If I had the opportunity to have dinner with
the four authors, I would definitely be on Paul Blooms side. I really liked his
article and I agree with most of his ideas about the self-sense. After reading “First Person Plural”, I
realize that I found the answer to the pursuit of happiness. I believe, like
the author said, that each of us has multiple selves, with different desires,
and they are constantly fighting for control. One self is competing with the
other, making ones happiness the misery of the other. The way we make decisions
depends on which of the selves “win”.
In the article it is stated that one self doesn’t have access to the
other selves. But I believe they
do, and that is how we can make the decision we think it is the best
considering all the self-senses memories. The idea of having a short-term self
and a long-term self helps explain why sometimes we decide one thing over the
other. The long-term self tends to be more cautious and more experienced than
the short-term self. Although the long-term
self is not always right, it tends to be.
Having multiple selves doesn’t mean you have multiple-personality
disorder. It just means that there are different “you’s” trying to decide what
is best for you in that very same moment. Which of the selves wins depends on the time, moment, place
and state of mind we are in at that very specific occasion. On the other hand,
as the philosopher Jerry Fodor said, “If, in short, there is a community of
computers living in my head, there had also better be somebody who is in
charge; and, by God, it had better be me”. This means to me that even though
there are several selves, I am in charge of each one them and I decide which
one I listen to and which one I don’t. My favorite part of the article was when
Paul Bloom wrote, “The community of selves shouldn’t be a democracy, but it
shouldn’t be a dictatorship, either”.
Listen to all your selves, because in the end, they all are part of you,
but don’t forget you decide which one to listen to. In the same context, Alice
Walker explained on her essay, “Beauty: When the other Dancer is the self”, how
she became aware of her self sense when her daughter asked her where she got
that world in her eye. All her
world was in her eye, and she loved it. After all that time, she finally could
be happy with herself and faced the old self. This is explained when she said,
“We dance and kiss each other and hold each other through the night. The other
dancer has obviously come through all right, as I have done. She is beautiful,
whole and free. And she is also me”.
I agree with what you’ve said. I really liked Paul Bloom’s ideas, too. I definitely think that the people in my life that I find to be most admirable, honorable, etc. are the ones who seem to really understand all of their little selves—their strengths as well as their weaknesses, their angels as well as their demons--and instead of denying those weaknesses/demons and pretending they’re completely virtuous, they acknowledge and refrain from allowing those parts of themselves to have any meaningful control over their thoughts or actions. I think true self-actualization comes (1) when we learn to accept that there are parts of ourselves that aren’t necessarily Good – in other words, when we stop trying to deny that we have bad traits and characteristics and are self-aware. (I think the times where we “slip-up” are the times where we act impulsively, especially in unfamiliar circumstances. We haven’t really had the time to understand or “train” those parts of ourselves because we haven’t had a real reason to explore them or figure them out before.) And (2) when we are finally “in tune” enough with the Bad parts of ourselves to be able to balance AND overcome them with the parts of ourselves that are Good. That’s why Bloom’s democracy/dictatorship quote was one of the stand-out parts of the article to me, too. I feel like he puts it into words that really paint a prettier picture of what I already had in mind.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. I love Paul Bloom's ideas. I really believe that we have multiple selves, that have different goals in mind. I like to think about it as little Andrea's and each one has a different goal and one is going to win while the others fail. For example right now I'm trying to figure out what I would like to major in, part of me wants to become an Ag teacher, another part of me wants to become a dance teacher and later a drill team coach, and another part of me want to become a crime scene investigator. All of these are little Andreas that have different goals set out and in the end I will have to decide which Andrea I want to listen too. Each little Andrea wants me to be happy but which little Andrea will make me the happiest? At this moment I have no idea, but in the end I will have to decide which one wins. I know it may seem a little crazy but that's the way I see it. I agree with Bloom when he says we are in "battles against passions, compulsions, impulses, and addictions" because we are constantly having to decide what we want to do and as humans we aren't perfect so we don't always make the best choices, but we have to accept our failures and learn from them. Even though I feel like I have little Andreas in my head I know as a person that I will have to make the final choice of what I want to do with my life and it might disappoint other but that doesn't matter as long as it makes me happy.
ReplyDeleteIf all four authors from this unit were to sit down to dinner together, their theories on selfhood all agree that there is more than one dimension to the traditional sense of self. However, they differ in view when it comes to how many selves a person has. They’re all at this dinner together because they all agree that there is more than one self. Jill Bolte Taylor believes selves to be neurologically based, but only referring to the left and right brain cognitive processes. Paul Bloom agrees that the selves are based on neurology, but he goes as far as to claim multiple selves. He explains the theory, “…it is radical in that it gives up the idea that there is just one self per head. The idea is that instead, within each brain, different selves are continually popping in and out of existence.” Joan Didion may agree with Paul Bloom’s theory of situational selves, which implies that the timing and environment play a role in what self is dominating for a certain action. Didion might talk about how she wrote excerpts in notebooks about her surroundings and thought processes at the time. Didion believes that she will never be that self again from those specific times when many factors were coming together to produce who she was. While our fourth guest, Alicia Walker would most likely agree with Didion when she argues that selves are stuck in that time. Alicia Walker was once that sassy little girl at church, was once a 7th grade introvert, and eventually flourished into an 18 year old valedictorian. At each stage in her life, mostly owing to her eye, she was the way she was due to the situation. She will never go back to being that self. However, like Taylor, Walker refers to her “selves” in a dual nature, as two dancers: her beautiful self and her “other” self. She expresses her idea, “The other dancer has obviously come through alright, as I have done. She is beautiful, whole, and free. She is me.”
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