Anthony Giddens: Modernity and SelfIdentity
Introduction
Modernity
Self and society
Modern social life
Doubt and reflexivity
Globalisation and media
Reflexive self-identity
Transformation of
intimacy
Personal
meaninglessness
changes our social life and our in-world experiences.
mechanisms of self-idenity are shaped and shape the
institutions of modernity.
time and space reorganisation + expansion of disembedding
mechanisms.
radical doubt – all knowledge open to revision. As with the
self.
Uncertainty, multiple choice, trust, risk
Distant happenings with influence on local life. The
significance of mediated experiences.
Lifestyle-choices and biographical narratives.
“pure relationships” – exist for the mere value of the
reltionship. Trust and mutual disclosure and commitment.
a fundamental psychic problem. Due to lack of moral
resources? A life on one’s own? Authenticity as a morally
undersized process.
1. The Contours of High Modernity
The self in modernity
The reflexive struggles of life, which shape our biographical
narratives.
MODERNITY: SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Dimesions
 Industrialisation
 Capitalism
The rise of organisation
Size, bureaucratic character, concentrated reflexive
monitoring.
Dynamic modern life
1. Separation of time and space, no longer connected
through the situatedness of place
2. The disembedding of social institutions. “the ‘lifting
out’ of social relations from local contexts and their
rearticulation across indefinite tracts of time-space”
(18).
Symbolic tokens: media of exchange
Expert systems: modes of technical knowledge
Depends on trust.
3. Modernity’s instrinsic reflexivity. The regularised
use of knowledge about circumstances of social life
as a constitutive element in its organisation and
transformation.
THE LOCAL, THE GLOBAL AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF DAY-TODAY LIFE
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Globalisation
inherent in the tendencies of modernity. Presence/absence;
social events and relations at distance with local
contextualities. The dialectic of local and global.
THE MEDIATION OF EXPERIENCE
Language
Prime mediator of experiences, a time-machine so to speak.
Elevates experiences beyond immediacy.
Innis and McLuhan
the social implicatins of media, especially in relation to
modernity. Modernity is inseparable from its media.
Electronic media
high modernity. But should not be understood as a phase
replacing pint.
Basic feature of
1. Collage effect: the juxtapostioning of stories: the
mediated experiences
newspaper page and the television programme guide.
2. The intrusion of distant events into everyday
consciousness.
HIGH MODERNITY AND ITS EXISTENTIAL PARAMETERS
Characterised by a widespread scepticism about providential
reason + acknowledgning the risk or science and
ttechnology. The abstract systems of modernity induce
acceptance of risk.
Ulrich Beck
Risk society.
Indefinite potentials for
with attendant risks. “as if” and selecting between “possible
action
worlds”.
WHY MODERNITY AND PERSONAL IDENTITY?
The dialectic of local and > Transformations in self-identity and globalisation.
global
The reflexive self
The self as a reflexive project.
2. The Self: Ontological Security and
Existential Anxiety
ONTOLOGICAL SECURITY AND TRUST
The things we take for
Almost infinite range of possibilities open for the individual.
granted
Anxiety and existential issues are kept at bay – taken for
granted, tacit acceptence of the world and self. The chaos
that threatens the ordinariness of everyday life.
What’s creates our sense Our sense of ontological security.
of faith and trust
Basic trust: connected to the interpersonal organisation of
time and space. Winnicot: the development of the infant and
its reality.
Habits and routines
“in defense” of the threatening anxieties.
Creativity
the capability to act/think innovatively in relation to preestablished modes of activity, faith in the unknown future
and the unpredictability of the world.
ANXIETY AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION
Wittgenstein
The universally experienced world of external reality – not
directly reflected in the meaningful components of the
conventions in terms of which actors organise their
behaviour.
To know the meaning of We come to know the reality of the world and of signs as a
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words
result of the differences formed in daily practice – not only
in a structuralist sense, but as differences as met with in
daily experience.
Mediated experience
Important to learn about the external reality, about what is
absent from individual life.
Anxiety vs. fear
Fear is a response to a specific threat, has a definite object.
Anxiety however, disregards the object.
EXISTENTIAL QUESTION
Basic parameters of human life – answered by everyone who ‘goes on’ in the contexts of
social activity.
Kierkegaard on axiety
Comes with human liberty, freedom derived from an
ontological understanding of external reality and personal
identity. Anxiety as the possibility of freedom.
1. to be
to have ontological awareness. The struggle of being against
non-being.
Pre-modern context: tradition as a fundament for ontological
framworks.
2. external world –
We live in circumstances of existential contradiction.
human life
Heidegger: Dasein is a being who lives and dies, but also
who is aware of te horizon of its own mortality.
3. the existence of other
Thoroughly explored in early phenomenology. Husserl:
people
interpersonal knowledge based on Cartesia rationalism.
Inferences from our own feelings and experiences are the
only way to be aware of other peoples’ feelings and
experiences. The transcendental philosophy of the ego
against the threats of solipsism.
Language Wittgenstein: avoids the problem of transcendentalism and
solipsism. Language is the means to access both selfconsciousness and awareness of others. “Discovering the
other” is of key importance in the initial development of
self-awareness.
4. Self-identity
Presumes reflexive awareness – what the individual is
conscious of, has to be routinely created and sustained in
reflexive activities of the individual.
I/me/you a linguistic differentiation. An internal relation to language,
not connecting the unsocialised part of the individual (the I)
to the ‘social self’.
Self-identity as the self as reflexively understood by the
person in terms of her or his biography.
The individuals keeping a particular narrative going. Integrate events of the
biography external world in the story about the self.
BODY AND SELF
The body
Reality is grasped hrough day-to-day praxis – the body is
experienced as a practical mode of coping with external
situations.
Wittgenstein, Goffman,
Wittgenstein raised themes on a philosophical level,
Garfinkel
Goffman and Garfinkel explored these on an empirical level.
Expectations of control over bodily and facial expressions.
Foucault: body and
the body in relation to mechanisms of power. Disciplinary
power
power in circumstances of modernity. Giddens however,
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Self-identity vs.
performance
False self
Disembodiment
does not find Foucault’s equation of body and agency
sufficient. “Bodily discipline is intrinsic to the component
social agent” – transcultural, not specifically connected with
modernity.
Division between self-identity and the performances one put
on in social contexts.
when the discrepancy between performance and the
individual’s biographical narrative is too radical. Die
unimplicated in bodily desire - allows the individual to
witness the activities of her body with natural detachment.
Seems close to depersonalisation disorders by Gidden’s
description. An attempt to transcend dangers and be safe.
MOTIVATION
Giddens explores the self in relation to motivation, reason, shame, guilt, pride and the
ideal self. Interesting, but not really relevant for me?
3. The Trajectory of the Self
SELF-IDENTITY, HISTORY, MODERNITY
Individuality as a
with the differentiation of the division of labour – the
modern concept
separate individual a focus of attention (parallels discussions
of the traditional self).
Giddens however, prefers to break modern individuality into
finer detail, and argues that individuality has in fact been
valued in all cultures. Derived from Rainwater’s portrayal of
therapy.
1. The self as a reflexive for which the indvidual is responsible. Our reconstructive
project
endavours.
2. The self as a trajectory The self appropriates the past by sifting through it in the
of development from
light of what is anticipated in the future. Creating a coherent
past to future
self – connects the various phases of the lifespan. Narrating
a biography.
3. Continuous and allConstant self-interrogations of what is happening
pervasive reflexivity
4. The self-identity
a narrative of the self is made explicit. Sustaining an
presumes a narrative
integrated sense of self.
5. Self-actualisation
The primacy of personal time: zones of personal time with
implies the control of
only remote connections with external temporal orders.
time
6. The reflexivity of the
the body is part of an action system – and not merely a
self extends to the body
passive object.
7. Self-actualisation:
Multiplicity of opportunities for self-development. Potential
between opportunity and ways of being and acting. The risk that things can get worse
risk
than were before.
8. Authenticity
The moral thread of self-actualisation. “Being true to
oneself” above all.
9. The Life course as a
But these are not institutionalised or accompanied by
series of passages
formalised rites.
10. Internally referential
development of self
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LIFESTYLES AND LIFE PLANS
Fundamentally about
beyond mere consumerism. Implies choice within a plurality
constructing lifestyles
of possible options. Clearly, all choices are not open to
everyone.
A lifestyle involves a cluster of habits and orientations.
Plurality of choices <-1. living in post-traditional order
2. the pluralisation of life-worlds
3. the existential impact of the contextual nature of
warranted beliefs under conditions of modernity
4. the prevalence of mediated experiences. Meyrowitz
medium-theoretical analyses.
Strategic life-planning
the substantial content of the reflexively organised trajectory
of the self. Life plan calenders. Presupposes organising time:
preparing for the future – interpreting the past.
Clearly lifestyle choices are not the same for everyone. But
the institutional components of modernity are still a part of
everyones lives.
Transformation of
The modern life conception of friends. Plurality of choice –
intimacy
partners are chosen from a diversity of possibilities.
The pure relationship
when ties are more or less freely chosen.
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE PURE RELATIONSHIP
The ideal typical elements of pure relationships
1. Free-floating
not anchored in external conditions of social or economic
relationships
life. Both for marriages and for friendship relationships.
They are kept alive for the sake of the social
reward/emotional satisfaction they bring to life.
2. Pure
relationships are sought for what the relationship can bring
to the parners.
3. Reflexive organised
in an open fashion, on a continous basis. Connects closely to
the reflexive self.
4. Commitment
replaces the external anchors of relationships in pre-modern
situations. A decision to be commited. Pure relationships can
only exists with reciprocity.
5. Intimacy
the heart of modern forms of friendships and sexual
relationships. The expectation of intimacy provides the
closest links between the reflexive project of the self and the
pure relationship. Requires commitment to the relationship.
6. Trust
Mutual trust. Closely related to intimacy. An individual must
be trusting and trustworthy. Authenticity. Communication
7. Self-identity
negotiated through linked processes of self-exploration and
the development of intimacy with the other. Help create
‘shared histories’.
Dyadic pure relationships, but people are involved in several
forms of intereconnected relationships, forming milieux of
intimacy.
Body
becomes socialised and drawn into the reflexive organisation
of social life.
THE BODY AND SELF-ACTUALISATION
More than the physical
an action system, mode of praxis. Its immersion in the
entity
interactions of day-to-day life is an essential part of
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Aspects
Demeanour
sustaining a coherent sense of self-identity.
Appearance
Demeanour
Sensuality
Regimes to which bodies are subject.
Closely connected to Goffman’s discussion of performance.
Dependent on context – maintaining appropriate behaviour.
Has to be integrated into the narrative of the person.
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