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This shouldn't surprise anybody who has lived in a small town -- when you are in a fish bowl, you manage how you present yourself differently than when you are
by forkandwait 16y ago
This shouldn't surprise anybody who has lived in a small town -- when you are in a fish bowl, you manage how you present yourself differently than when you are in a big urban anonymous situation. I choose not to live in small towns, and I choose not have a facebook persona, precisely because I don't want to have to worry this crap. (I think Facebook has already lost its mojo because of these issues, but that is another story.)
Regarding "authenticity": please, give me a break about the "real you". The part inside you that wants to rip off your clothes and tell dirty jokes is no more "real" than the part, also inside you, that maintains your social persona. Without sociality -- and the maintenance of personas and ethics -- you don't exist, period. Even the idea of "authenticity" is given to us, a (rather lame) invention of the 19th Century Romantics, Freud, and the 1960s.
(Edit: Some of the existenstialists would even go so far as to say there is no "real you", and that the anxiety created by this lack of anchoring is one of the most important aspects of the human condition.)
- _delirium 16y ago> Even the idea of "authenticity" is given to us, a (rather lame) invention of the 19th Century Romantics, Freud, and the 1960s. They popularized a version (and Sartre's idea of "bad faith" is probably the proximal source of modern popularity), but you can find it in basically the entire individualist tradition of Western philosophy. Rousseau spends a lot of time discussing it, for example; in addition to discussing the political effects of social relations, he worries about whether societies produce conformity and reduce people's expression of their genuine personality/autonomy (see e.g. his writing on amour-propre, and his obsession with taking [and writing about] solitary walks).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- lists 16y agoJust to keep things clear and accurate, Freud has nothing to do with an idea of being an authentic self. I'd have to ask which text of his you have in mind.
- forkandwait 16y agoIt is probably too late, but he did have a lot to do with our placing such a high regard on our inner, immediate emotional life. You are right, he said nothing (that I know of) about authenticity directly, though I think he was very much in the "express your feelings" (whatever that means) line of western thought.
- forkandwait 16y agoIt is probably too late, but he did have a lot to do with our placing such a high regard on our inner, immediate emotional life. You are right, he said nothing (that I know of) about authenticity directly, though I think he was very much in the "express your feelings" (whatever that means) line of western thought.