Selfhood and Subjectivity

Benedicamus Domino!

During my university days, I took a lot of classes which revolved around questions of identity and agency in various types of literature. The word 'subjectivity' came up so often that it began to lose all meaning for me, and I jokingly stated to some friends of mine that I was going to write all my papers for all my courses that term with the same title: Selfhood and Subjectivity in the Writings of X author. Now, it's true that this was a joke at the time, but the joke was made in frustration for the kind of academics that we were practicing.

I felt as though we had lost site of something, some purer kind of academics or something. I felt as though I were spending my time psychoanalyzing texts, or else merely sticking convenient political and philosophical theories onto them as a way to justify the fact that we read books instead of engaging directly with the world around us. I felt as though the English department wanted so desperately to be taken seriously that it had to make sure that it tackled real, living issues through the lens of prose and poetry.

As the years have passed, I look back on that time. I look back on the talk of gender-roles and normative behaviours and hegemony and floating signifiers and it still causes me no end of impatience. However, I think that the reason for this is because of how I now view things like selfhood and subjectivity. In one way, I view them as being real things, but in another way, I view them as traps that we fall into. The ego, by which I mean the little selfish self that always wants stroking and praising, tends to play a more central part in our lives than I believe it's meant to.

It is this thing, this ego that we construct for ourselves. Sometimes it is a bruised and broken thing which causes what we call low self-esteem, and sometimes it is an overly confident and swolen thing which can turn a human being into a psychopath. However, most of the time, it just gets in the way. It tells us that we need to be praised and validated all the time. It tells us that we are entitled to love, but the kind of love which tells us what we want to hear, and if we don't get this, we feel lonely and bitter, and then the ego tells us that we don't need anyone or anything in our lives but ourselves. I say this because I've experienced all this, and it's only now that I have truly come to believe that the ego is a real problem and must be reined in.

The Buddhists describe selfhood as an illusion, stating that individualistic thinking is the cause of all the suffering in life. I believe this, for with the notion of 'me' comes the notion of 'mine,' and this kind of possessiveness leads to competition and to greed and to pretty-well all the ills with which we have to contend in this life.

So, what is the solution? Well, I can't tell anyone else what to do, but for me, the solution is trying very hard not to put my ego first. The ironic thing is that if the ego is put on the back-burner in favour of something more charitable or loving, then the true self, the real human being behind all the petty desires and urges which chain us to our own bodies and minds begins to wake up, and when that happens, then the soul's eyes are opened and we can see all those little wants and urges for what they are. In the light of the deeper self, the little happinesses and annoyances of the ego fall to nothing, because the deep self knows what it wants, and I believe that it wants a relationship with God. The ego tells us that being us is the most immportant thing, even if it means that there is a 'them' which has to be stepped on. The deep self tells us that we are nothing in ourselves, but only something when we participate in something dynamic and fluid, whether it be the human community or the communion with God. This, at any rate, is what I have come to learn.

tomorrow, we'll discuss another attack upon the true self of humanity which involves reducing all choice and all decision-making to the firing of chemicals in the brain.

Deo Gratias!