As we talked in our tutorials Andy asked some probing questions to get us thinking. While the presentation about Goffman was very informative and explained his concepts well enough, afterwards Andy asked some difficult questions which had almost everyone in our class scratching their heads. Mainly we struggled with determining when an identity is established. We also grappled with ‘who’ can have an identity but there’s no way that debate will fit into less than 300 words.
When is a sense of self created? Ideally we decided that we are born with an identity and we mould it as we grow. However Andy then asked us how a baby, who cannot communicate with others (society) can develop an identity as a major part of development relies upon interaction with others.
We were stumped.
Some people weakly argued that a baby can communicate with its mother, but in the end a baby who is relatively newborn has very little communicative methods to convey what it wants/needs, it cries when it’s hungry, it cries when it wets itself and it cries when it is tired. So when is an identity first formed? When a toddler learns sign language to communicate wants/needs or when they begin to talk using words? We talked about ventriloquising babies and whether this projected communication gives them an identity. But this didn’t really answer our conundrum either.
To be honest I don’t think we really found an answer.
Goffman states that we communicate ourselves based upon our social status and rules. Therefore this allows for different personalities and identities to develop in different places across the world. Essentially our identity is based upon the society we are raised in (or it will at least have some significant bearing on the person we become). So as Andy put it, ‘do babies have souls? If not, when do they get them?’
What an interesting discussion question! I find that I want to respond by saying that perhaps babies do have a soul or an identity because WE (everyone other than the baby) ascribe that characteristic to them. It seems that the discussion focused a lot on verbal/gestural communication of the baby's own thoughts, but did you guys consider that identity is something that is constructed by others and not just by the self? Imagine a situation in where a pregnant woman is sitting and her partner is cradling her belly, talking to the baby as if it were already something worth communicating with. I imagine they would say something along the lines of "you're going to be so beautiful and strong", "you're going to be a troublemaker aren't you". And so by speaking I this way, the baby is ascribed characteristics before it has the chance to communicate anything itself. Moving forward in time slightly to the birth of the child, the first thing anyone will say is "it's a boy!" or "it's a girl!", giving that gendered identity to the child along with a whole lot of other characteristics that would make up 'who they are'.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the case, fascinating discussion and great blog post!
The dark font on a dark background makes it hard to read but you have some interesting points so it would be a shame for people to miss out on your thoughts as it is difficult to read so I would suggest you change the colour.
ReplyDeleteAs for the content I studied a philosophy subject last year with a topic "are animals persons" Alot of the questions you raised refer to the question 'What constitutes a person?'
Well worth the research if you are interested in the topic.