Saturday, September 26, 2009

But Why Should I?

Dear Toulmin Method,
I appreciate how thorough you are when it comes to analyzing arguments, and I absolutely respect your intended purpose, that is to say, what you do. However, I'm having some problems getting motivated to make use of your... services. You see, I am studying to be a costume designer for the world of theater. It's true that theater performance in itself is a form of rhetoric, there is a speaker or speakers and an audience, but unfortunately there is very little argumentation in my future career.
When I meet with a director to discuss a production, the only times when I need to make claims and prove them, happen during conversations, which provides little time for me to apply your method. Argumentation and mature reasoning mean being willing to exhaust a claim until it's fully supportable, or you are forced to find a new one. Unfortunately if costume design followed these same processes, there would quite possibly never be another costume made. Costume design is about analyzing a character and making a decision on how to best represent that character, the process also has a time limit, meaning the faster a decision is made, the better for the production.
What I'm saying is that I will use you during my English class, because that is what I'm required to do. It does not mean I like you, or that I will ever call on you again. I just want to establish clear guidelines and boundaries for our relationship, so you won't get too attached and end up being hurt. That is all.
Yours for now,
Andrew Hill

Thursday, September 17, 2009

"High School Musical" and the varying weights of social identities.

High School Musical is, to be sure, a campy, self-satisfying Disney Channel Original Movie (or for us regulars, a DCOM) However, if you take the time to look deeper into it, it has the potential of making some pretty interesting points about social identity.

There's a musical number called "Stick to the Status Quo" where several stereotyped teenagers (played by actors in their early to late twenties) reveal that they are capable of branching outside of their cliques and engaging in activities not listed in their expected categories. The reaction, of course, is shock and outrage.

So if you believe William James when he says "a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him", then what does it mean when there are many individuals who recognize a person as one specific thing?

For instance, in high school I became well known as a "theatre kid". As more and more people began to recognize me as such, I found that the way I acted changed. I started to embody what was expected of a "theatre kid". Does this mean that social identities can hold different weights? Every person has potentially dozens of identities, not including those provided by the "others". What I've noticed is that when there are lots of people that recognize one particular identity, it becomes a stronger part of that person's self.

If your self is made up of all of the identities that other people see you as, than it becomes possible to create a hierarchy of social identities. While I see that people act differently depending on who they are around, I think it can be said that a person's other identities trickle out, even when he is with a specific group of people. So if hundreds of people see me as a "theatre kid", that effects who I am, even when I'm not around the people who see me that way.

Cliques in high school are formed based on groupings of students who have similar social identities that the student body as a whole recognizes. It's almost a chicken-and-egg situation; do we associate ourselves with other people because we have similar social identities, or do we have similar social identities because we associate with one another. And if high school can be viewed as a microcosm of the "real world", then this sort of grouping doesn't stop upon graduation.

In summation, the more people that view you as having a particular identity, the larger a role that particular identity plays in who you are as a whole. What this does is give the external entities in your life a lot of power over who you are. The main character in High School Musical, may have always loved to sing, but until he tried out for the "Spring Musicale", he was just a basketball player, which was the strongest part of his identity. What you do, really is one of the largest factors in who you are, at least socially, and singing a rousing chorus of "We're all in this together" won't change that.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Does Benny have a "Self"?

This is Benny.
(this isn't his most recent photo, but it's probably my favorite)
Benny is now a three year old Golden Retriever, and in this post I am going to argue that he has a Social Self as defined by some of the authors of the reading for class this week.
First there's the famous dictum by René Descartes which goes
"I think, therefore I am."
Now, I have no way of proving that Benny thinks, but I can argue (and strongly, I think) that Benny recognizes himself as his own entity. I believe this mainly because he recognizes and responds to his own name. Benny [probably] can't spell his name, and to the best of my knowledge he can't pronounce it, but when someone calls his name, he knows that that means him. The fact that he recognizes his name means to me that he has some sense of self, or at least the ability to differentiate between himself and others.

According to William James, "a man's Me is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account."

Benny doesn't have clothes, and while he lives in my house he couldn't call it his. He certainly doesn't have a wife, land, horses, a yacht or bank-account. Some would say that as a dog, he doesn't have any possessions or even the capability of recognizing objects as belonging to him. Tell that to Benny when I grab his leash from the garage. Benny has chew toys and food dishes and a bed. If you try to take a toy from him, he acknowledges the invasion on his property with a playful growl or an immediate seizure of the toy.
We have a small summer cabin on Lake Michigan, which is arguably Benny's favorite place. Every summer, when we get ready to go, we set a small blue and red duffle bag by the door, containing various toys, dishes, brushes, collars and other essentials that Benny will need. When Benny sees this bag, he absolutely loses control of himself. As far as I or anyone else can tell, Benny recognizes the bag as belonging to him.
All this means that in some way Benny CAN call these things his, despite the fact that he can't express it in the way that a human would.

Charles Horton Cooley thinks of the Self as more of a looking-glass. This means that one's Self is a person's perception of how other people are seeing him.

Unfortunately I'm not Doctor Doolittle, which means I can't prove what Benny is thinking or feeling, but I can see Benny's demeanor change depending on who he is around. When I walk in the door after a long day of classes, visibly exhausted and I greet him, Benny approaches me amicably but non-assumingly. When I am angry or upset with him, Benny is timid and nervous around me. When I'm smiling and laughing with him, he is much more aggressively playful. This just shows that he's able to see the differences in the way that I am seeing him. He also does this with other people. When interacting with my father, who is not quite as cuddly as I am, Benny is reserved. When dealing with my brother and his, um, energetic fianceé, Benny is positively spastic. Therefore I see that Benny is seeing himself and his role through Cooley's looking-glass.

Another interesting point, which I think helps claim that Benny can see himself through Cooley's looking-glass, is how he interacts with me, when he's done something wrong while not in my presence. When he was younger and not yet potty-trained, if he had an accident while I was out, it would be reflected in his attitude when I returned, even before I saw that he had had an accident. What this says to me, is that Benny is capable of seeing himself through my eyes, even when I'm not there to reinforce it. He thinks because he did something wrong, that I will view him negatively, and it's reflected in how he acts.

So, to summarize:
Descartes: "I think, therefore I am" CHECK
James: "a man's Me is the sum total of all that he CAN call his" CHECK
Cooley: Looking-glass CHECK

I would take this to mean that Benny does in fact have a Self, and that he is capable of recognizing it.


Thursday, September 10, 2009

Introductions

So. This is the introductory post for my new blog, a chance to explain what this is, who I am, and most importantly, why you should read this.
The first question is, of course, easy to answer; it is a requirement for my English class. It is to be an insight into my thoughts and views on rhetoric as well as various factors, characteristics and components of what is known as "identity". It should be pretty interesting.
The second question is a little more complex. Am I who you see me as? Am I who I see me as? Am I some hodgepodge mixture of both? In which case, how could anyone, including myself, know who I really am? I could no sooner tell who you see me as, than assume to have you fully understand who I see me as.
Well, this is getting rambly.
So I think I'll take the easy route and tell you what I do.
I'm a senior at the University of Michigan, studying theatrical costume design with a minor in Germanic Studies. I grew up in Ann Arbor and am proud of being a townie. In my rare free time, I can almost always be found doing some sort of handcraft (knitting, sewing, beading and wire-work) while watching some sort of television show on DVD. I am a vegetarian of eight years for social, political and health reasons. I am openly gay and extremely interested in gender identity studies. I spent six and a half months in Germany, studying and traveling, and could easily picture myself moving there someday.
For the final question of why you should read this blog, there are many reasons, with two standing out above the rest. The first being that you are also in my English class, in which case you were probably assigned to. The second is if you are interested in my perspective or enjoy my narrative voice.

That about covers it for now. Tune in at the end of each week to follow what will surely be an interesting journey into identity.
Tschüssi!