SELFIE is a
defining book for understanding the way the world is at the moment and why human
beings are the way they are in the early twenty-first century.
In this year,
when the most narcissistic person ever elected to high office is running the
most powerful country in the world, Selfie aims to look at the concept of “the
self”, where it comes from and why the western world is so self-obsessed.
Greece
The writer,
Will Storr, begins back in Ancient Greece. It was here that the idea of
perfectionism first took hold; a person was capable of perfecting themselves by
their own efforts. The Greek myths all feature heroes and heroines who stand or
fall by their own actions. Storr says that we have inherited this tendency to self-mythologize…
“the brain is a storyteller and it’s also a hero-maker – and the hero that it
makes is you.”
We tell
ourselves stories that paint ourselves in the best light – we construct our “narrative
identity” to describe to ourselves who we are.
This, he
contrasts with the Eastern way of looking at the world that essentially comes
from the Chinese philosopher Confucius. In Western stories, beginning right
from the hero-obsessed Greeks, the goal is for the protagonist to achieve
riches, the love of a beautiful woman, respect from his fellows.
In stories
from Asia, the goal at the end of their stories is “harmony”. There is no great
lesson at the end of a story, no profound conclusion, the reader or listener is
invited to view the narrative from various perspectives. And if there is a
hero, he or she is heroic because they have sacrificed themselves for the
common good.
Self-Esteem
The writer
then moves on to the self-realization movement which was based in California in
the 1960s and which has given us the concept of “self-esteem”. It is hard to believe,
but the term “self-esteem” did not really exist before a collection of new age
psychologists got together and invented it, fifty or so years ago.
Eventually, love of self was being proposed as the panacea
that would cure all of society’s ills. Promoting self-esteem was seen as the
thing that would prevent all kinds of psychological and social problems.
However, it
turned out that promoting self-esteem among people was not always of benefit. Some
people had naturally high self-esteem anyway, and promoting this just led to
that most modern – and most Greek – of failings: narcissism. Too much
self-esteem makes people self-obsessed and narcissistic.
Moreover,
one of the key points that the book makes is that “there is no authentic self.”
Will Storr undermines the whole self-esteem movement and the neo-liberal preoccupation
with self-reliance by quoting Professor Bruce Hood, who says that “we actually
contain a collection of bickering and competing selves.” He goes on to claim
that there is no pure, god-like core to each one of us; “the ‘I’ is not one, it
is many.”
Neo-liberalism
The book
continues on a journey up until the modern day; through Ayn Rand and the Neoliberal
political movement that is so
influenced by her writings – government interference
in society is malign, individuals should be left to manage their own affairs –
as Margaret Thatcher famously said, “there is no such thing as society.”
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Ayn Rand |
This
political project sees the individual as king and self-actualization as within
the grasp of any human being. In short, if you are poor or sick or dysfunctional
it was because you don’t have the drive and ability and desire to make yourself
better. You should not rely on others or on governments for help; people have
to forge their own path, they have to solve their own problems. If you have
failed, it is your fault.
To counter
the whole neo-liberal world-view, Storr makes the point that we are profoundly
social creatures who have “evolved to thrive in communities.” The ideal human,
according to followers of Ayn Rand and the neo-liberal project, is the self-sufficient
individual, in charge of his or her own destiny, autonomous and independent
(like the cowboy, roaming the range). Yet this idea is undermined by the fact
that we have always existed in tribes and families and communities, and have
always depended on others for help.
The Selfie
The Selfie
And now we
have reached the age of social media where most people are selling or
communicating an idealized version of themselves. This is the time of the
Selfie – the camera pointed inwards, the outside world ignored.
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Elijah from Girls |
This focus on
the self is, according to the writer, dangerous. The idea of the perfectibility
of the self can lead to perfectionism, which in turn can bring us to feeling
like failures if we don’t measure up to our or society’s ideal of perfection. He
interviews a number of people who have attempted suicide, all of whom cite their
inability to measure up to expectations as a reason for trying to kill
themselves.
The writer
of the book, Will Storr, has had his own struggles with depression and lack of
self-worth, which drove him to write this book exploring some of the issues
that touch on him personally. He comes to a number of tentative conclusions
which are some of the profoundest, yet simplest, ideas possible. One is simply
that we need to accept ourselves as we are, in all our imperfections.
“One of the
dictums that defines our culture is that we can be anything we want to be”, the
writer says, yet this is “the dark lie at the heart of the age of perfectionism.”
The answer is to realize that “you’re limited. Imperfect. And there’s nothing
you can do about it.”
He finishes
with some wise words – “none of us are heroes; not really. We’re just us.”
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