Looking at the Self

The concept of the self is interesting for many reasons, but one of the biggest draw-cards is that it examines that notorious question of "who am I?".  We could consider what our self actually is, how it is comprised of multiple selves and who/what has a self, and if they don't know they do, what does it mean?

You might gather from my rambling that I am intrigued and perplexed by the idea, but fellow blogger Ashley explains it rather well in her post WK 5: a dinosaur writes a post.  Ashley talks about the way she plays a certain role when she is acting as a mature-age uni student and when she is at work performing her role as a waitress, which as she notes "according to Goffman (1967), this is what was expected of me from my boss, the event organisers and the patrons."  So this plays into Charles Cooleys idea of the looking-glass self, which basically suggests that self-consciousness involves continually monitoring self from the point of view of others, or as Cooley put it, we “live in the minds of others without knowing it.” (Scheff 2005, p. 147). 

It's also really interesting to think about the way our self can be dramatically altered or even stripped away when we interact with large institutions.  A classic example is the story of when someone is put in jail their clothes and possessions are taken from them, they are stripped naked and de-loused and then forced to wear the same clothes as the other prisoners.  This certainly takes away a portion of the prisoners' individuals identities and their conception of their selves. 

Whenever a person interacts with a large institution, it can have an effect on their self. I think The Simpsons illustrates this point brilliantly as after the students are made to wear uniforms they even start blinking in unison.  

References:

Goffman, E 1967, ‘The nature of deference and demeanor’, in Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behaviour, Pantheon Books, New York, pp47-96.

Scheff, T.J. 2005, "Looking-Glass Self: Goffman as Symbolic Interactionist", Symbolic Interaction, vol. 28, no. 2, pp147-166.