authenticity, selfhood and the crisis of modernity
I know that I said I'd be posting most of my enneagram stuff elsewhere, but I decided this one warrants being cross-posted. It's an idea I've been mulling over for some time now.
It's a mix of enneagram/MBTI, Kierkegaard and an analysis of selfhood in the current age, so hopefully it will be something a wide range of people can appreciate. Either that, or it's so over-specialized that only a few people will get through more than a paragraph. We'll see.
Hang around a typology forum for more than a week, or buy even a couple of books on the enneagram and/or Myers-Briggs, you'll become acutely aware of two things: everyone wants to be one of the "authentic" types, e.g. INFx and four, but few people are authentically one of the "authentic" types. This is usually blamed on the person mistyping themselves. They are simply too deluded to realize that they are not, like their more self-aware companions, in fact one of the authentic chosen few.
Today, I will argue that this is not a lack of insight, but rather is the result of societal crisis of selfhood, that emerged in the enlightenment period and has yet to be resolved. Furthermore, it is this crisis that prompts writers of such books to give the "authentic" types an elevated status while representing those types in a way that most will see themselves in, since the desire to be authentic is a state of the human condition and not a personality trait limited to a few specific individuals.
Prior to the enlightenment, roles were very clearly defined. You were born into a certain place, into a certain role, and there was very little wiggle room in that. Questions about what it meant to be a self were comparatively few. With the move from an agrarian way of life to the freedom and possibility of urban life, came a shift from pre-designated roles based on birth to a self-determined existence. With this came the question of "what kind of self am I going to be?" Out of that, however, came a new phenomenon: affectation. In his paper, Affectation, or the Inventon of the Self: A Modern Disorder, Bruce Kirmmse explains affectation in the following way:
Affectation meant falsity, a dissimulation in which one simultaneously deceives both others and oneself by putting on merely an assumed self. Affectation, the assumption of a "false" self, is a peculiarly modern concept, and preoccupation with the dangers of affectation reveals a fear of something that became possible only after the breakup of traditional, late-medieval society in which individual roles had come preassigned, a society in which there was, as it were, no "self."
As the struggle to find selfhood emerged, so did affectation. By Kierkegaard's time, being seen as affected was considered something highly shameful, something no one wanted to be: everyone wanted to have a self, no one wanted to be the affected person. There was an element of social evaluation in this as well: the affected person was, to some extent, evaluated that way in the eyes of others, and the subject became a preoccupation of those frequenting artistic and literary circles.
The problem becomes one of determining who is affected and who is not, of deciding one is authentic and not inauthentic, and yet, if one truly does not know their self, how do they then determine whether the self they believe they have discovered is authentic or not? Kirmmse states,
The problem of affectation is a problem because modernity seems to require that we choose who we are. The choice cannot be avoided, but how does one choose one's "real" self? How does one even recognize one's "real" self? What if the very conditions of "choice" make any decision a form of "affectation?"
The fear of affectation and desire for authenticity didn't get resolved in Kierkegaard's lifetime nor, I believe, is it resolved today. Much of what Heidegger said in Being and Time about anxiety, authenticity and inauthenticity was simply secularized Kierkegaard. Heidegger shows us that the concern with authenticity continued on into the 20th century. It didn't cease in the 21st century, either. After all, if you go into a coffeehouse, or onto an internet forum, or into a freshman intro to philosophy course, you'll find a woeful lack of knowledge (if not lack of interest) in Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant, but any 19 year old purporting an interest in philosophy will usually utter the names Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Make no mistake: our rapid increase in information, and the rapid growth of our cities, with more and more possibilities for the kind of self one might choose to become, are a condition of our times. It's not simply that everyone wants to be unique or to be an individual. No, it's that we have no choice but to become an individual, but how does one choose from the wealth of options in front of us?
It is no surprise, then, that so many people will read about the authentic inner world of INFJs and INFPs, the never ending quest for self of type four, and see themselves in it. They aren't wrong. The literature does speak to something inherent to who they are. It speaks to something inherent to who we all are. Let's look at some of the descriptions of type four from Riso& Hudson's book, Personality Types:
Self-knowledge became their most important goal, the means by which they hoped to find some self-esteem. Fours felt that if they could discover who they are, they would not feel so different from others in the deep, essential way that they do.
Amidst such a long-lasting and ever worsening crisis of selfhood, who wouldn't relate to this to some degree? Especially among those who decide to explore typology, the appeal of which is almost universally to learn about oneself and/or others. This is also shown when Riso and Hudson state:
Self-discovery is an extremely important motive for Fours because they never feel that their sense of self is strong enough to sustain their identities, particularly if they need to assert themselves. Because their feelings change so readily, their sense of identity is not solid, dependable, in their own hands. They feel undefined and uncertain of themselves, as if they were a gathering cloud which may produce something of great power or merely dissipate in the next breeze. Fours can never tell how the next moment will affect them, so it is difficult for them to count on themselves. Something is missing in the self, something they cannot quite put their finger on, but which they feel they lack nonetheless.
Of course, while the crisis of selfhood is at least as pronounced now as it was in Kierkegaard's time, it's also something we're comparatively desensitized to. It doesn't smack us in the face the way it did in Kierkegaard's time: we can't conceive of a time when selfhood wasn't part of our vocabulary, we're no longer shocked by affectation, we're accustomed to it. Nonetheless, if we're a little bit sensitive to the conditions of our time--regardless of what our enneagram and/or Myers-Briggs types may be--we can't help see at least some of our self in this description.
An interesting phenomenon, especially on enneagram forums, is that the concern with authenticity and avoidance of affectation is shown more blatantly, and in a manner more similar to Kierkegaard's time, than it is in society at large. Announce you're a four on many forums, and expect immediate scrutiny about whether you're truly a four. In many respects, type becomes at least partially socially determined as the group decides to accept or reject self-typing. It is the claim to being the "authentic" four which seems most likely to be openly questioned (followed by, perhaps, type five)and many who do type themselves in this way will try to wear the perfect trappings of the type, ironically falling into affectation themselves. Somehow, the description of four and the strong desire among many to wear this label themselves strikes at the heart of the subconscious, socially ingrained fears of affectation and inauthenticity. We're back in Kierkegaard's time, where the affected person is a source of mockery and the authentic person is something to strive for, and yet, as Kirmmse points out, the very decision to choose a self must of necessity risk plunging into affectation. In some ways, typings that claim authenticity are almost too big for many of us to wear. It strikes at the very heart of the crisis, and in the grip of that crisis, we get stuck, ironically losing authenticity and/or fearing others seeming inauthenticity and craving some way to know who or what the real self is.
From this point, there is only one way out: to recognize the crisis, and realize how that crisis biases both our judgment and the judgment of others. Kierkegaard can be an immense help. Quoting once more from Kirmmse's paper (see Ethics, Love, Faith and Kierkegaard, ed. by Edward Mooney, pgs 24-38)
Thus affecation, like despair, is dialectical. Affectation is what Kierkegaard might call a "negative determination of spirit." Everyone has it. As Kierkegaard would have learned from Møller, those who refuse to admit their own affectedness or who flee from it in "dread" are worse off than those who acknowledge it and thus are in a better position to go beyond it. And as with despair, everyone is in a position to know with certainty that he or she is himself or herself affected. But how can we know whether another person is affected, whether that person, regardless of how he or she appears, is authentic or inauthentic? Who can be a "knower of hearts?"
I keep getting absorbed in stuff and losing track of time. I'm going to go hunt and kill me some pasta, I think.
It's a mix of enneagram/MBTI, Kierkegaard and an analysis of selfhood in the current age, so hopefully it will be something a wide range of people can appreciate. Either that, or it's so over-specialized that only a few people will get through more than a paragraph. We'll see.
Hang around a typology forum for more than a week, or buy even a couple of books on the enneagram and/or Myers-Briggs, you'll become acutely aware of two things: everyone wants to be one of the "authentic" types, e.g. INFx and four, but few people are authentically one of the "authentic" types. This is usually blamed on the person mistyping themselves. They are simply too deluded to realize that they are not, like their more self-aware companions, in fact one of the authentic chosen few.
Today, I will argue that this is not a lack of insight, but rather is the result of societal crisis of selfhood, that emerged in the enlightenment period and has yet to be resolved. Furthermore, it is this crisis that prompts writers of such books to give the "authentic" types an elevated status while representing those types in a way that most will see themselves in, since the desire to be authentic is a state of the human condition and not a personality trait limited to a few specific individuals.
Prior to the enlightenment, roles were very clearly defined. You were born into a certain place, into a certain role, and there was very little wiggle room in that. Questions about what it meant to be a self were comparatively few. With the move from an agrarian way of life to the freedom and possibility of urban life, came a shift from pre-designated roles based on birth to a self-determined existence. With this came the question of "what kind of self am I going to be?" Out of that, however, came a new phenomenon: affectation. In his paper, Affectation, or the Inventon of the Self: A Modern Disorder, Bruce Kirmmse explains affectation in the following way:
Affectation meant falsity, a dissimulation in which one simultaneously deceives both others and oneself by putting on merely an assumed self. Affectation, the assumption of a "false" self, is a peculiarly modern concept, and preoccupation with the dangers of affectation reveals a fear of something that became possible only after the breakup of traditional, late-medieval society in which individual roles had come preassigned, a society in which there was, as it were, no "self."
As the struggle to find selfhood emerged, so did affectation. By Kierkegaard's time, being seen as affected was considered something highly shameful, something no one wanted to be: everyone wanted to have a self, no one wanted to be the affected person. There was an element of social evaluation in this as well: the affected person was, to some extent, evaluated that way in the eyes of others, and the subject became a preoccupation of those frequenting artistic and literary circles.
The problem becomes one of determining who is affected and who is not, of deciding one is authentic and not inauthentic, and yet, if one truly does not know their self, how do they then determine whether the self they believe they have discovered is authentic or not? Kirmmse states,
The problem of affectation is a problem because modernity seems to require that we choose who we are. The choice cannot be avoided, but how does one choose one's "real" self? How does one even recognize one's "real" self? What if the very conditions of "choice" make any decision a form of "affectation?"
The fear of affectation and desire for authenticity didn't get resolved in Kierkegaard's lifetime nor, I believe, is it resolved today. Much of what Heidegger said in Being and Time about anxiety, authenticity and inauthenticity was simply secularized Kierkegaard. Heidegger shows us that the concern with authenticity continued on into the 20th century. It didn't cease in the 21st century, either. After all, if you go into a coffeehouse, or onto an internet forum, or into a freshman intro to philosophy course, you'll find a woeful lack of knowledge (if not lack of interest) in Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant, but any 19 year old purporting an interest in philosophy will usually utter the names Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Make no mistake: our rapid increase in information, and the rapid growth of our cities, with more and more possibilities for the kind of self one might choose to become, are a condition of our times. It's not simply that everyone wants to be unique or to be an individual. No, it's that we have no choice but to become an individual, but how does one choose from the wealth of options in front of us?
It is no surprise, then, that so many people will read about the authentic inner world of INFJs and INFPs, the never ending quest for self of type four, and see themselves in it. They aren't wrong. The literature does speak to something inherent to who they are. It speaks to something inherent to who we all are. Let's look at some of the descriptions of type four from Riso& Hudson's book, Personality Types:
Self-knowledge became their most important goal, the means by which they hoped to find some self-esteem. Fours felt that if they could discover who they are, they would not feel so different from others in the deep, essential way that they do.
Amidst such a long-lasting and ever worsening crisis of selfhood, who wouldn't relate to this to some degree? Especially among those who decide to explore typology, the appeal of which is almost universally to learn about oneself and/or others. This is also shown when Riso and Hudson state:
Self-discovery is an extremely important motive for Fours because they never feel that their sense of self is strong enough to sustain their identities, particularly if they need to assert themselves. Because their feelings change so readily, their sense of identity is not solid, dependable, in their own hands. They feel undefined and uncertain of themselves, as if they were a gathering cloud which may produce something of great power or merely dissipate in the next breeze. Fours can never tell how the next moment will affect them, so it is difficult for them to count on themselves. Something is missing in the self, something they cannot quite put their finger on, but which they feel they lack nonetheless.
Of course, while the crisis of selfhood is at least as pronounced now as it was in Kierkegaard's time, it's also something we're comparatively desensitized to. It doesn't smack us in the face the way it did in Kierkegaard's time: we can't conceive of a time when selfhood wasn't part of our vocabulary, we're no longer shocked by affectation, we're accustomed to it. Nonetheless, if we're a little bit sensitive to the conditions of our time--regardless of what our enneagram and/or Myers-Briggs types may be--we can't help see at least some of our self in this description.
An interesting phenomenon, especially on enneagram forums, is that the concern with authenticity and avoidance of affectation is shown more blatantly, and in a manner more similar to Kierkegaard's time, than it is in society at large. Announce you're a four on many forums, and expect immediate scrutiny about whether you're truly a four. In many respects, type becomes at least partially socially determined as the group decides to accept or reject self-typing. It is the claim to being the "authentic" four which seems most likely to be openly questioned (followed by, perhaps, type five)and many who do type themselves in this way will try to wear the perfect trappings of the type, ironically falling into affectation themselves. Somehow, the description of four and the strong desire among many to wear this label themselves strikes at the heart of the subconscious, socially ingrained fears of affectation and inauthenticity. We're back in Kierkegaard's time, where the affected person is a source of mockery and the authentic person is something to strive for, and yet, as Kirmmse points out, the very decision to choose a self must of necessity risk plunging into affectation. In some ways, typings that claim authenticity are almost too big for many of us to wear. It strikes at the very heart of the crisis, and in the grip of that crisis, we get stuck, ironically losing authenticity and/or fearing others seeming inauthenticity and craving some way to know who or what the real self is.
From this point, there is only one way out: to recognize the crisis, and realize how that crisis biases both our judgment and the judgment of others. Kierkegaard can be an immense help. Quoting once more from Kirmmse's paper (see Ethics, Love, Faith and Kierkegaard, ed. by Edward Mooney, pgs 24-38)
Thus affecation, like despair, is dialectical. Affectation is what Kierkegaard might call a "negative determination of spirit." Everyone has it. As Kierkegaard would have learned from Møller, those who refuse to admit their own affectedness or who flee from it in "dread" are worse off than those who acknowledge it and thus are in a better position to go beyond it. And as with despair, everyone is in a position to know with certainty that he or she is himself or herself affected. But how can we know whether another person is affected, whether that person, regardless of how he or she appears, is authentic or inauthentic? Who can be a "knower of hearts?"
I keep getting absorbed in stuff and losing track of time. I'm going to go hunt and kill me some pasta, I think.