[who am I? who are you? who are we? who are they? who am I?]

[reenka]

Someone recently seriously told me they think Draco's enthusiastic follow-up on his dad's whole rah-rah-Voldy shtick and the Slytherin Way is "just an act"... and then I was thinking about Sister M's post, which raised the question of whether Dumbledore's apparent goody-two-shoes nodding benevolence and the way he seems to see goodness in everyone is 'just an act' (and he's really a manipulative bastard).... And this just got me to thinking about the way we -act- in general, and what that says about a character (or person).

Intuitively, through most of my woefully misunderstood-misfit adolescence I'd always thought, I guess, that it's your inner character that's 'most important', or rather definitive of who you are (the question of how to define identity probably being the overriding theme of my life so far). At the same time, I now feel everything a person does-- whatever mask a person wears, whatever stupid things they do, whatever they say they don't mean-- it doesn't matter, because it still defines them. Why they do it just places these things into context, but the fact that they do it or act like it remains monumental. So while I'm fascinated with people's hidden selves and 'real' identities, at the same time I'm fascinated with the masks we wear, and those masks defining us and exposing us, even.

I think it was James Baldwin who said, "Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." And I love that quote because it refers to the idea that we all have masks, and they are essential to defining us-- the ones we need, the ones that destroy us, the ones that sustain us-- but they all define us.

I'm the first person to say, without thinking, that the way I seem isn't really the way I am-- if you knew me, you could even say that I'm the -opposite- of the way I seem to most people who don't know me or have just met me. Most people say I'm totally different in person than online, too. And that's why it's so important, so vital for me to believe that actually, I am this person. This is me-- right now, and then, and whatever you think I am, I am. There is no one personal truth of identity-- the truth of who we is reflected in everyone we know, everything they think, everything we think or can think, everything everything-- our subconscious and conscious and ever-shifting mind, everything that passes unremembered and that remains cast in such stone that it loses its vitality and becomes an axiom that defines us beyond whatever event had triggered it in the first place-- everything defines us.

It always seems so... limiting and frustrating to me, these days, the way most people think of identity, in terms of yes and no, this way or that way-- because it just doesn't seem to be the way most people are, coming from observation. I mean, there's all this room for interpretation, but in the end-- it's all true. How do you know it's -not- true? And I don't mean in terms of the actual -facts- of what we do, but in terms of perceptions, qualities of character, things we feel. In that case, in the case of defining feelings-- that's where it all becomes fuzzy, doesn't it? We may be smart rather than stupid (and even then there are different sorts of intelligence), but are we generous or manipulative? Kind or cruel? Honorable or a dishonest wretch? It all changes with every action we take, doesn't it? It changes with who's judging, with what they want from us, with what they know of us, with what they expect of other people. It changes as we change, and it changes with what we understand of ourselves. Identity is a flimsy thing, even as it's so... all-pervasive, I guess you could say.

So I'll give you another quote, this one by Salman Rushdie: "Who am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all that I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am everything that happens after I've gone that would not have happened if I had not come.... to understand me you must swallow a world."

Comments

oh god, i've written a rant

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

Western culture has become very black-and-white. People are either one thing or another; when I talk to my 12 year-old brother about his anime comics he's usually appalled that I have sympathy for the 'bad guys' because obviously people are either completely evil or completely good. It's the kind of 'either your with us or against us mentality' that's hurting us badly overseas in Iraq. And while I have many issues with JKR's portrayal of some characters, I think she's done a masterful job with Snape. He's a man who's both a villain and a hero. He was an (presumably) abused child and a terrible bully of children. I think with the seventh book JKR will open the eyes of a lot of kids and adults who don't usually think in shades of gray.

"Who am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all that I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am everything that happens after I've gone that would not have happened if I had not come.... to understand me you must swallow a world

That's a really profound quote.

Re: oh god, i've written a rant

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I agree about the majority of Western culture being black-and-white... though I'm not sure whether it's really that Eastern culture is inherently different in terms of human nature, or if it's just that the general philosophy has a strong effect. I do think this mentality reaches really deep into the human psyche, all the way down to the Self/Other dichotomy.... That instinct to protect the Self and others that are branches of the Self, repel invaders and intruders. It's really counterintuitive in a lot of ways, I think, to believe that Self is a multitude of things and sources, like in that quote.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hey, I didn't say it was just an act! (With Dumbledore, I mean.) I do think there are times he probably encourages people seeing him as dotty, but I don't think anything that he sees in other people is an act. That's more the thing, really, that he wouldn't see good in someone because he needed to, he'd see it because it was there. And there in a way that's going to influence your actions. Like, it wouldn't mean anything if Draco was "good" on the inside but this still meant he would kill Dumbledore and be a DE all his life. I mean...how is that good? It's not visible to the naked eye. What Dumbledore saw was that he was sickened by the idea of murder (once it became real), really didn't enjoy violence for its own sake, didn't find killing so glorious and just wanted to go home with his dad and his mum.

It amazes me, actually, that people don't seem to see that Draco's rah rah Voldie act can be both true and not true...which is what you're saying. Like people will say, "He said he loved glory! So that's all he cares about and the whole thing about his parents doesn't matter and he really did want to kill Dumbledore!" Um, no, you have to get into the murkier realm of actually thinking one thing but then exploring what that really means and what you really feel. It's not just one of the other. /frustrated sigh.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Man, I feel guilty now, though that 'act' thing re: Dumbledore was just a bit of reactive exaggeration for the sake of argument :> I do think there are many people who think in those terms about Dumbledore-- like, if he's not a doddering sentimental grandpa, then he's a Machiavellian evil overlord who's trying to fool people into thinking he's harmless by saying things like 'oddment, tweak' and offering them candy :)) I totally agree that what he see -can't- be an act, of course, and neither is he delusional-- I just have this urge to nip the whole scheming-overlord thing in the bud, somehow :> I mean, he's scheming without being an overlord. Or something.

The Draco stuff really makes me feel like people have issues with some parts of his personality whether or not they like him, so they feel the urge to justify it where it's impossible to -justify- much about Draco, just explain. I mean, people really say that thing about his parents doesn't matter...?? Hahaha, though I dunno why I'm surprised, I mean, I've heard someone say that he only followed Umbridge and kissed up to Snape and parroted his father because, um, he's a user. He's just... such a coldblooded user. *cries* That's what happens when I stray outside the relatively safe confines of my flist, I guess :>

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--I remember reading somebody say that Blaise's line about Ginny being a blood traitor was an act. He just said that to get Draco off his back--even though Draco isn't on his back at all. It just struck me because Blaise is character with, like, 3 lines in canon. Almost all of them are negative. He makes it clear he hates Harry, is kind of intrigued by Draco's hints about his mission in spite of himself, and says he wouldn't touch Ginny no matter what she looked like because she's a blood traitor. Yet still there are theories to counteract every single one of those.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Gotta love fandom :D :D :D Although I don't really get why anyone in their right mind was upset he wasn't Italian (aside from racism, but my god, is there some secret anti-Lee Jordan militia out there, too). I mean, he's hot. That was my major thought at his introduction and throughout his 3 lines, hehe-- ooh, hot & feisty :D I'm not too deep but at least I'm honest? Also, soon afterwards I too decided his disdain of Ginny the Blood Traitor Bitch means he's sekritly itching to be proven wrong. It's like H/D, except with less subtext and less... gay. Or. Something :D

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

One of my hobbies (*dies*) is identity theory. There is a version which suggests that we play a whole set of different roles, that are evoked by different situations, with a kind of core identity linking and informing everything. In other words identity is not only created by you but shaped and influenced through your interactions with other people.

I feel that the identity people present to others is made up of everything (appearance, speech, behaviour), and every choice or non-choice someone makes informs that.

Personally,I know that my online identity is a little bit different from my offline one, because there are aspects of computer communication that emphasise or heighten certain parts of my personality.

I smiled at the comments about the inner self - when I was a teenager, I was convinced that The Perfect Man would cut through all the fake wrappings to the real me, and carry me off. Yes, see through the sarcasm, the shyness, the bad hair, the terrible dress sense... I think I still slightly subscribe to that view, but on the other hand, I could perhaps have done a bit more to match my External Beauty to my Inner Loveliness.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I remember that stuff about playing roles (mother, sister, secretary, etc)... one of my numerous unfinished philosophy/anthro/English classes, no doubt. *facepalm* But yeah... the way you phrased it, it sounds similar yet a lot less mumbo-jumboish, hehe. I like words like 'emphasise' and 'heighten'-- it makes it seem all scientific and everything. But yeah, makes sense-- of course identity is shaped by 'nurture' and 'culture' (to get even more scientific, ahahah). One could spend a long time trying to pin down that 'core identity' though, I'd imagine.

Hehe, I was (...probably still am in some ways) totally there was a Perfect Man (Secret Agent Lover Man, even) who'd cut through all the fake wrappings, and that was why it was perfectly reasonable not to talk to any boys and avoid them like the plague, in fact >:D ahahah Then again, even now I know that I'm just way too lazy to actively match my outward appearance to pretty much any standard. In the end, I suppose I'm just too apathetic for my Perfect Man. Alas.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

that was why it was perfectly reasonable not to talk to any boys and avoid them like the plague

Oh, yes. I think what brings me up short is whether I would have actually cut a man that same kind of slack, or whether I'd just judge on the superficials. I did go out with a lot of dorky people (but then that attracts me, haha), but I may well have overlooked even more with beautiful inner souls.

And now that I'm scarily old, I look in the mirror and external doesn't match internal one bit, unless I consciously work at it.

I think it's also the Middlemarch thing - do you know it? One of the romances in the novel is Hermione Dorothea who falls for dry bookish ugly old Snape Casaubon, because she's in love with the idea of who he is rather than the rather unpleasant reality. Bad mistake.