Identity: We are not who we are on The Horizon of Reason

From Chicago to Frankfurt: Goffman and Marcuse on Identity

Peter Prevos — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 10:00:00 +0000

In sociology, identity is a multi-layered concept relating to the groups we belong to (social identity), to the way we portray ourselves to the outside world (personal identity) and to our subjective sense of knowing who we are (ego identity) (Grace and Woodward 2006). This article briefly discusses the approaches to identity by Erving Goffman and Herbert Marcuse. The main difference between Goffman and Marcuse on identity is the focus they place on the relationship between personal and ego identity. Although there are differences, Goffman's and Marcuse's accounts of identity are complementary.

Erving Goffman

Sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) outlines his account of social identity in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) in which he employs a dramaturgical approach and describes the interaction between people through a theatrical metaphor. Goffman portrays people as actors, creating identities by playing different roles on different stages and to diverse audiences.

The self consists for Goffman in an awareness of the different roles that are performed in different situations (Elliot 2001). These performances are a form of impression management by which people consciously and subconsciously modify their behaviour to influence the impression other people have of them (Gray 2002).

In Goffman's view, the self is not the cause of this performance, but the result of it. (Elliot, 2001). The self, or our ego identity, is thus located within the performance and not intrinsically within the person. Goffman's theatrical metaphor focuses on the creation of personal identity rather than ego identity, and he sees identity as a dynamic interactionist process, rather than a static collection of attributes.

Identities are formed through a process of dramatic realisation; this is the dramatising of activities by emphasising (mainly positive) aspects of the portrayed role. To assist with this dramatic realisation, the actor constructs a personal front as a mechanism to communicate the role that they play. The front involves anything that supports the role, such as clothing, furniture, decor, facial expression and posture. This communication needs to be effectively controlled to ensure that the audience is convinced of the role. People holding corporate positions, for example, communicate through clothing and are, according to Goffman (1959, 55):

"blinding themselves and others to the fact that they hold their jobs partly because they look like executives, not because they can work like executives".

This quote illustrates that Goffman believes that our ego identity and personal identity do not necessarily match. One of the primary purposes of the performance, however, is to convince the audience that there is a match that we are what we portray to be.

The most common criticism of Goffman's theory is that if the theatrical metaphor is taken to far, it may suggest more duplicity of identities and deception than is warranted by what is known in social psychology about impression management (Gray 2002). Goffman is pessimistic about the truthfulness of our performances, and Elliot (2001) even thinks that Goffman presents us with an amoral universe because of the lack of sincerity in our interactions with others.

Herbert Marcuse

Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was a member of the Frankfurt School, a group of intellectuals that developed a critical theory of contemporary society, portraying it as an oppressive and exploitative mechanism. Marcuse's concept of identity as outlined in One Dimensional Man (1964) is embedded in Critical Theory.

Marcuse maintains a Freudian understanding of the self as he distinguishes between individual consciousness and subconsciousness, which form our ego identity (Marcuse 1964). Marcuse differentiates strongly between private, and ego identity and his writings focus on the relationship between the two.

Marcuse's account of identity formation is negative as he is mainly concerned with the political and social forces that limit identity formation. His central argument is that the forces of consumerism and technology control identity formation, leaving no room for the internal ego identity, the inner self, to develop.

The technological process of mechanisation and standardisation in modern society promises an increase in individual freedom. Vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens and other technological devices are sold with the promise of increasing available free time and thus our freedom. This promise is, according to Marcuse, the promise of Enlightenment philosophy, with its strong belief in reason, science and progress (Callinicos 1998). Personal freedom is, according to Marcuse, however, actually destroyed through Enlightenment because free time does not necessarily equate to freedom. Marcuse's critical theory of society has consequences for the formation of identity.

Marcuse argues that society creates false needs which divert us from our private identity. False needs are those which are superimposed upon the individual by social interests and don’t emanate from within. These false needs are created through advertising and the media in general, emphasising the need to behave and consume like everybody else. The free time created by mechanisation and standardisation is quickly absorbed by the urge to satisfy false needs that lead people away from developing their inner self.

This leisure time results in people recognising and defining themselves in commodities (Marcuse 1964). The satisfaction of material needs becomes the prime motivation and eclipses the needs of the inner self. Marcuse draws on Heidegger in his view that private space has been invaded by technological reality and that mass production and distribution claim the entire individual. Our identity becomes controlled by externalities such as the distraction of television, i-pods and computer games, leaving no space to develop our ego identity.

Marcuse's pessimism is almost total as he does not see a way out of the control imposed by technology and consumerism. Marcuse sketched the outlines of an ideal non-repressive civilisation which would involve libidinal freedom and non-alienated labour in Eros and Civilisation (Kellner 2006). He does, however, not outline how this social change is to be achieved. Non-conformity with the system is useless, according to Marcuse, because it results in economic and political disadvantages.

Marcuse acknowledges this lack of a solution when he writes that "in the absence of demonstrable agents and agencies of social change, the critique is … thrown back to a high level of abstraction" (Marcuse 1964). It is interesting to note that this was written just a few years before the counterculture of the sixties, in which Marcuse's thinking was an inspiration for many.

Goffman and Marcuse on Identity

The accounts by Goffman and Marcuse differ on some essential points. Goffman provides a detailed account of the formation of identity, while Marcuse focuses on the constraints placed on identity formation. Both describe a spilt between personal and ego identity. Goffman's dramaturgical approach emphasises this difference and takes it at face value. Marcuse points out that this difference creates tension and believes that the ideal situation is one where our personal identity and ego identity are the same. Goffman's work is based on anthropological methods of observation, and he is mainly concerned with describing how identity is formed in contemporary society. Marcuse's approach is more philosophical in that he provides an ethical framework for identity formation.

Goffman has been accused of presenting us with an amoral universe (Elliot 2001). This criticism is, however, not fair because Goffman was not concerned with what identity formation should be like. To provide a full account of identity formation, Goffman needs to be complemented with an ethical perspective, such as that offered by Marcuse.

References

Callinicos, A.: 1998, Herbert Marcuse, in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge.
Elliot, A.: 2001, Self, Society and Everyday Life, Concepts of the self, Polity Press, pp. 22–45.
Goffman, E.: 1959, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Penguin, London.
Grace, F. and Woodward, I.: 2006, Sociology of identity, Griffith University.
Gray, P.: 2002, Psychology, Worth Publishers. Kellner, D.: 2006,
Herbert Marcuse, retrieved 26 March 2006.
Marcuse, H.: 1964, The new forms of control, One Dimensional Man, Abacus, London, pp. 16–28.

The Influence of Mental Disorders on Personal Identity

Peter Prevos — Tue, 17 May 2005 10:00:00 +0000

Our concept of self and identity are highly dependent on our surroundings. Our identity is inherently social in that others are involved in its construction. Our social identity, the way we identify ourselves with the social groups we are a part of, is managed through careful impression management to try to have some influence on the way this identity is constructed.¹ People are considered deviant when they are no longer willing or able to act following the rules of impression management. Because social identity is directly related to how others perceive somebody, deviance will have an impact on identity.

Some examples of behaviour that would be labelled deviant in popular culture or everyday discussions are sexual preferences other than heterosexual, wearing the ‘wrong’ type of clothes or behaviour associated with mental illness. Because of the wide range of possible deviant behaviours, almost every behaviour could be labelled as deviant, depending on the context in which it is defined. One particular type of deviance that can have significant effects on identity is a behaviour associated with a mental disorder. The influence that deviant behaviour has on identity formation will be discussed in this paper, with particular focus on behaviour related to mental illness. It will be argued that changed societal attitudes towards mental disorders in the last three decades have mitigated the effect on identity formation.

Mental disorders

Mental disorder is a fuzzy concept which is impossible to define in discrete terms. In psychology, the terms symptom and syndrome define mental disorder, analogous to the way physical diseases are classified. The only difference between the way mental and physical conditions are defined are the types of symptoms. The symptoms of mental disorder can be a person’s behaviour, thoughts or feelings. A syndrome is a collection of interrelated symptoms in an individual and is considered a mental illness only if it causes a significant detriment to the person or their surroundings, it has an internal source and manifests itself involuntary.

The dominant classification scheme for mental disorders in contemporary psychology is the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association. The first edition of the DSM was developed in 1952 to increase the level of objectivity in the diagnoses of mental disorder. Subsequent versions of the DSM were designed to increase the consistency of diagnoses undertaken by different diagnosticians. This increased consistency resulted, however, is a loss of validity. The question that needs to be asked is whether the categories in the DSM are actual disorders or whether they are socially constructed.

Weiten argues that the rhetorical skills of the committee members compiling the diagnostics manual have been more important than scientific evidence.² Common problems, such as ‘developmental coordination disorder’ in children (basically extreme clumsiness), are medicalised to create a market for the health industry, as inclusion in the DSM is a criterion for treatment to be covered by health insurance. Another problem with the descriptions in the DSM is that the defined symptoms are subjective and therefore, hard to measure.

Research shows that about twenty per cent of people will experience mental disease at some point in their life. From 1969 onwards, the total number of patient admissions in the USA has risen from 644 per 100,000 people to 860 in 1998. The number of people treated in private or public mental hospitals has, however, decreased from 45% in 1969 to 30% in 1998.³ The reason for this decrease in the number of people institutionalised is a shift in treatment methods. The number of people undergoing forms of treatment other than hospitalisation has subsequently increased. The number of people with outpatient treatment of mental disorder has, however, increased considerably. Following Weiten’s critical view on the DSM, this increase is most likely a result of the increased number in defined mental disorders, rather than a change in the actual occurrence in the population.

The types of mental disorder that people are perceived to have, the way other people react to them and the way conditions are treated are highly culturally dependent. Eating disorders caused by body image distortions are, for example, much more prevalent in Western culture than in Asian societies. A syndrome such as Koro—an incapacitating fear that the penis will withdraw into the abdomen and cause death—is almost uniquely diagnosed in South-East Asian cultures.

Deviance and Identity Formation

Different approaches to deviant behaviour have been proposed, each with varying views on the effect on social identity. The functionalist approach to deviance looks at to what extent human behaviour is functional or dysfunctional concerning the continuation of the social system. American sociologist Talcott Parsons looks at society as an organic system that needs to be kept in balance.

Parsons considers deviant behaviour a disturbance of this balance, which needs to be adjusted. Deviant members of society need to be brought back into the fold because society will otherwise disintegrate. Parsons anticipates what is later referred to as medicalisation of society and recognises that in the course of history, religious and legal definitions of deviant behaviour have been replaced by medical ones. People who display deviant behaviour are no longer predominantly looked at as sinners or criminals, but as sick people needing help. They do not require retribution or punishment, but treatment. Parsons believes that medicalisation of deviant behaviour is a form of humanisation of society. Deviance is no longer punished but treated, and the deviant is re-integrated into society.⁴

The functionalist approach to mental illness focuses on the effects of deviant behaviour on society as a whole and neglects the impact medicalisation on the individual. Functionalism has, because of this neglect of the individual, been criticised by proponents of the social construction and labelling accounts of deviance.

Social construction theory refers to deviance as an unstable product of the social context in which it is generated. Deviant behaviour is a socially constructed category without reality outside of the social context in which it is defined. The fact that mental disorder is a fairly common occurrence, that it is culturally dependent and the problems with objective diagnosis support the idea that it is a social construct, rather than a real disease.

Erving Goffman argues that being labelled as a person with a mental health condition and being hospitalised alters a person’s identity. Following Goffman’s theatrical metaphor of identity formation, this change can be seen as a case where the audience loses trust in the performance, frustrating the construction of social identity.

A mental disorder prevents people from playing the role they are anticipated to play. They are no longer able to present the ‘expressive coherence’ that makes a performance acceptable to the social surroundings. Erving Goffman emphasises that there is a discrepancy between our social and our private identity and those performances are therefore not genuine. Another reason why people with mental disorders are perceived as deviant is that they are in some cases unable to construct a performance that hides their identity—they are unable to present an identity that follows usual conventions. This inability to adhere to impression management social protocol is one of the mechanisms by which people with mental disorders can be labelled deviant.

Labelling theory distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance. Primary deviance is the result of biological, psychological or social factors. This behaviour might be considered unfavourable, but is usually incidental and is therefore not labelled deviant. An action is identified as abnormal, when it is given the label ‘mental disorder’, it can lead to secondary deviance.

Secondary deviance is caused by the reaction of others on the as deviant labelled behaviour. In the case of a mental disorder, secondary deviance usually leads to treatment and possible hospitalisation. The escalation from primary to secondary deviance is analogous to the cognitive perspective on mental illness in psychology. From this perspective, mental disorders are acquired, maladaptive ways of thinking that result from a person’s interaction with the social environment. Secondary deviance, caused by the reaction of the social climate on primary deviance, is a maintaining cause for a mental disorder. For example, a sufferer of depression might act in a manner that will cause friends and family to react negatively. This adverse reaction and possible labelling as ‘depressive’ can increase the level of depression, thereby amplifying the as deviant labelled behaviour. Secondary deviance can have profound effects on an individual’s identity, which can influence a person negatively as well as positively.

Link showed that people labelled as having a psychiatric disorder have less income and are more likely to be underemployed than similarly impaired untreated cases with similar backgrounds.⁵ Mental disorder can also have positive effects. It was found in several studies that a high proportion of artists and writers are diagnosed with cyclothymia—a condition characterised by short periods of mild depression alternating with short periods of hypomania. People with cyclothymia are generally more creative than people with more balanced moods and creative periods usually coincide with periods of hypomania.

Gove tries to find the middle ground between the functionalist and labelling views of deviance and the effects on identity. He argues that most mental patients experience labelling and stigma, but the results appear to be temporary and do not pose severe problems. From a lay perspective, the mentally ill are ‘dirty, bizarre, unpredictable and dangerous’, but when deviant behaviour normalises, the stigma disappears. Gove argues that the stigma does not cause long term problems and does, therefore not lead to secondary deviance and subsequent problems with identity formation.

The history of secondary deviance

The three different views presented in the previous section run parallel with the history of cultural attitudes towards mental disorders. Foucault outlines how the perception and treatment of mental illness changed in the time that also rational philosophy gained influence. Foucault argues that in medieval times and during the Renaissance, people were fascinated by madness. He sees evidence of this attitude in literature, painting, philosophy and theology. To the French philosopher Montaigne (1533–1597), madness was not an insult to reason, but a part of reality that has to be accepted. Madness was considered not to be the opposite of reason, but the horizon of reason and accepted as an integral part of human experience.⁶

During the seventeenth century, however, madness was contrasted with rational behaviour, and it became a form of deviant behaviour. As rational philosophy gained more influence, society started to turn against everything that was considered irrational. The seventeenth century was also the time that the first mental institutions were built to remove people that were deemed to be insane from society. Foucault sees these institutions as a form of control over deviant behaviour, an attempt to remove irrational behaviour from society.

This strategy against deviance was not a historical oddity. Sutton argued that in the early twentieth century, failure to develop effective policies against poverty was a contributing cause to the great number of people being committed to mental asylums in the United States. People living in poverty and behaving deviantly were labelled as mentally ill to be able to segregate them from mainstream society.⁷

The attitude towards the mentally ill did not start to improve until the nineteenth century. Societal outrage regarding the treatment of the mentally ill sparked a movement promoting ethical treatment. The focus shifted from isolation to treatment, attempting to cure the patient and integrate them back into society. David Rosenhan undertook an insightful study into the treatment of people in mental institutions.⁸

In this study, Rosenhan and seven other people feigned mental illness to gain admission to different mental hospitals. They reported that the pseudopatients’ normal behaviours were frequently interpreted as symptoms of mental illness. Rosenhan’s findings support the social construction account of deviance and show that mental health care professionals were unable to see beyond the label of being mentally ill.

The situation has, however, changed considerably since Foucault and Rosenhan have written their criticism of the mental health industry. The American Psychological Association warns against the effects of labelling and recommends that one does not speak of a ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘anorexic’, but somebody suffering from schizophrenia or anorexia. The types of treatment have also changed in the last decades. Fewer people are hospitalised, and many alternative and highly successful programs for helping people with a mental disorder have been developed.

Mental disorders are becoming more accepted, which leads to a reduction in secondary deviance and subsequent adverse effects on identity formation. The public face of organisations like Beyond Blue, the national depression initiative, and movies such as A Beautiful Mind show that living with a mental disorder is becoming acceptable. Our highly individualised culture celebrates deviant behaviour. People are proud of being different from others, illustrated by, phenomena such as Gay Pride parades and the many youth subcultures. The more mental illness is accepted by society, the lower the risk that it will lead to secondary deviance and associated adverse effects on identity.

Notes

Gray, P.: 2002, Psychology, Worth Publishers.

Weiten, W.: 1995, Psychology: Themes and variations, 4th edn, Brooks / Cole Publishing Company, Pacific Grove).

Gove, W.R.: 2004, The career of the mentally ill: An integration of psychiatric, labelling/social construction and lay perspectives, Journal of Health and Social Behaviour 25(4), 357–375.

⁴

Widdershoven-Heerding et al., C.: 1995, Wetenschapsleer (Philosophy of science), Open Universiteit, Heerlen.

⁵

Link, B.G.: 1987, Understanding labelling effects in the area of mental disorders: An assessment of the effects of expectations of rejection, American Sociological Review 52(1), 96–112.

⁶

Foucault, M.: 1971, Madness and civilization. A history of insanity in the age of reason, Routledge.

⁷

Sutton, J. R.: 1991, The political economy of madness: The expansion of the asylum in progressive America, American Sociological Review 56(5), 665–678.

⁸

Rosenhan, D.: 1984, On being sane in insane places, in J. Douglas (ed.), The sociology of deviance, Allyn.

The Web of Cultural Identity: How we are who we are

Peter Prevos — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 10:00:00 +0000

Cultural identity is the concept of individuals labelling themselves as members of particular social groups—such as Nationality, Social class, Subculture, Ethnicity, Gender and Employment. The question to be answered in this assignment is whether we are free to choose our own identity or if identity is socially constructed through ideas like nationality, ethnicity, race and social class.

There are two major streams of thought that provide an answer to this question.¹ On the one hand, there is the interactionist school, which emphasises that we can reflect upon the nature of the social world and our position in that world. There is a creative dimension of human consciousness that actively shapes society in our image.

On the other hand, there is the structuralist view that identity is the product of society. An example of this school of thought is German sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918) who argued that their membership of individual groups defines individuals. Simmel emphasises membership of the groups we belong to as a source of our identity.

The majority of sociologists, however, fall somewhere between these two antitheses. American sociologist C. Wright Mills, for example, argued that “neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both”. Anthony Giddens sees a ‘double relationship’ between individual people and society, whereby individuals influence society and vice versa society influences individuals.

Web of Cultural Identity

There is no straightforward relationship between identity and social concepts such as Religion, Family and Gender. Our identities are embedded in a Web of Identity, which is a visual representation of the intersection between identity and society.

Web of identity (Livesey, 2004).

The Web of Identity illustrates that the interaction between identity and social structure is complex and multi-layered. Large social forces surround individuals; they live out their lives, making decisions and choices but have limited options available to them. Ang, who is of Chinese descent and grew up in Indonesia, describes how her identity as a foreigner and stranger was constructed by the indigenous Indonesians and was as such not accepted as a member of the community.² This social mechanism has a significant influence upon people who are constructed as a foreigner and “people who are positioned as ‘foreign’ develop all kinds of strategies to deal with it—some people will try to deny their foreignness, and self-hatred is part of this, or they will try to assimilate into the dominant culture as much as possible”.

Connell et al. describe the link between family circumstances and how education shapes the identity of individuals. They describe Kevin, who identifies with his father to the extent that he even reproduces his father’s pattern of being better with figures than words in school. Kevin has incorporated much of his father’s personality and much of his outlook on life.³ The authors offer a structuralist explanation for the similarities between Kevin’s identity and that of his father. Kevin’s identity is constructed through the image of his father and the social structure surrounding him.

These two examples seem to show that our identity is for the most part influenced by our social surroundings, as the forces of the social collective are much greater than the will of the individual to construct his or her own identity. Postmodern philosophers have argued against this one-way street and have deconstructed the concept of identity and the social categories it interacts with.

Deconstruction

Deconstruction pulls apart processes and dislocates our belief in stable subjects such as Gender, Class and Ethnicity. Foucault, for example, argues that sexuality is not a useful category of study. Deconstruction of the aspects of the Web of Identity results in the recognition that identity is a fluid concept.⁴ Postmodern recognition of the instability of self, of openness in the choosing of identities, reduces identity to a flux.

The postmodern idea of identity is opposite to that of modernity. In modernist terms, one is an engineer, a student, an immigrant, an atheist—or a combination of these social roles and possibilities, and identities are relatively fixed.⁵ The narrative construction of a coherent self is a discursive construction, an appearance that is the self. The postmodern idea of identity, on the other hand, knows no fixed boundaries between people and labels. When identities are relativised, they are consequently diminished to a contingent construct. The ultimate conclusion is that we are free to shape our own identity.

If the self is constructed, rather than inherited, what form is it in? What is the thing that we make? Giddens says that self-identity is a reflexive project—an endeavour that we continuously work and reflect on. We create, maintain and revise a set of biographical narratives, the story of who we are, and how we came to be where we are now.⁶ This idea also implies that no substantial self exists behind the narratives, as the narratives are the self.

Cultural Identity

The postmodern concept of social identity has shown that there is no fixed concept of identity; we are not merely defined by our Profession, Gender or any of the other social categories in the Web of Identity.

When investigating the lives of individuals, one finds that, although people make their own choices in life, these choices are embedded and limited within the social structure. Individual identity is thus as much as a social construction as construction by the individual. Both the interactionist and the structuralist account of the construction of the self seem to be valid. Identity and social structure are in a symbiotic relationship as either can not exist without the other. Both identity and social structure propel each other forward in eternal flux, like a dog chasing its tail.

Notes

Livesey, C. (2004). Culture and Identity. In Sociological Pathways.

Ang, I. (1998). Out of bounds: inauthentic spaces and the production of identities. In M. Zournazi (Ed.), Foreign Dialogues: Memories, Translations, Conversations (pp. 153–167).

Connell, R. W., Ashenden, D. J., Kessler, S., & Dowsett, G. W. (1982). Making the Difference: Schools, Families and Social Division (pp. 35–78).

⁴

Foucault, M. (1971). Madness and civilisation. A history of insanity in the Age of Reason. Routledge.

⁵

Ott, B. L. (2003). “I am Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?” A study in postmodern identity (re)construction. Journal of Popular Culture, /37/(1), 56–82.

⁶

Gauntlett, D. (2002). Media, gender and identity: An introduction. London and New York: Routledge.

The Self in Indian Philosophy: Hindu, Buddhist and Carvaka views

Peter Prevos — Tue, 09 Apr 2002 00:00:00 +0000

About half a century ago, many young people from Europe and the United States travelled to India to find themselves. These people journeyed thousands of miles along the Hippy Trail in the hope that some ancient Indian wisdom would help them to discover their true selves. These truth-seekers were not always as clear about what it was they were looking for as it is not easy to bring under words what it is they were looking for. What is this true self that apparently can be found in India? This essay discusses some of the views of the self in Indian philosophy in line with contemporary scientific ideas.

Indian sadhu greeting a tourist (Source: Oleg Doroshenko).

The Self in Indian Philosophy

Classical Indian philosophy consists of three leading schools. The ancient Brahminical Hindu views from the Vedas form the foundation of Indian thought. The later Buddhist school of thought started a new tradition that spread around Asia and the world. The third school represents the not so well-known materialists of the Charvaka tradition.

The Brahminical or orthodox (astika) schools of Indian philosophy argues that the self or Atman is a substantial but non-material entity. The Katha and Chandogya Upanishads, for example, define the Brahminical conception of the self as:¹

The light of the Atman, the spirit is invisible, concealed in all beings. It is seen by the seers of the subtle when their vision is keen and bright … The Atman is beyond sound and form, without touch and taste and perfume. It is eternal, unchangeable, and without beginning or end: indeed above reasoning. An invisible and subtle essence is the spirit of the whole universe. That is Reality. That is Truth. THOU ART THAT.

The Brahminical view on the nature of the self as portrayed in the Upanishads supports four central theses:

The self exists.
The self is immortal and without beginning or end.
The self is essentially non-material.
The self is identical with Brahman, the highest reality.

The heterodox (nastika) schools in Indian philosophy, such as the Charvaka materialists and the Buddhists, question the Brahminical arguments for a substantial, persistent and non-material self on metaphysical, moral and political grounds. The Buddhists and the Charvaka oppose the Hindu caste system. They believe that the Vedas are full of falsehoods, self-contradictions and tautologies.

The Charvaka accuse the Brahmins of being impostors who abuse the words of the Vedas and interpret them to suit their own selfish needs. The Vedas are, in their opinion nothing but a means of livelihood for the Brahmins who are lazy, lacking in intellect, energy, self-respect and sense. The following quote by Hindu philosopher Sankara illustrates the Charvaka and Buddhist views on the self:²

The soul is but the body characterised by the attributes signified in the expressions, 'I am stout', 'I am youthful', 'I am grown-up', 'I am old', etc. It is not something other than that. A sentient being does exist, you think, O Mara? You are misled by a false conception. This bundle of elements is void of self, in it, there is no sentient being. Just as a set of wooden parts receives the name of carriage, so do we give to elements the name of fancied being.

Existence of the Self

Advaita (non-duality) is the Vedanta school associated with the philosopher Sankara (c. 788–820 AD) who is acknowledged as the leader of the Hindu revival after the Buddhist period in India. The foundation of Sankara's metaphysics is that reality is that whose negation is impossible. From this criterion follows that the self is real because no one will say "I am not". Sankara writes, reminiscent of Descartes' famous cogito ergo sum:

Just because it is the self, we can't entertain the idea even of its being capable of refutation.

The Nyaya-Vaisesika subscribe to a concept of the self in the Vedas as a substantial, persistent and non-material entity. They agree with the Vedantins that the self can not be perceived, but only inferred. The later Nyaya school, however, rejected the idea that the self can only be known by inference and asserted that the existence of the self can be directly perceived. The idea that the self can be directly perceived is put forward by Udayana in a polemical work against the Buddhists.

The Nyaya argument for the existence of the self through agency: "From the actions of the mind towards the contact of the sense-organ apprehending desirable objects, we infer the existence of the self". An analogy offered by the Nyaya is that from the action of regular breathing, we infer the existence of the agent who would act as a blower of the wind-pipe. The Nyaya are clearly referring to intelligent actions and not merely the mechanical ones as those of a biological robot.

The Charvaka argue that the self is nothing but the body as characterised by consciousness. The Charvaka denial of a substantial self is based on the epistemological position that perception is the only valid source of knowledge. The Charvaka deny the validity of inference and other sources of knowledge (darsanas) usually accepted in classical Indian philosophy. From this position and the Brahminical assertion that the self can not be perceived they infer that the self can not exist because only that which can be perceived exists.

This last premise is, however, not a fair representation of the Brahminical position because the Mimamsa and the later Naiyayikas insist that the self as the subject is directly cognised in every experience. In the available texts, there is however no detailed discussion of whether the Charvaka had any arguments to deal with the Mimamsaka and the later Naiyayikas.

The Buddhist reply to the Brahminical view of the self would be that there is no such entity. This view is illustrated by the debate between King Milinda and the Buddhist monk Nagasena.³ King Milinda is not convinced of the theory of the not-self for, "if there were no person, there could be no merit and no demerit …". Nagasena clarifies the idea of the not-self to the king by comparing a human being with a chariot. None of the individual parts of the chariot (the pole, the axle, the wheels etc.), are the chariot. Nor the combination of the components is the chariot. Nagasena continuous that he can not discover a chariot at all, only the word that denotes the idea of the chariot. The denomination chariot — or self — takes place independent of the individual parts. In ultimate reality, the person can not be apprehended.

The hippies of the past would thus be quite disappointed by either the Buddhists of the Charvaka. The Hindu views of the self do acknowledge its existence. Still, they only infer that it exists without penetrating the mystical realms of getting to know your true self.

Properties of the Self in Indian Philosophy

The debate on the existence of the self is inseparable from a description of the nature of the self. The Vedic scriptures mention three properties of the self. The self is eternal, non-material and is identical with Brahman: the ultimate reality.

The eternity of the self follows, according to Sankara, from the essential irrefutability of its nature. Sankara is claiming here that since the self is not an effect, it has no beginning or end and is therefore eternal. The Buddhist would dispute this argument because they believe that anything that is not caused does not exist.

Sankara argues for the immateriality of the self. He states that the existence of an eternal, immaterial self, distinct from the body is a necessary presupposition for the achievement of liberation. The scriptures would otherwise make no sense, which is an unacceptable conclusion for the Vedantins. This argument is obviously unacceptable to the heterodox schools because they do not accept the scriptures as a source of valid knowledge.

The Naiyayika use an argument from language to ascertain that the self is distinct from the body. The Nyaya argument from language encompasses that since the word "I" is used in the Vedas and ordinary talk. Since everything in the Vedas is true, the term "I" must refer to an existing entity. They hold that the word I must refer to a non-physical entity: "If the notion I referred to the body, then just as another man's body being as perceptible as our own body … the other man's body would also be capable of being spoken of as I". No perceptible property and thus no physical property of an individual can be used to identify a person uniquely and the referent I must therefore be something non-physical.

The persistence of the self is induced by the Naiyayika through the argument from memory. We have desires for objects that have been experienced in the past as being pleasant. One cannot desire a thing one does not remember, and one can not remember someone else's experiences. They argue that there must, therefore, be a continuously existing self who had the experience in the past, and who is desiring it in the present.

The materialists only accept the four elements — air, water, fire and earth — as the basic building blocks of reality and ultimate facts of the universe. The body is to the Charvaka a unique combination of these elements, and the self emerges from these elements. They thus account for the higher principle of mind by the lower one of matter.⁴ The views of the Charvaka have been fervently opposed by the other schools of thought (darsana) in classical Indian philosophy. It is clear from the materials at our disposal that Charvaka philosophy was viewed with far greater disrespect than any other darsana. Phil Hari Singh argues that there appears to be an underlying hostility towards the Charvaka that is not entirely borne out by the analysis of their doctrines.⁵

To the Buddhists, a person is not a single substance existing continuously through time. The self is a series of physical and mental states, also called 'person states'. The Buddhist term for an individual suggests the difference between the Buddhist view and other theories, is santana, which means a stream. Each person state consists of various psychological and physiological factors, the skandhas. These skandhas are not persistent in time but last only for one infinitesimal period.

The person states fleet away, and they give rise to new person states in an endless cycle of cause and effect. Because every single person state only exists for a tiny period, there can not be a persistent self. The instantaneous succession of skandhas gives the impression of continuity, like the succession of twenty-four still images per second provide the illusion of a moving image.

Sankara's criticism against the Buddhist theory of momentary person states is that in the absence of a permanent self throughout the successive skandhas, what sense can we make of memory and recognition? Sankara writes that:

"Remembrance means recalling to mind something after its perception, and that can happen only when the agent of perception and memory is the same …".

Contemporary Discourse on the Self

The contemporary discourse on the self is predominantly physical in character. Physicalism in the philosophy of mind is the view that consciousness and the self can be described and explained by the laws of physics. This section evaluates the Indian perspectives on the self in light of the physicalist philosophy of mind.

In a recent paper, C. Ram-Prassad offered some suggestions on how classical Indian philosophical material may contribute to current discussions in consciousness studies.⁶ This contribution is problematic because the goal of moksa is incompatible with the purposes of physicalist consciousness studies. Ram-Prassad proposes to exclude the transcendental elements of the philosophy through 'interpretative compromise'. The role he sees for Brahmanic philosophy in contemporary consciousness studies is a profound critique of the chief aims. The main critique that the Brahminical philosophy offers to the physicalist consciousness studies is the circularity of the physicalist studies. Only when we know what it is that is to be studied, we can examine it, but the purpose of the study is precisely to understand what it is.

The self of the Charvaka can be viewed as an epiphenomenon, an incidental product of physical processes that has no effect of its own. The Charvaka theory of the self seems elegant but does not offer a satisfactory explanation of the self. The study of the Charvaka philosophy is, however, particularly tricky. We are left with only a few fragmentary survivals of the Charvaka. Still, all these are preserved in the writings of those who wanted only to refute and ridicule it. Charvaka philosophy thus remains to be reconstructed from the inherently hostile references to it.

The hermeneutic difficulties in Charvaka philosophy prevent it from playing a role in contemporary discussions on the self. Derek Parfit identifies two contemporary theories of the self.⁷ On the Ego Theory, a person's continued existence can not be explained except as the continued existence of a particular ego or subject of experiences. The ego theory explains the self like the Brahminical theories as an enduring spiritual substance. The opposing view is the Bundle Theory according to which we can not explain the unity of consciousness at any time by referring to a person. Instead, we must claim that there exist a long series of different mental states and events. In Bundle Theory, the self is only a fact of our grammar. Parfit calls Buddha the first bundle theorist and states that given the advances in psychology and neurophysiology, the Bundle Theory, and thus the Buddhist theory of the self may now seem to be obviously true.

Ethics and the self

The metaphysical beliefs that we hold depend on our ethical convictions and vice versa, ethical convictions provide the motivation for upholding certain metaphysical beliefs. Personhood is one of the underlying assumptions in moral philosophy. In bio-ethics, struggles over abortion, animal rights and brain death have brought personhood to the forefront.

The ongoing debate on embryonic stem cell research illustrates this belief. The basic principle in this debate is that no human being can be sacrificed for the well-being of another human being. The issues surrounding embryonic stem cells centre on the question at which point in the development of a human embryo one can speak of a person. Suppose the lump of cells that forms the embryo is not considered a person. In that case, there are no moral objections against using these cells in favour of advancement in medical science.

Sample of stem cells in the reaction tube (Source: Motorolka).

If these cells do constitute a person, then the basic principle prohibits the use of this person for medical research. This example illustrates that a theory of the self is required to be able to determine an outcome in this moral dilemma. The Brahmanical theory of the self as a substantial and non-material entity would hold that any living organism with the potentiality to become a human has a soul and is, therefore, a person. The Brahmanical theory of the self and the subsequent ethical views would, therefore, render embryonic stem cell research immoral. The classical Hindu materialist philosophy of the Charvaka does not totally deny the existence of the self for it is an emergent property of the physical body. The Charvaka answer to the moral dilemma of embryonic stem cell research would be that the young embryo is not a person. The material configuration of the fetus is not complex enough to produce a self.

The Buddhist totally denies any self and would, therefore, agree without reservations with embryonic stem cell research. In an earlier paper, I have argued that the Buddhist conception of the self can not be upheld because a denial of the self would lead to ethical nihilism. The problem for Buddhist ethics has always been why should people be moral if there is no actor. If there is no self or other, how can there be karmic consequences, responsibility, loyalty or even compassion?

Derek Parfit rejects the existence of continuous selves and consequently, working for the future welfare of all beings is the same as working for one's future well-being, since there will be no 'I' to benefit in the future. This interpretation of anatta would favour embryonic stem cell research. Most Buddhist commentators have however adopted classical Hindu teachings that the transmigration of consciousness occurs at conception, and therefore that all abortion incurs the karmic burden of killing. We need Parfit's mild interpretation of the theory of the no-self to be able to offer a Buddhist solution to moral issues such as embryonic stem cell research.

Conclusion

The brief for this essay is to indicate who is right in the classical Indian debate on the existence and nature of the self. Truth is a state of correspondence with empirical reality and agreeance with physicalist theories of the self. Any theory of the self also has to be able to support a sound moral doctrine.

The views of the self in classical Indian philosophy span a broad spectrum of ideas. For the Brahmins, the self is a non-physical soul, a Rylean' ghost in the machine'. For the Buddhists, the soul is a mere figment of the imagination. The Charvaka, on the other hand, see the self as an epiphenomenon.

The Brahminical theories of the self can be considered invalid because the spiritual conception of the self does not correspond with empirical reality—if one concedes that religious experiences are not part of reality. The theory is, however, capable of giving a clear answer on moral issues in bio-ethics, as shown above. The Charvaka theory could be correct, but as is known to us, it can not provide any explanation, only a description of the self.

The Buddhist theory of the self explains our natural intuitions without any of the metaphysical complications of the Brahmanical theories. The theory of the no-self needs, however, to be interpreted mildly to be able to reply to the moral dilemmas in bio-ethics as Parfit has suggested.

We are still a long way away from a satisfactory physicalist theory of the self. Roger Penrose even argues that we need an extension of our present-day scientific understanding to be able to explain the phenomena of the mind in physicalist terms.⁸ The Buddhist denial of the self as a substantial entity is a counter-intuitive step. It will require a Copernican Revolution in common sense thinking to be entirely accepted. This evolution in human thinking was envisaged in 1885 by Friedrich Nietzsche, who was through Arthur Schopenhauer inspired by Indian Philosophy:⁹

"Body am I and soul" —thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak like the children? But the enlightened one, the knowing one says: Body am I totally and fully, and nothing else; and soul is but a word for something to the body.

Notes

Juan Mascoró, The Upanishads (Penguin Books, 1965).

Monima Chadha, Topics in Indian Philosophy (Churchill: Monash Philosophy, 1998).

Edward Conze, Buddhist Scriptures (London: Penguin Books, 1959).

⁴

M Hiriyanna, The essentials of Indian Philosophy (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2000).

⁵

Phil Hari Singh, 'A history of the Charvakas' (April 2002, defunct website).

⁶

C Ram-Prasad, 'Saving the self? Classical Hindu theories of consciousness and contemporary physicalism', Philosophy East & West 51 (July 2001).

⁷

Derek Parfit, 'Divided minds and the nature of persons', in Colin Blackmore and Susan Greenfield, editors, Mindwaves. Thoughts on intelligence, identity and consciousness (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

⁸

Roger Penrose, Shadows of the mind. A search for the missing science of consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

⁹

Friedrich Nietzsche, 'Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus spoke Zarathustra)', in: Friedrich Nietzsche. Das Hauptwerk, volume III (Nymphenburger, 1990), p. 34. Translation by the Peter Prevos.

The Social Importance of Rites of Passage and Initiations

Peter Prevos — Mon, 05 Feb 2001 00:00:00 +0000

The word ritual has a negative connotation in our largely secularised society. Sigmund Freud described religious rituals as an “obsessional neurosis”.¹ Since Freud, rituals are often described as habitual actions that are performed with a false belief that they will change the world. This article shows that initiation rituals, also known as Rites of Passage, are more than neurotic activities devoid of efficacy. Rites of Passage are full of meaning, also in a secularised world.

Rites of Passage are most commonly performed in a religious context, such as Christian baptisms or the more extreme land diving ritual in Vanuatu. Initiations don’t only occur in a religious context. Universities have hazing, and graduation rites of passage and many magic clubs have formal initiations. There is no significant difference between those rituals performed in a religious context and the ones we experience in our secular life.

Rites of Passage around the World.

The Meaning Rites of Passage

The anthropological understanding of a ritual is much broader than a repeated meaningless activity. A ritual is a traditional and ordered sequence of actions in which participants achieve a purpose through an interplay between the sacred and the mundane world.² Participants perform religious rituals to achieve various objectives:

Communication: Enable communication between the sacred and the profane, such as glossolalia, or speaking in tongues.
Reconstitution: Rituals that accompany seasonal or cosmic cycles, such as Easter and Christmas, which are originally pagan celebrations to mark the changing seasons.
Celebration or memorial: Remembering either good or bad past occurrences. These events can have taken place in the physical world or the mythological realm.
Cleansing: Unite the secular and spiritual world closer together. These rituals enhance the quality of profane space.
Promotion or protection: Funerals are a rite of protection because they ensure that the soul of the deceased is guided in their life after death.
Initiation (Rites of Passage): A guided process of transition of a person from one state to another.

Rites of Passage

A rite of passage is a particular type of ritual, conducted to mark an important transition in somebody’s life. These rituals most commonly follow people from the cradle to the grave. An initiation transforms a person from their current state to a new one.

Rites of passage have multi-layered meanings. The purpose and intent of the ritual can be social or psychological as well as spiritual or religious. Certain rites of passage represent first and foremost transformations in the religious status or circumstances of the initiated. Catholic initiation rituals primarily have a spiritual meaning.³

“By Baptism we are born again, Confirmation makes us strong, perfect Christians and soldiers [. . . ] Matrimony, primarily affects man as a social being, and sanctifies him in the fulfilment of his duties towards the Church and society. Extreme Unction removes the last remnant of human frailty, and prepares the soul for eternal life”.

Initiation rituals are not limited to Catholics and form part of every society around the globe. Within our great cultural variety, we find many commonalities in the way these events are structured. French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) is famous for his analysis of Rites of Passage. In his book Les Rites de Passage (1909), he shows that these rites include three phases:

Separation
Transition
Reincorporation.

Each initiation ritual has three stages, the pre-liminal, liminal, and post-liminal stage. The Latin word limen is a threshold, and the liminal world forms the threshold between the old and the new. The diagram shows how an initiation ritual, temporarily removes a person from their society, transforms them and places them back into the community in a changed state.

Three-part structure of initiation rituals.

Separation

The sponsor (the guide of the initiate) removes the initiate physically or symbolically from the world they currently form part of. This phase can involve removing clothing or wearing ceremonial garb. In some cultures, the separation phase can also include modifying or even removing body parts, such as tattoos or circumcision. After the separation phase, the initiate resides in the liminal world. The initiate is no longer part of the old world, but not yet accepted as a member of the new one.

Transition

After the initiate is disconnected from the old world, the transition phase starts. This is the phase where the initiates are instructed on the responsibilities of their new life stage. In this condition, they are often considered to be in danger themselves, or to others. To mitigate this negative influence, they are provided with a sponsor whose role it is to protect the candidates.

Reincorporation

In the final step of the tripartite, the initiate is confirmed in his or her new status; the initiate crosses the threshold so to speak. These rites may include spitting on the new member or investing the candidate with new a new name, clothes, rings, tattoos or other identifying marks. These marks of identity publicly announce that the individual belongs to the new group or status.

Profane Initiation Rituals

To non-religious people of contemporary society, initiation rituals seem a cultural practice from a distant past or performed by exotic tribes and secret societies. Initiation rituals do, however, also play an essential role in secular society.

Universities are the cornerstone of our secular society and centres of rational thinking. One of the distinguishing features of secularism is that many aspects of religion are replaced with science. Even though most universities are devoid of religion, rituals nevertheless play an essential role in the life of students and academics. Universities as centres of rationality are in some aspects also centres of irrational ritualistic activity.

We could argue that the years of going through university are in effect a very long initiation ritual. The student is removed from parental care and provided with knowledge and skills to become members of society after graduation. The actual studying can be referred to as the Rite of Transition. It is during this stage that the student consumes the knowledge presented by the ‘elders’. The final graduation ceremony is the Rite of Incorporation. The student is through this ritual, accepted as a member of the academic community. This long-term period is for many students punctuated by two specific rites of passage.

Hazing

Being a student is not only about learning but also about being a part of the student body. Hazing of new students is an informal rite of passage that marks a transition from a child to a student.

The act of hazing new students before they are accepted as members of a fraternity or sororities is at times controversial. The media focuses on violent excesses of this rite of passage. Still, it is an integral part of student life that marks a path to adulthood.

Hazing ritual in Amsterdam (RTL Nieuws).

Most hazing rituals follow the three-part structure describe above. First, the student is separated and in a state of transition. Initiates endure adversity during the liminal phase, after which they are accepted as members of their chosen society. Hazing rituals are controversial because of their links to violence. Even though this might be unacceptable in contemporary society, it has formed a part of humanity for millennia.

These contemporary rituals have a lot in common with more traditional versions. In traditional Australian aboriginal societies, initiation rituals included violence through bodily mutilation, often using various bodily fluids, to represent ritual death. We have become squeamish about such aspects of humanity. Still, these types of rituals have been part of humanity for millennia.⁴ Student hazing is merely an expression of these millennia-old psychological mechanisms.

The Ritual of Graduation

Almost every university in the world performs a graduation ceremony to mark the end of several years of hard work. The pomp and circumstance of the academic dress and procession seem innocent reminders of ancient traditions to add gravitas to the moment of graduation. The ritualistic aspects of the ceremony such as the doffing of the hat to the Chancellor are, however, all part of an elaborate pagan ceremony.

One particular moment, the’ conferring of the degree’, can only be described as a moment of secular magical. This act is not magic in the sense that the ceremony has an ethereal atmosphere, but magic in the literal sense of the word. The conferring of the degree is in its very essence, a mystical moment.

In the ceremonies I participated in, graduands were asked to stand, and the Chancellor conferred the degree upon us. Even though she did not use any incantations or invoke any occult forces, the conferring of the degrees is a moment of magic. Only from that point forward that I call myself a Doctor of Philosophy. Even those who decided not to attend the ceremony did not escape the magical powers of the Chancellor, as also they had their degrees conferred upon them by the power invested in her.

It seems rather strange that a rational organisation such as a university uses archaic and irrational practices to finalise several years of intense rational work. Although the purpose of academic education is to hone logical thinking skills, the process is concluded this non-rational moment.

Although it might not be sensed by contemporary graduands as being just that, there is no significant difference between the conferring of the degree and the activities of a witch doctor or priest bestowing a blessing upon the believers.

My initiation as a Doctor of Philosophy.

Rites of Passage Meaning and the Horizon of Reason

Some scholars, like Robert Brain, stress the psychological importance of rites of passage. Brain asserts that Western societies do not have initiation at puberty to mark the path to adulthood. Without a ritualised path to adulthood, we have disturbed teenagers and infantile adults. At the age of eighteen, teenagers are magically converted into adults through statute law.

Brain is, however, wrong in assuming that Western culture does not have any rites of passage. Besides the religious rites of passage—such as practised in the Catholic Church—there are numerous examples rites of passage in Western secular culture. The rituals may be less ceremonial and without the intent of actually being an initiation, but the psychological drive is still apparent. The most noticeable difference between secular rituals and examples from other cultures is the intent of the activity.

Secular initiations are informal, and participation is voluntary. In postmodern western society, one can choose to marry or decide to be buried formally. In many other cultures, you are not a human being until he has undergone the rites of passage appropriate for his age and sex. For these people, there is no choice to participate in the ritual or not. Studying at a university is in a certain way a three or four-year initiation to eventually become a member of the academic community.

This article describes how the three-fold structure of Rites of Passage can still be found in contemporary society. Even though the spiritual aspects of ritualistic behaviours are no longer relevant in an atheist society, our psychology benefits from the structures that evolved over thousands of year.

Initiation rituals exist on the horizon of reason. There is no quantitative difference between the initiate and the initiated, but a qualitative improvement to their lives. Academic rituals are only a few of the examples of how these millennia-old psychological structures persevere even when their religious context no longer relevant.

Notes

Freud, Sigmund (1907). Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices.

Moore and N. Habel, On religion related to education, (Adelaide: SACAE, 1982), p. 204–209.

D.J. Kennedy, ‘The Sacraments', in Catholic Encyclopaedia, (New Advent, 2001).

⁴

Brain, R. (1979). Passage to Adulthood. In Rites Black and White (pp. 125–149). Ringwood: Penguin.