It was morning, and Nell had slept wonderfully. She peeked over at the book pile contemplating the next adventure. Something she could share with Patricia somehow.
Before that, she wanted to tie a neat end with the current book. That proved more difficult as she pondered what to say about the chapter on subjective reality. Berger and Luckmann’s roots in Saussure and Lacan shone through so brightly in the third part that it almost hurt the eyes.
She looked at the “other” clock on the writing desk, the one set for China time. It read 2 p.m., which was useless. It would be hours before Patricia would even have a chance to call.
She dropped back on the bed and drew up the blanket to her chin, toying a bit with indecent thoughts. Then she let it go, afraid that the fantasies would satiate her burning need for a real reality, not a fiction.
But she couldn’t get out of bed. No life would rush into her veins before the window of chance would open up the likelihood of Patricia’s phone call to something slightly above impossible.
She got up. At least she could write.
Subject: The child and the construction of identity
My sincerest apologies for writing to you what I ought to put in a diary instead. Having you read my thoughts feels safe and less solitary than a diary.
Here are some late-night considerations that I wanted to share with you. They revolve around the realisation that the atom of Berger and Luckmann’s system is knowledge. That is the basic building block. Our subjective states are anchored in knowledge, signs and language. Society becomes a huge repository for knowledge as well. You can observe it like beach wrack washing ashore.
Identity is to know who you are. That is, identity is knowledge. There is no “I” that the knowledge must correspond to, but rather, the set of facts around the self are transferred to the child. The process is described in somewhat enigmatic terms:
The child takes on the significant others’ roles and attitudes, that is, internalizes them and makes them his own. And
by this identification with significant others the child becomes capable of identifying himself, of acquiring a subjectively coherent and plausible identity. In other words,the self is a reflected entity, reflecting the attitudes first taken by significant others towards it;the individual
becomes what he is addressed as by his significant others. This is not a one-sided, mechanistic process. It entailsa dialectic between identification by others and self-identification, between objectively assigned and subjectively appropriated identity.The dialectic, which is present each moment the individual identifies with his significant others, is, as it were, the particularization in individual life of the general dialectic of society that has already been discussed.
Re-reading this passage, armed with the idea that identity is not some profound psychological process but just a corpus of knowledge acquired through various means, I want to try to penetrate this again.
Identification is mentioned. Let’s say that identification is the process of “opening up” to the externalisations of significant others. Their subjectivity (which the child can observe through objectivations and expressed emotions) linked with their expressed ideas are absorbed by the child open to this process of internalisation. The child’s “mental loupe” oscillates between being directed at the significant others and at the child itself, and behold: it can observe similar outpourings of objectivated subjective states from itself.
It is also an identity.
Knowledge then is the corpus of understanding that pertains to observing both others’ and one’s own expressed feelings and the ordering/structuring objectivity that the expressions themselves (rooted in internalised systems of knowledge) bring to the world.
My point is that knowledge is the midway anchoring for human life from one side and societal life from the opposite side. Emotion and affection bind to knowledge in the subjective process. Institutional typification binds to knowledge on the other end.
A hybrid phenomenon is taking on a role of an institution, such as going to work as a teacher. It is no different from other subjective realities, except that when it is manifestly being outlived by an individual, that person has the subjective state “tagged” as being of the role. He allows part of an impersonal society to reside in his consciousness, because he knows he can shut it out when the clock strikes 5 p.m.
In a later chapter this becomes:
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY - 3.1.3 - MAINTENANCE AND TRANSFORMATION OF SUBJECTIVE REALITY
Our focus here is on the defence of subjective rather than objective reality;
reality as apprehended in individual consciousness[subjective reality] rather than onreality as institutionally defined[objective reality].
Subjective reality: Relates to knowledge that one person has.
Objective reality: Relates to the cumulative knowledge distributed in society.
Knowledge is reality, and it stands as a wall between two diametrically opposite phenomena. The personal and the societal.
… With love. As always ♥︎
Not very subtle, but the best she could do. Materialising the vocabulary into concrete examples was difficult.
Primary socialisation
Internalisation is the first and primary process by which we acquire knowledge, social life and, really, anything.
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY - 3.1.1 - PRIMARY SOCIALIZATION
The beginning point of this process is
internalization: the immediate apprehension or interpretation of an objective event as expressing meaning, that is, as a manifestation of another’s subjective processes which thereby becomes subjectively meaningful to myself.
We may misjudge the other person’s expressions, which is irrelevant: we see something objectively real just the same.
But
his subjectivity is…objectively available to meand becomes meaningful to me, whether or not there is congruence between his and my subjective process.
These observations probably lie deep in the human brain, in our wiring to perceive and coordinate our world with our fellow man’s.
Think about how vividly and fast we establish whole films worth of images during just a few sentences of a conversation:
I not only ‘understand’ the other’s momentary subjective processes,
I ‘understand’ the world in which he lives, and that world becomes my own.
This is internalisation at work: words unfold images which become bound to the affective state of our conversation partner, at least as we perceive it.
We now not only understand each other’s definitions of shared situations, we define them reciprocally.
A nexus of motivations is established between us and extends into the future.Most importantly, there is now an ongoing mutual identification between us. We not only live in the same world, we participate in each other’s being.
Notice how the authors blur the distinction between identification and shared world.
Identification is the alignment of motivations and understanding.
The authors then utilise Lacanian models of childhood and other psychological models (I think).
We don’t get to choose our parents or whoever else is in charge of our upbringing, rather:
These significant others are imposed upon him. Their definitions of his situation are posited for him as objective reality. He is thusborn into not only an objective social structure but also an objective social world[…]
These wardens do not incarnate the full spectrum of society, rather, their reality is shaped by a selection of knowledge, and as they transmit to the child, that will be the case even further.
The child identifies with the significant others in a variety of emotional ways. Whatever they may be,
internalization occurs only as identification occurs.
Through identification, we align our world and our motives.
Armed with the method of watching knowledge systems build up, we can watch for more patterns.
“Always tell the truth” started as “mommy is angry with me when I lie.” In fact, so are daddy and everybody else. “All people” are angry when little Johnny lies. The generalised other is a construction that doesn’t lie far from mother, only it ends up omitting the subject and turns the receiving object into the active subject. Society is angry with me, everybody, “they”. Listing them is pointless. Just never lie, that is all there is to know.
This abstraction from the roles and attitudes of concrete significant others is called the generalized other. Its formation within consciousness means that
the individual now identifies not only with concrete others but with a generality of others, that is, with a society.
Notice how the originating people of a rule disappeared. Mom simply repeated the grander statement: Never lie.
This development is of importance. We are approaching the symmetry between objective societal knowledge: “lying is associated with strife and breakdown of society - just don’t” and subjective knowledge: “always tell the truth [or trouble will ensue].”
The formation within consciousness of the generalized other marks a decisive phase in socialization. It implies the
internalization of society as such and of the objective reality established therein, and, at the same time, the subjective establishment of a coherent and continuous identity.
One way of describing the symmetry is that the abstract legitimations in a society - as always represented as knowledge - have an equally abstracted counterpart of rules about personal behaviour.
The individual is always doomed to be outside society in some degree. We cannot internalise the entirety of society.
It should, however, be stressed that the symmetry between objective and subjective reality
cannot be complete. The two realities correspond to each other, but they are not coextensive.There is always more objective reality ‘available’ than is actually internalized[…]
The result is an ongoing process whereby the individual and society in dialectical union try to establish the symmetry.
The massively real childhood world
Because we have no reservations whatsoever against the world learned in childhood (reservations require alternative knowledge systems, which area unavailable to the child), this world becomes massively real.
The child does not internalize the world of his significant others as one of many possible worlds. He internalizes it as
the world, the only existent and only conceivable world
All knowledge points in the same direction: towards the undisputed reality of this world.
The world of childhood, in its
luminous reality, is thus conducive to confidence not only in the persons of the significant others but in their definitions of the situation.The world of childhood is massively and indubitably real.
This has several consequences: Secondary socialisation is a battle uphill if it runs counter to the primary socialisation. On the other hand, any knowledge that can build a bridge to the understanding of the primary socialisation achieves a share of this strong taken-for-grantedness.
There were a few more details about cultural differences and class differences in upbringing, but to Nell, the central theme revolved around understanding humans and understanding reality.
She mailed it and walked, feeling elated. She felt physical and the need to touch and be touched. She ran outside when she saw the rain and predictably got soaked. She let her tears flow and flung her arms around herself far enough that she imagined their embrace.
If the goal was to get sick, she was on the right track, but her sensible self prevailed and led her into bed again after a change of clothes from the wet pyjamas to dry ones. She needed to feel vulnerable constantly these days. Victimised and lost.
Long-distance call
Her phone rang. An hour ago she was prepared. Thirty minutes ago she lost her readiness. It rang again. Again. She took it.
P: “Did I disturb you?”
N: “I… of course you did not. I… Oh, for heaven’s sake… Patricia, don’t hate me, okay. I have lost my job, and I just sit around all day hoping you will call me. Now it is my turn to feel alone.”
That sentence was more than Patricia was prepared for.
P: “Holy shit, Nell, what are you saying? You should get professional …”, then she went silent too.
A moment’s silence passed by.
P: “Nell, I didn’t mean it. I want to be your help now. You helped me earlier, and I will never forget. I know how it is to be in the dark hole deep underground. A psychiatrist can perhaps drag you into, well, another reality, a neutered and lifeless one, where you at least aren’t in danger. I don’t favour that at all. I prefer a rescue mission where you get to keep your heart.”
Nell, of course, was weeping and sulking her brains out. She mouthed a misty “thank you”, but Patricia knew what she said without being able to hear her.
P: “God, Nell, I have so many obligations. Once I hang up here, I will already be in the process of breaking my promise. I hate myself already.”
N: “No, sweet god, no, don’t. Can you spare me a little moment every other day? Then I would be eternally grateful. I don’t need to talk philosophy in this life. I need our conversations on philosophy. I need you.”
P: “Oh, you are so sweet, my poor Nellie. Can you imagine? I feel tempted to give up my studies and come and live with you right now. But a piece of me also likes being here. Please scorn me for that.”
N: “No, dear! Dearest, I want you to be there. It makes me feel all the more lucky when you do find time to call me. No, for god’s sake, don’t do anything stupid on my account. I’ll take whatever little scraps of time you can spare me.”
P: “I love what you write. Did I say that I could discuss with fellow students here as well? I exaggerated a bit. I repeat the words from the book and surprisingly often get lucky. Your letters make me think. I return to the conversations dressed in your superpower! You are my secret heroine!
No more crying now, okay? I can’t leave this talk unless I know you’ll be fine. And I must write reports tonight.”
N: “No more crying, I promise. Thank you, Patricia, thank you.”
Thirty seconds of utter silence while both fought the pain of hanging up, knowing that the fickle trolls of life could tear the tapestry apart onto which they were both woven with one sudden jerk.
Nell put down the phone and allowed the floodgates to open and a murderous abyss of emptiness fall over her fragile self. The silence was deafening, and the night was endless.
•P•A•R•A•D•O•X•