Concepts of the Self (Revised, Updated)

Read this for graduate course in humanities. Anthony Elliott's "Concepts of the Self" agrees with the social psychologist George Herbert Mead, that the effort of self-examination is always dialogic. "Language is at the heart of the constitution of the self." People learn how to understand themselves and develop their "authentic selves" through conversation with others, through their social and cultural interactions, and most importantly, through the perceptions and judgments by others. Many people have written on the inability of humans to be able to create an "authentic self." The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, thought it difficult for a person to discover their "authentic self" since he believed that humans were not rational beings. Since Freud thought that human behavior was controlled by the unconscious, his research led him to believe that humans were constantly wrestling with the confining restraints civilization imposed on humans. The perception and judgment by others is where the creation of the "authentic self" is hardest to attain for the civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois puts it most succinctly in writing about the struggle that African-Americans have with defining their "authentic self." "It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others." Thus, Du Bois thought authenticity was a longing for African-Americans, but impossible to attain because they had to live with their double-consciousness. Judgment by others is also where the sociologist Erving Goffman focuses his attention in explaining why there is no such thing as an "authentic self." Goffman believes that human identity is made up of acts that humans perform essentially as theatrical performances. "If identity is performed, then the self is an effect, not a cause." The feminist Judith Butler and queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick both criticize the idea of gender-based identity. Both women agree that an "authentic self" crosses the traditional boundaries of gender, race, and sexual preference. As an example, postcolonial women and women of color have criticized feminist for lumping all women's identity into the one gender category. A postmodern critic of the `authentic self" is the sociologist Sherry Turkle. Her research into virtual sex on the internet leads her to believe that people have the ability to lead multiple lives and change gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity. "In short, the individual can devise a net-self that outstrips the real self." Despite all of the criticisms of Elliott's concept of authenticity, I do agree that it is possible to be an "authentic self" in today's image-saturated and cultural environment. The important characteristic of the self that surfaces from what Elliott and his critics decry, is that the multitude of stimuli that one receives from dialog with other humans, society, and culture is conducive to the creati

This is, quite simply, the best theory book around. Period.

This is quite simply the best book on self-identity and the changing social context of identity that I have read. Simple, elegant and thought-provoking.

Elliott's Concepts of the Self is a beautifully written, carefully reasoned, impassioned plea for a reassessment of the connections between self and culture, identity and politics. Rarely have I read such an author with magisterial command of such interdisciplinary perspectives.

An Amazing book - easy to read and follow, in a field where too often dense terminology prevails. Elliott's book is first-rate. Highly recommended.