The Minimal Self (1984)
Commodities are produced for immediate consumption. ... They wear out even if they are not used, since they are designed to be superseded by "new and improved" products, changing fashions, and technological innovations. ... Articles produced for use, on the other hand, without regard to their marketability, wear out only when they are literally used up. "It is this durability", Hannah Arendt once observed, "that gives the things of the world their relative independence from men who produce and use them, their 'objectivity' which makes them withstand, 'stand against' and endure, at least for a time, the voracious needs and wants of their living makers and users. From this viewpoint, the things of the world have the function of stabilizing human life, and their objectivity lies in the fact that . . . men, their everchanging nature notwithstanding, can retrieve their sameness, that is, their identity, by being related to the same chair and the same table."
(p. 31)
4 comments:
Ernest Becker
The Birth and Death of Meaning
(1970)
note here says:
fleshes out the darker side of reliance on the unchanging material thing: this can be a flight from messy, intractible matters and into clean, orderly ones, a la Sennett's "new puritanism" of urban planners.
[78]
"Culture and Personality
"... Culture is a structure of rules, customs, and ideas, which serve as a vehicle for heroism. ... The task for the ego is to navigate in its world without anxiety, and it does this by learning to choose actions that are satisfying and bring praise instead of blame. ...
[79]
...if the function of self-esteem is to give the ego a steady buffer
against anxiety, wherever and whenever it might be imagined, one crucial function of culture is to make continued self-esteem possible. ...
"... Once the child learns that he is an "I" in relation to others, he has quickly to bolster this discovery by finding out: "What does this world mean to me, and how do I act in it?" ...once an animal becomes self-conscious, straightforward action is no longer possible. The prescription for conduct free of anxiety is to choose the "right" thing to do. And, as soon as one course of action becomes "right" and another "wrong," life becomes moral and meaningful. Morality is merely a prescription for choice; and "meaning" is born as the choice is carried into action.
...
Becker, Birth (cont. #1)
[80]
...
"... Societies arrange their members in categories of infant, boy, girl, adult male, adult female,... The designation "old man" in one culture may entitle the actor to enjoy finally the power over others that he has waited a lifetime for... The same designation in another culture may entitle the holder to being left out in the bush for the hyenas to carry off.
...
[81]
...
"The world of action is structured in terms of: "What is the person's position, and what behavior can I expect from him as a result of it?" "What is my position in relation to him, and what behavior does this position entitle or oblige me to?"
"... Status and role are basic to an understanding of human behavior because they tell the individual what he should do in a particular social
situation, and how he should feel about himself as he does it. ... Status and role serve further to make behavior predictable, so that the meaning in everyday life becomes dependable; the individual can count on others to behave according to his expectations. ...
[82]
...
"And, as in a high-school play, everyone scrambles for the lead parts. ...
"The word "status" is not to be confused with status used in the everyday sense,... In sociological terms, everyone has a status, a formalized cue that makes it possible to predict how he will act in a certain situation. It is easy to understand that the culture as a whole has the most to gain from this predictability; life can go on with a minimum of confusion,... ...the culture
[83]
may provide variations in grammatical form to be used in addressing people of various statuses,...
Becker, Birth (cont. #2)
"Why does man unnecessarily complicate his life? Because in this very complexity there is a challenge to ego mastery, and a denial of meaninglessness. ... The individual undoubtedly derives the greatest stimulus from this conceptual ordering,... The more intricate the staging, the more all-absorbing the play. ...
"...there is also the physical aspect of man's existence: culture has to provide man with safety as well as self-esteem. This is its other crucial function. Action has to be dependable and predictable. And the area of least dependability in social life is, naturally, people. ... A schizophrenic child may develop a deep attachment to, say, a radia-
[84]
tor, in preference to his mother. Both function, but the radiator more warmly and more predictably. Person-objects, on the one hand, are powerful and capricious. ... The ego thrives on control, but person-objects, theoretically, are always beyond control. ... A person-object is a locus of causality, capable of introducing undreamed-of events into one's life. ...
"The problem of "What will the next person be like" is at the core of human adaptation, because self-preservation may depend on it. ... But when one is dealing with massively unpredictable human objects, dependable cues for inference are not easy to come by. Therefore, man is given to stereotyping in the interests of his own security. ...
"So it is easy to understand that status cues and role prescriptions for behavior take care not only of self-esteem, but
[85]
of the vital matter of our safety as well. ... We do not let our ordering of the world rest for a moment. Probably, if most of us had our way, we would try to maximize the predictability of everyone else, while leaving ourselves free to inject novelty into our relationships. Only this kind of power would give us complete safety and control. But it would also be dull."
another note (here) says:
I tack this on here because it makes for an interesting counterpoint: against the "objectivity" of "things" which enables people to "retrieve their sameness," there is the "schizophrenic" (if that's really what it is) flight-into-objectivity so as to avoid any contact with human social objects-who-are-always-also-subjects.
Becker, Birth (cont. #3)
another note here (sorry...this is where all the notes are SUPPOSED to end up, right?):
arendt's "things of the world"; "retrieving his sameness" is only a microcosm of the larger point; what is actually implicated is EVERYTHING Becker has said about social "illusion" and the "evil" which arises from it; materialism may have its epistemological limits, but if "we can at least say what is false" then it is our best (perhaps only) tool
[176] "How can we expect an organism that has had long experience of unfair frustration to be large, mellow, confident and generous? How could it be ethical since by ethical action we mean that action which is unique, responsible, daring and unpopular,...
...the weak and deprived organism is the one who needs the support and nourishment of the world more than any other, which is why he is continually trying to manipulate it and coerce and control others. So too, the "spoiled" organism who has not been able to develop the
sense of independence in a self-contained body, who cannot
let others be. Ethical action needs strength and self-control, the sense of plenitude and power that can only come with a secure seating in a rich and roundly experienced body. This basic comfort in one's own fullness makes it natural to be generous to the pleasure of others,... ...it makes security routine, and so one is not always on his guard against strange and unexpected performances by others. Basic respect for persons and for their uniqueness can come only from strength and self-governance and not from weakness and dependency.
"We could raise and educate more citizens who perceive the world with a minimum of bottled-up frustration, distortion, dependency and fear. The formula is the easiest of all theoretically, although it is hard enough in practice. Let the child learn by doing, by the development of his own strengths, perceptions, capacities; let him experiment on his own, learn the confidence that comes with repeated triumph over frustrations and problems. This makes him flexible about the external
[177]
world, not easily put off by it,... He will tend to see things as they present themselves on their terms and not as he wishes them to be or fears that they might be. This is crucial for the problem of democracy because only self-reliant people see their leaders as they are, and not as projections of their own fond hopes or foolish fears; they need others less for support, and so do not automatically see gray temples as fatherly wisdom..."
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