Conversation with Stephen Whitehead
Spirituality
Stephen Whitehead: Delusions of the Self
"Delusions of Self:
Humans have an amazing capacity for delusion. We can hold on to the most unlikely beliefs and myths and to treat them as foundational truths. I am thinking here not just of the main world religions and their more bizarre manifestations (e.g. creationism or vestal-virgin inhabited paradises), nor the idea that individual politicians and their pronouncements/performances can usher us in to a safer world where we all comfortably get richer. No, I am particularly thinking of the self; the notion that we exist as an ontologically grounded individual amongst similarly grounded individuals.
This is the ultimate illusion.
The self troubles us. We build our sense of existence around the ‘I’ but can never fully hold on to it. It moves, and without our realisation or intent. I don’t know who you are for the simple reason I don’t know who ‘I’ am. And who I am today is not who I was last year. That is the truth of it. All is transitory, momentary, fluid and relational, not least you and I. As Nietzsche warned us, this ‘I’ we hold so dear is at best ‘only an assumption’, we should not invest too much in it. Yet we continue to do so. I have a name, an identification that has multiple aspects to it, just as do you. But once one tries to list those identifications then it appears spurious, incomplete. Nevertheless, like you, I seek to protect and project my self; I am vulnerable to exclusion, a critical gaze and false identification. I want to exist and indeed much of my life is spent trying to convince myself that I do so. But despite six decades of working at it, I still cannot name me truly, any more accurately than you can name your self.
It is not just Nietzsche who warns us about what I call the ‘I illusion’. As Geshe Thupten Jinpa, a senior Tibetan monk puts it: ‘The existence of the self as an independent, eternal, and atemporal unifying principle is an illusion. Such a notion lies at the root of our suffering and bondage; our unenlightened existence’. A similar conclusion was come to by Clifford Geertz, the 20th century American cultural anthropologist: ‘The Western conception of the person as a bounded, unique and more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness…organized into a distinctive whole….is a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s cultures’.
What is especially interesting, to me at least, is that we now appear to be moving into an age when narcissism rules; a time when we pursue the validation of the ‘I’ with a particularly ego-manic intent. I quote from my forthcoming book;
- Those of us caught up in the vortex that is globalisation appear to be living in an age that is obsessed with the self; the pursuit of individualism, the privileging of personhood over community, the yearning for celebrity, the desire for the ‘perfect’ appearance. As we move deeper into the 21st century so we seem to be freeing ourselves from the bonds that previously bound us to others and nourished our sense of place in the world. Now we are intent on pursuing our individual life journey rather than a family or community obligation. The displacement of settled communities and the individuals within them has been a characteristic of post-industrialisation around the world for some decades now, so perhaps we should not be too surprised at the emergence of the narcissistic society. The demands of globalisation have placed us all under pressure to become more entrepreneurial, individualistic, competitive, mobile, materialistic and singular in our outlook. Our loyalties, our relationships, our trust in others, even our belief systems, these are not lasting and unchanging anymore. In this new age they are all open to re-evaluation. We pick and mix our life-styles and belief systems as if in a supermarket. Our community locations are chosen for their material advantages rather than their familial or emotional needs. We may well still seek solace in our associations and in our loves and friendship networks, but our ultimate comfort zone appears nurtured more through our perceived material and social status, and much less in our relationships. For increasing numbers of us even those communities we do engage with are the virtual ones of the avatar, the so-called ‘second lives’; social networking sites; the playgrounds of the imagination, the ultimate example of an individualised ‘community’ experience. (Whitehead and Moodley, forthcoming, ‘Gender and Identity’, Oxford University Press).
My subjectivity is all ‘I’ have; therefore don’t be surprised if I try and hold on to it (and please note that it is this subjectivity which types these words, not some inner self). However, in this new century all is being questioned and rendered insecure. We know we may not have a future, we certainly know we cannot assume one. Any assurance or assumption of our place in the world has gone; as Lyotard put it, we are now sceptical of all ideologies. Which is why we become increasingly narcissistic – my ten minutes on television render me visible, and therefore valid, if only to myself. But it is only 10 minutes.
Well, most of us are sceptical. Some of us still believe. But that is only because they are afraid not to.
Sure, we can replace some of this absent community by the virtual one, we can achieve a momentary ontological validation through the internet, but such associations are the most illusive, vulnerable and contingent of all. Facebook is, in the final analysis, identity work; but as identity work it is also liquid, temporary, vacuous and ontologically very risky. How many more ‘friends’ have you got today?
So what is my conclusion? It is that the ‘I’ is a process, never an outcome. We hold on to it out of existential and ontological necessity. I am born without an identification and must therefore attach to something which subsequently renders me real, not only to myself but equally importantly to others. This is my life long identity work and I have come recognise it as just that, nothing more. For most of us, this identity work is not too difficult – our parents smile at us, and as babies we smile back. We are given a sex, and a gender, to follow, which we accept as ‘us’. We are placed in a cultural and social space, a family, a community. One day we will have a passport, an identity card, a national insurance number. We now exist. And one day we will fall in love with someone who will validate us intimately and intensely – though be warned, this is the biggest illusion of all. "
Biodata
Stephen Whitehead
"Dr Stephen Whitehead is Senior Lecturer in the Southeast Asian Institute of Global Studies at Payap University (Thailand), and Research Fellow in Organisations and Gender Identity at Keele University (UK). He was a member of the UK government cabinet office forum on gender research from 2002 to 2006, and has been teaching and researching in the fields of gender identity, sexuality, organisations, and globalisation for 25 years. He has written numerous academic journal articles and several academic and mainstream books on men, gender, identity, organisational culture, and relationships, including; ‘Men and Masculinities’ (Polity, 2002); ‘The Masculinities Reader’ (Polity, 2001); ‘Managing Professional Identities’ (Routledge, 2002); ‘Transforming Managers’ (UCL Press, 1999); ‘Men and Masculinities (5 Volume Reader)’ (Routledge, 2006); ‘Men, Women, Love and Romance’ (Vision, 2003); and ‘The Many Faces of Men’ (Arrow, 2004). His books have been translated into 15 languages and he has been invited to speak at universities around the world, including Cambridge, Oslo, Toronto and Singapore. He is currently finishing a co-authored book titled ‘Gender and Identity’ to be published by Oxford University Press in 2011. When not busy writing books, researching or teaching, Dr Whitehead is updating his blog, which can be found at www.stephen-whitehead.com. Dr Whitehead now lives full time in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with his wife and stepdaughter."