198–99 Beard, James, 126 Benjamin, Walter, 103–4 Bentham’s Panopticon, 227–28 Beyle, Marie Henri, 158 Bhatia, S., 57–58, 63 bio-­power, governmentality, 17, 228–30 black feminist standpoint, 220, 221 Blanke, Olaf, 155–56 Borg, Marcus, 15 Braidotti, Rosi, 223 BrainGate, 157 Brave New World (Huxley), 141 Buddhism, 14–15 Burton, Tim, 140 Butler, Judith, 92–93, 95, 99, 103–4 Byrne, Rhonda, 121

California “Task Force” on self-­esteem, 119–20 Callero, P. L., 47 Campbell, W. Keith, 124 Chambers, John, 197 Christianity, 15, 16–17, 21–22 Cisco Systems, 197 Cixous, Hélène, 100 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 22 Collins, Patricia Hill, 220 community dissolution, family structure, 67 Cooley, Charles Horton, 137 corporate reinvention, 196–97 Crenshaw, Kimberle, 221 cultural positions, social proximity, distance, 62–63 The Culture of Narcissism (Lasch), 118, 122–23 The Culture of The New Capitalism (Sennett), 204 Cushman, Philip, 20, 25–26 Day, Richard J. F., 174 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 20, 132, 191 decentered self, 25–27 Decolonizing Antiracism (Lawrence, Dua), 178–82 Decolonizing Resistance, Challenging Colonial States (Sharma, Wright), 180 DeLillo, Don, 207 Democracy in America (de Tocqueville), 132 dependence, interdependence, relationality, 216–18 Dewey, John, 143–47

245

246 dialogical self, social power, globalization, 4, 7, 31–33 acceleration of, 42 acculturation and, 57–58 collective, individual voices, 47–48 cultural positions, social proximity, distance, 62–63 dialogue and dominance, 48–49 dialogical self as multiplicity of I-­positions, 45–46 dialogic understanding, 30–31 dominance and social power, 47 friendship as other self, 60–61 fundamentalist movements and, 52 globalization acceleration, 42 globalization and dialogue, 45–46 globalization history, 41–42 global-­local dialectics, 43–46 group dialog, social power, 45–46 hermeneutics, dialogical self, 27–35 hierarchical position repertoires, 52–54 history of, 41–42 homogenizers vs. heterogenizers, 62–63 hybridization of positions, 62 identity confusion and, 51–52 Indian Americans study, 57–58 Ireland immigration example, 56–57 localization coexistence, 44–45 monologue/dialogue continuum, 58–61 monologue/dialogue mixtures, 59–60 as multiplicity of I-­positions, 45–46 organization of self, vertical vs. horizontal, 52–54 Pakistani family, 54–55 self as continuous in discontinuous society, 54–58 self as society of mind, 46–54 subjectivity and, 55 Wilkinson’s transactional civilization model, 44–45 Dialogical Self Theory, 43, 50–51 disengagement, displacement, 22–24, 26–27, 32, 33–34 dogmatism, cynicism, 36 dominance and social power, 47 Donald, Merlin, 148 Donoghue, John, 157 Dua, Ena, 178–82 Dunne, Joseph, 18, 29, 32 economic outsourcing, 204–5 effective organization, 69–70

Index embodied subjectivity, 213–15 embodiment, relationships, social location, 213–24 the encapsulated self, 70–73 Erikson, Kai, 129–30 essentialism, false universalization, 221–22 ethos, 11 false memories, artistic means of implanting, 158–61 feeling, structure of, 1 feminist perspectives. see globalized subjectivity, feminism, Foucalt Feurbach theses, 22 Foucault, M., 18, 26, 194–95, 225–26 freedom to vs. for, 20 Freud, Sigmund, 89, 93–94 friendship as other self, 60–61 Fromm, Erich, 20 fundamentalist movements, 52 gender(ed) to feminist subjectivity, 221–23 labor, citizenship, 230–34 labor, globalization, 234–38 norms, 214–15 Generation Me (Twenge, Campbell), 124 Gergen, Kenneth, 66 Giddens, A., 193–94 Gilligan, Carol, 217–18 Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), 237–38 global networks, consumer capitalism, 2 globalization, 203–4, 207, 211–12. see dialogical, also self, social power, globalization acceleration, 42 dialogue and, 45–46 global migration, 7–8 history, 41–42 globalized subjectivity, feminism, Foucault, 7–8 Bentham’s Panopticon, 227–28 bio-­power, governmentality, 228–30 black feminist standpoint, 220, 221 dependence, interdependence, relationality, 216–18 disciplines, 227–28 embodied subjectivity, 213–15 embodiment, relationships, social location, 213–24

Index essentialism, false universalization, 221–22 gender norms, 214–15 gendered labor, citizenship, 230–34 gendered labor, globalization, 234–38 gendered to feminist subjectivity, 221–23 globalization, 211–12 intersectionality theory, 221 micro-­physics of power, 223 Moroccan women, 211, 235–39 mothering, 216–17 politics of location, standpoint theory, 218–20 positionality, 222–23 power, 224–26, 239 reverse discourse, discourses, 226–27 global-­local dialectics, 43–46 God as society, 15 Gopnik, Alison, 151 Governing the Soul (Rose), 194 Gray, John, 141, 158 Grossman, Gene, 204–5 group dialogue, social power, 45–46 Guigon, C., 28 Gunton, Colin, 20–23 Haig-­Brown, Celia, 183 Hammerschlag, S., 105 Harding, Sandra, 219 Hartsock, Nancy, 219–20, 223 Hegel, G. W. F., 8 Heine, Heinrich, 41 Held, David, 203 History of Sexuality (Foucault), 225–26 Hobbes, Thomas, 216 homo sincerus to homo authenticus, 112–16, 136–37 Honneth, Axel, 91 Huxley, Aldous, 141 identity cost, 31 Indian Americans study, 57–58 indigenous peoples, 6, 170–71, 177–78, 181–82 individualism, 20. see also new individualism theory Western tradition of, 66–67 inner speech, 32–33 instant change, consumerism, 198–201 internet usage, 68 intersectionality theory, 221 intersectionality/identity-­oppression paradigm, 181, 186–87 Inventing Our Selves (Rose), 194

247

Ireland immigration example, 56–57 isolated, reflexive individualism, 191–92 James, William, 118, 120–21 Johnson, Marcia K., 159 Johnson, Paul, 22 Judaism, Jewish people, 105–7 Khanna, Ranjana, 97–98 King, Deborah, 221 Kubovy, Laurence, 147–48 Kundera, Milan, 201 Laplanche, Jean, 92 Lasch, Christopher, 90, 118, 122–23 Lawrence, Bonita, 178–82 Laws, Curtis Lee, 89 LDSWA debate, 178–82 Lessons From the Bridge: On the Possibilities of Anti-­Racist Feminist Alliances in Indigenous Spaces (Sehdev), 182 Lewis, Adam, 174 liberal individualism, 12–13, 31 liberal ironist concept, 78 Liquid Life (Bauman), 198–99 localization coexistence, 44–45 The Lonely Crowd (Riesman), 191 The Long Revolution (Williams), 1 lost lacks, 100–5 MacIntyre, A., 34 MacLenna, Alastair, 154 Mantegna, Andrea, 156 Maslow, Abraham, 120 Mead, G. H., 46 melancholic subjectivity anachronism and, 96 fundamentalist, death drive, 89 Judaism, Jewish people, 105–7 lost lacks, 100–5 melancholic postcoloniality, 96–100 narcissism, melancholia cultures, 90–96 nostalgia, fundamentalism, resistance, 88–90 rootless cosmopolitanism and, 105–8 technology, viral communication and, 87 micro-­physics of power, 223 Mind, Self and Society (Mead), 46 Mohanty, Chandra, 222 monologue/dialogue continuum, 58–61 Moroccan women, 211, 235–39 mothering, 216–17

248

Index

Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (Woolf), 111 narcissism, 90–96, 111, 118, 122–24, 134 The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (Twenge), 124 Neisser, Ulric, 159 new individualism theory corporate reinvention, 196–97 economic outsourcing, 204–5 globalization, 203–4, 207 instant change, consumerism, 198–201 isolated, reflexive individualism, 191–92 key institutional drivers, 195–205 reflexive modernization, 193 reinvention craze, 206–7 self-­reinvention, 196–98 short-­termism, episodicity, 202–5 situating the self, reflexivity, technologies, 192–95 social theory and, 190–92 speed, social acceleration, 201–2 technologies of the self, 194–95 Nokia, 196–97 nostalgia, fundamentalism, resistance, 5, 88–90 N Row Wampum, radical subjectivity, 6 autonomy, settler society, dominant global order, 169–73 indigenous peoples, 170–71, 177–78, 181–82 infinities upon infinities, 186–87 intersectionality/identity-­oppression paradigm, 181, 186–87 LDSWA debate, 178–82 Settler societies, narrative, 175, 176, 177–78, 181–82, 184–85 towards n-­dimensional networks of relations, 182–86 Two Row Wampum (Kaswentah), 172–73, 175–82, 183 what we are, what we say, 173–75 On Psychological Oppression (Bartky), 228 One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self Reliance (Sommers, Satel), 124–25 organization of self, vertical vs. horizontal, 52–54 Pakistani family, 54–55 Palacios, Margarita, 98 Philosophy of Right (Hegel), 8 Pippen, Robert, 20 Plato, 21, 32

the playing self, 73–79 political, institutional perspectives, 6 politics of location, standpoint theory, 218–20 positionality, 222–23 postmodern relativism, 13, 35–36 postmodern social/constructionist thought, 22–24, 33–34 power, 224–26, 239 premodern outlooks, 16, 32 Presocatrics, 20–23 punctual self, 18–19 reflexive modernity, 1, 193 Reformation, 16–17 reinvention craze, 206–7 reverse discourse, 226–27 revolt of the many against the one, 20–24 Rieff, Phillip, 118 Riesman, David, 113, 117, 191 Rimbaud, Arthur, 32 rootless cosmopolitanism, 105–8 Rorty, Richard, 25, 78 Rose, Niklas, 194 Rossi-­Hansberg, Esteban, 204–5 Rubin, Gayle, 214 Sacks, Jonathan, 27 Sacks, Oliver, 158–59 Said, Edward, 48, 101 Satel, Sally, 124–25 Sartre, Jean-­Paul, 105 The Saturated Self (Gergen), 66 scientific revolution, Enlightenment thinking, 17–18 Sebald, W. G., 158 second order self, 77 The Secret (Byrne), 121 A Secular Age (Taylor), 13–14 Sehdev, Kaur, 182–83 self, memory, imagination, 147–50 self as continuous in discontinuous society, 54–58 self as society of mind, 46–54 self-­consciousness, 21st century American culture, individualism, 130–33 character, personality ideals, 111–12 character types as partisan symbols, 116–18 culture wars skirmishes, 118–28 divided culture, 128–35 homo sincerus to homo authenticus, 112–16, 136–37

Index individual and social world, fundamental questions, 113–14 inner-­directed character, 113 narcissism, 111, 123–24, 134 scholarly, popular authors, 112 therapism, 117, 118, 124–27, 135 self-­esteem, 115, 118–21, 133 California “Task Force,” 119–20 selfhood, episodic memory, factuality, 150–53 selfhood and morality, 11 self-­reinvention, 196–98 Sennett, Richard, 204 settler societies, narrative, 175, 176, 177–78, 181–82, 184–85 Sharma, Nandita, 180–81 short-­termism, episodicity, 202–5 simulative technology, 6 Sincerity and Authenticity (Trilling), 112–13 situating the self, reflexivity, technologies, 192–95 Slife, B., 27–28 Slowness (Kundera), 201 Smith, Huston, 14 social acceleration, speed, 201–2 Social Psychology as History (Gergen), 66 Sommers, Christina, 124–25 sovereign self, 18 spectator pleasure, 76 St. James Led to Execution (Mantegna), 156 subjective uncertainty absorption, 148–49 arts, political power, 161 collective, cultural into period episodic memories, 161–64 Dewey, art as experience, 143–47 emerging technologies, artistic points-­of­view, agency, subjective uncertainty, memory, 153–58 false memories, artistic means of implanting, 158–61 self, memory, imagination, 147–50 selfhood, episodic memory, factuality, 150–53 subjectivity, self, 3–4 subjectivity and strong relationality ambiguity of freedom, 20 Axial Age, Great Disembedding, 13–17, 35–36 biopower, 17 Buddhism, 14–15 Christianity, 15, 16–17, 21–22 decentered self, 25–27 dialogic understanding, 30–31

249

dialogical self, 27–35 disengagement, displacement, 22–24, 26–27, 32, 33–34 dogmatism, cynicism, 36 ethos, 11 Feuerbach’s thesis, 22 freedom to vs. for, 20 God as society, 15 identity cost, 31 individualism, 20 inner speech, 32–33 instrumentality, 19, 26–27 liberal individualism, 12–13, 31 means-­vs. constituent-­end, 30 modern self, 17–20 postmodern relativism, 13, 35–36 postmodern/social constructionist thought, 22–24, 33–34 premodern outlooks, 16, 32 Presocratics, 20–23 punctual self, 18–19 reconciliation of the one and many, 33–35 Reformation, 16–17 revolt of the many against the one, 20–24 scientific revolution, Enlightenment thinking, 17–18 selfhood and morality, 11 sovereign self, 18 strong relationality, 27–28 truth effects, 26 unity of individual life, narrative quest, 34 value neutrality, 11–13 worldview, 11 Susman, Warren, 117 Taylor, Charles, 13–14, 18, 22, 29, 30, 31 technology, relational being communication technology and, 66 community dissolution, family structure and, 67 effective organization and, 69–70 the encapsulated self, 70–73 future view, peril vs. prosperity, 79–82 individualism, Western tradition and, 66–67 information and communication technology, 4–5, 42 internet usage, 68 melancholic subjectivity, 87 mobile phones, floating world, micro­communities and, 71–73 the playing self, 73–79 professional sports statistics, 74

250 technology, relational being (cont.) second order self and, 77 simulative technology, 6 situating the self, reflexivity, technologies, 192–95 social supports and, 67 spectator pleasure, 76 technologies of the self, 194–95 technology, viral communication, 87 the unbounded self, 68–70 virtual, online games, 75 web-­based communities, 71 therapism, 117, 118, 124–27, 135 The Traffic in Women (Rubin), 214 Trilling, Lionel, 112–13 Trudeau, Gary, 119 truth effects, 26 Tulving, Endel, 149–50 Tuner, Dale, 177 Turkle, Sherry, 73 Turner, Ralph, 117 Turrell, James, 153 Twenge, Jean, 124

Index the unbounded self, 68–70 Uncle Tungsten (Sacks), 158–59 unity of individual life, narrative quest, 34 value neutrality, 11–13 Vasconcellos, John, 119 Vertigo (Sebald), 158 virtual, online games, 75 Voltaire, 15 web-­based communities, 71 Wilde, Oscar, 78 Wilkinson, D., 44–45 Wilkinson’s transactional civilization model, 44–45 William of Ockham, 23 Williams, Raymond, 1 Wolf, Alan, 23 Wollheim, Richard, 150–53 Woolf, Virginia, 111 Wright, Cynthia, 180–81 Žižek, Slavoj, 99–100, 102–3, 105, 106–7