The Me (belongs to the past) THE ME IS NOT AN AGENT, NOT A
CONSCIOUSNESS, IT DOESN’T DO, FEEL OR THINK ANYTHING
Image
Role/Performance
Idea
Ideal
Narrative
The Internalization of the Generalized Other
The I (belongs to the present)
Consciousness
Freedom
Novelty
Creativity
The Unique, Creative and Novel Response to the Me
To have a self or to be a self requires that one take oneself as
an object (a ME) in a social context.
But who or what is responsible for HOW one TAKES ONESELF
as an object?
Clearly individuals can mix it up, abandon, or choose between
competing mes and to that extent there is considerable room
here for an understanding of the me that is not reducible to a
sociological phenomenon alone. But we ought not to rule out
either the possibility that the I is what Mead himself says it is,
namely a potentially novel and creative response to the me or
to society in general.
Options for the I
1. If the I is a novel reply to the me or author of the me, the me cannot be a
sociological phenomenon alone.
2. If the me is a sociological phenomenon alone the I must be a narrator or
performer of a story it did not write.
3. If the me is a product of both the I and society the I will be better
construed as a co-author of the me that adapts, adjusts and transforms social
identities in concert with others.
4. Or perhaps the I is a kind of juggler and manager of social identities and
roles, capable of choosing between competing identities, abandoning
identities and of choosing new ones
Mead on the Self (Key Points and Questions)
The Me
1. According to Mead to have a self means to be able to take oneself as an object or
more simply put it means to be able to reflect on oneself. As we have seen if
consciousness is a directedness (intentionality or transcendence) towards a perceived,
imagined or cognitive object, one thing consciousness can perceive, imagine or think
about is itself.
2. Now from Mead’s point of view when I reflect on myself the part of the self that
is doing the reflecting is the “I” and the part that is reflected upon is the “me”.
3. Thus when I think about myself as a teacher, it is my I that does the reflecting and it
is the role that I play or the image or idea that I have of myself as a teacher that is the
“me”. But of course we also think about our own thinking all the time, for example
whenever we reflect on what we have just said, whenever we wonder about why we
have the thoughts we have or whenever someone else asks us to explain why we
believe what we believe. Thus the thoughts that I have had (and can think about or
reflect upon) also belong to my me.
4. It is important to understand then that the me does not imagine,
think, perceive or do anything. The me is not a subject, it is not a
consciousness and it certainly is not self-reflective, the me rather is a
social role, image or idea that I might have about myself but it is also
any aspect of myself that I can objectify like my dreams, my thoughts,
my beliefs etc .
5. For instance when little boys and little girls are learning what it
means to be a boy or a girl they are learning how to think about
themselves in certain ways, how to embody certain ideals, how to “put
on” or manufacture a certain image or look etc. The part of the self
that does the learning, embodying, manufacturing and reflecting once
again is the I, and on the other hand the ideal, idea and image etc. is
the me to the extent that an I identifies with that ideal or sees itself as
the embodiment of that ideal to some extent.
6. For Mead however I can only take myself as an object if I can see myself through
the eyes of someone else, that is I must be able to see myself as I see others or to put
this in another way I must be able to take myself as the other of someone else’s
gaze.
7. To see oneself as a boy or girl then is to see oneself as the embodiment of an
ideal that will be visible to others, in short I must perform myself as a certain version
of masculinity or femininity that I know others will recognize. In other words to have
a self requires that I must be able to take myself as an object or better socially
defined role that can only exist in a socially determined “game.” Mead defines
gaming in opposition to playing (see Hunting on Mead R99).
8. Mead defines the me as the “internalization of the generalized other” (and it can
be linked as a result to Freud’s notion of the superego). Internalization is when you
take the way someone else sees you and you come to see yourself that way too. Thus
if a father is always telling his son that he thinks he is smart, the son will come to see
himself that way, he will take the father’s view (which is external) and make it internal
by adopting the same view. If the me is the “internalization of the generalized other”
then all that means is that the me is a general role or ideal – that initially belongs to
others - that the individual takes as its own. Thus for example a young teacher may try
to be like the teachers he always liked. (Importantly as we will see shortly the
internalization belongs to the I).
9. Mead’s baseball analogy is a simple yet far-reaching illustration of what the me is all about.
Basically to learn how to play baseball means to learn certain roles, rules and goals. To learn the
role of first baseman for example is to learn what the objectives of the team on the field are and
how those objectives are to be reached. More specifically however it is to learn what I can
reasonably expect from others and what they can reasonably expect from me given what the
roles, rules and objectives of the game are. Mead’s important claim however is that ALL social
relations and ALL socially defined roles (mother/daughter, husband/wife, student/teacher,
friend/friend, employer/employee etc.) function exactly like baseball. Thus to learn one’s role as a
teacher is to know what you can reasonably expect from your students, and to learn one’s role as
a student is to learn what you can reasonably expect from your teachers. But knowing what you
can and cannot expect from your friends works the same way. And to the extent that the self is
in part a me it is clear that the self is in large measure a product of the social games one must
join in order to have a sense of who you are.
10) Knowing who you are then, that is, knowing what one’s role is, is all about knowing who
you are NOT. But this exclusion extends to all social relations. For example to know one is a boy
implies that you know what a girl is and that you are NOT that. To know you are the teacher is
to know what it means to be a student and in what sense your rights and responsibilities are
not the same.
Part Two - The I
1. It is not surprising that Mead defines the self in largely social terms, that is,
as the embodiment of social norms, values and more specifically roles. He is
after all a sociologist. (Thus in the same way Plato thought the natural world
is the embodiment of immaterial forms or ideals, Mead thought that part of
the self, namely the me, is the embodiment of social forms or ideals).
2. On the other hand Mead recognizes that there is another part of the self
that is not just about the embodiment of and identification with a socially
defined ideal or role in a socially defined game, that part of the self is what
makes us individuals and not just “generalized roles”; that part is the I.
3. The “I” is essentially the existential version of consciousness with which
we are already familiar. Mead even goes so far as to say that the I is a “pure
consciousness” and a “creative response” to the me.
4. He also says that the I is always in the present while the me is always in
the past. What this means is that consciousness is always in the present but
the social roles that we perform and embody belong to existing and often
time worn ideals that belong to the past. Even a decision like deciding to
become a student at Dawson illustrates this point. Thus it is the I that decides
- in a present moment - to confirm the school’s acceptance, but as soon as
the confirmation letter has been sent and the school fees have been paid the
individual’s me has changed, because now the individual can identify
themselves as a “Dawson Student.” But this identification (which owes to a
past decision) can easily change of course as soon as the individual decides to
stop their studies or to switch to another school.
5. Thus if according to Mead to have a self or to be a self requires that one
take oneself as an object and one can only take oneself as an object in a social
context, from the point of view of the I it is crucial that we underline that it is
only the I that can perform this task of taking the views of others, taking the
views of others perhaps only to reject them, to adapt or revise them.
6. This however has major implications for Mead’s theory for if the I can actually
change the me, choose between competing mes (for example, choose between being
a student at Dawson or Vanier), abandon past mes or perhaps even invent their own
mes (for example, their own personalized way of being a teacher), then the me is not
a product of society alone and the I might be rightly characterized as the
existentialists argued as the author of the self.
7. At times Mead seems to want to have it both ways, that is, he wants to say that the
me is a social phenomenon alone – the internalization of the generalized other – and
also hold that the I is the seat of a unique voice, creative response and pure
consciousness. But this is not possible. Either the I can be the author of the me or not,
and if not the I will be better described as a narrator of social narratives and ideals it
did not itself author. On the other hand if the I can determine the nature of the me,
the me is not a social phenomenon alone. Or perhaps we can think of the I as a coauthor of the me or perhaps even as a juggler of multiple mes?
Juggling Gender quotes
“Jennifer’s appearance directly confronted my rigid notions of gender, her use
of performance and the vehicle of the circus allowed me to look, to stare and
to notice difference. I had started off by questioning the meaning of feminism
but my quest was expanding, I now found myself asking what is a woman and
what are the connections between appearance, gender identity and
feminism.” Tami Gold
My definition of gender is created not only by how I am and who I am but by
my interaction with society so I would be glad to think of myself as a woman
with a beard even though the category of woman – I’m speaking not of what
we rigidly think of as a woman but something sort of expanded and more
inclusive – but I have this experience in which I’m treated as a man often so
after years of that I feel like that affects my character so in the cultural sense
that my interaction with society affects my gender I feel something that is a
little different than just a woman.
Nachbar
1. A stereotype is an overly simplified conception of a type of thing, place or
person that insists all members of that type must share certain properties. (ex
all American cars are cheap, all cities are dirty, all hipsters have beards).
2. Thus a type is a category or kind of thing, whereas a stereotype makes
false or unnecessarily narrowing claims regarding what properties a type of
thing must have.
3. Stereotypes are especially dangerous when they are based on false,
negative or damaging portrayals of a people.
4. Stereotypes are also dangerous when they are internalized, i.e. when
people presume that they themselves must embody them.
5. Seven characteristics of a stereotype are that they are:
erroneous
simple
shared by a group
learned second hand
can be internalized
are difficult to change
are direct expressions of belief
Key Terms in Nachbar
A Type is a kind of thing, person or place (ex. the general category of
“American car.”) A type is a general category that admits variation. Thus
there are many kinds of American cars. And thus there could be many ways of
being an “adolescent”, “senior citizen”, “man”, “woman”, “Irishman”, “punk”,
“hipster”, “American,” “Canadian”etc. It is simply untrue therefore that all
adolescents are lazy, that all senior citizens are absent minded and close
minded, that all men are egoists, that all woman are concerned about their
appearance, that all Irishmen drink a lot of beer, that all punks wear dog
collars, that all hipsters have beards, that all Americans are loud and
belligerent or that all Canadians are nice).
Stereotypes presume therefore that a kind of thing must have certain
properties (ex. the presumption that ALL American cars are of poor quality.)
Thus stereotypes don’t admit variation. Moreover stereotypes are also
frequently based on outrageously false and demeaning claims, ex. that blacks
or indigenous people are inferior to whites.
The danger of the Internalization of Stereotypes according to Nachbar is the
presumption that one must exhibit certain properties if one is to belong to a
certain category (ex. to be a “man” one must be strong, to be a “woman” one
must concern oneself with one’s appearance, to be an “Asian student” one
must be good at math” and thus that if you are a man and not strong there is
something wrong with you, that you are not a “real man”.
Nachbar quotes
A second danger of stereotyping is not quite as obvious as these actions
because it is often the result of popular stereotypes which are neutral or even
somewhat positive in nature. Yet this danger is responsible for a great deal of
frustration and unhappiness. Essentially this second danger results from the
fact that stereotypes are not merely descriptions of the way a culture views a
specific group of people, but are also often prescriptions as well – thumbnail
sketches of how a group of people is perceived and how members of that
group perceives themselves. Stereotyping is, as we have seen, a natural
ordering function of the human and social mind; stereotypes make reality
easier to deal with because they simplify the complexity that makes people
unique, and this simplification reflects important beliefs and values as well.
These two characteristics combined mean that a society has two powerful
motives to encourage people to “live up to their stereotypes”, to encourage
them to act like the images a culture already has of them (popular culture is
conservative) and to thereby fulfill their proper social roles. (R95-96)
In other words stereotypes encourage people to internalize a cultural image,
as their goal – a task which may be convenient for the culture (and especially
for the power structure status quo) but this proves to be both impossible and
damaging to the individuals being asked to mold themselves in such a narrow
manner.
As human beings each of us has a seemingly infinite number of choices about
what kind of person we want to be. In fact, most of us choose to be several
kinds of persons…we enjoy wearing different personalities for different
occasions. If we accept someone else’s stereotyped image of what we ought
to be, even if the image is a positive one, we sadly, perhaps even tragically
limit the choices that are such a wonderful part of our humanity and confine
ourselves to being narrow and standardized. We become less human and
more like robots.
The dangers of this kind of “internalized stereotype” –[i.e., ideal notions of
Barbie Doll female beauty and heroic GI Joe masculinity] - are magnified by
the ways in which advertisers exploit the fears engendered in individuals who
have embarked on the futile task of attempting to squeeze themselves into
one of society’s cookie cutters…Molds can produce only two things: perfect
dolls and scarred human beings” (R96).
Shusterman
1. All differentiation is based on the exclusion of what a thing is not.
2. By contrast encounters with others can throw light on who I am in
unexpected ways.
3. By absorption or assimilation encounters with others (who are not playing
the same game) can be transformative for the self when:
the individual is open to seeing himself/herself differently, that is from the
others point of view, or
when the encounter with the other enables the individual to discover
previously unrecognized qualities within himself or herself.
Study Questions: Mead, Nachbar and Shusterman
1. What is Mead’s theory of the I?
2. What is Mead’s theory of the Me? In what sense exactly did Mead think
that the me can only exist in a social context?
3. Explain Med’s “baseball analogy”.
4. In what sense is the me the “internalization of the generalized other’?
5. What is Mead’s distinction between “playing” and “gaming”?
6. Mead’s characterization of the I as an “absolute freedom”, “pure
consciousness”, “novelty”, and “creative response” to the me would suggest
that the I is an author of its me. But the I is perhaps best understood as a
narrator, performer, manager, co-author or perhaps co-manger or coproducer of the me. Explain.
7. Perhaps the I is best understood as a “filter” that not only chooses
between competing mes but also “sifts out” and variously recombines
existing possibilities for the self. Explain.
8. Explain in what sense exactly the social performance theory of the self
implies that one is different people all depending on the social context.
9. What are the seven key characteristics of a stereotype according to
Nachbar?
10. Why does the Nachbar think stereotypes are not only erroneous
but dangerous and even tragic?
11. Mead’s notion of the me in mind, how is it that Nachbar’s idea that
the internalization of a stereotype is tragic might be wrong or at least
overstated?
12. Nachbar’s idea that stereotyping is a “natural function of the
human mind” is misleading. How so?
13. Shusterman explains that to know who you are is to know who you
are not. This is entirely in keeping with Mead’s picture of the me and in
particular his baseball analogy. Explain.
14. Shusterman’s argues that the self is open to transformation by way
of contrast and absorption. Explain.
15. Shusterman thinks that the self benefits from travel and reading.
How so? And how is this conception of the self in keeping with
McAdam’s view that the more mature self will see the world through a
more complex lens.