Gergen, Kenneth J.
The Decline and Fall of Personality.
Psychology Today. 25(6):58-63. 1992 Nov.
Abstract
Postmodernism in culture as expressed in personalities is discussed. It
is asserted that in the end, perhaps people can move from a self-centered
system of beliefs to consciousness of an inseparable relatedness with
others.
We listen to George Bush's speech, but know it was produced by a team of
experts. We watch the presidential hopefuls, so earnest and well poised,
but we are aware of the hours of coaching necessary to produce these
images. We wonder about their private lives and how long it will take
before startling revelations hit the press. On the talk shows we hear the
stars "telling all"; yet we are conscious that even their sorriest secrets
are calculated for career advancement. When we listen to the executive
officer address the annual meeting, we know that every garment is geared
for impact, every syllable designed to sell. As we observe the professor
give a lecture, we are aware that even the casual dress and informal
manner are carefully crafted.
Many of us believe that somewhere behind these masks lies the real person,
that all this role playing is so much sham. We may also believe that for
the sake of society and ourselves we should drop the roles and be what we
truly are. Yet if by chance you are beginning to doubt that there is a
factual self beneath the fake, and feel the mask may just be the genuine
article, that "image is everything," you are entering the new world of
postmodern consciousness.
Twenty years ago I was privileged enough to write a cover story for
Psychology Today, in which I described the multiple masks we must wear in
meeting the demands of everyday life. Rather than finding inconsistency
and incoherence in personality a cause for alarm--possibly a reason to
seek therapy--I championed its positive possibilities. Rather than
admonishing people to seek a firm and fixed identity, I saw such
identities as limiting and in many ways incapacitating. It seemed to met
that people who demonstrated a protean elasticity were healthier and more
fulfilled.
The article was provocative; it was reprinted numerous times both in the
United States and abroad, and was even the topic of a television special.
Clearly I was touching sensitive issues, questioning the traditional value
of a firm sense of identity, of knowing where one stands and to whom one
is committed. At the same time, many readers were curious or relieved;
many felt the limitations of the old virtues of coherence and
authenticity.
Because the implications of these issues for our ways of life are broad
and significant, I have continued to ponder them. On the one hand, by
favoring the fixed identity, one also opts for orderly and predictable
ways of life, trustworthiness, long-term commitments, and a sense of
security and tranquility. One shudders to think of their disappearance.
Yet we no longer live in the world that imparted such high value to these
ways of life, and, even if painful, we must continuously question the
adequacy of past traditions for the demands of the present. It is now,
with the benefit of hindsight, that I see my concerns of 20 years ago as
part of a broader cultural story--a single chapter of a tale in which we
all participate.
That tale is one of cultural change, now reaching staggering proportions,
and from which there is little chance of escape. It is also a tale in
which we are all losing our identities and the coherent and committed
lives that go with it. But just possibly, if we are wise and fortunate, we
can still create a story with a happy ending. In it, we gain the security
that comes from discovering our essential relatedness with others.
To begin, let us consider the ingredients required for a centered
identity. What is it that holds the personality together, giving it
determined direction? It is difficult to understand such a question in a
vacuum--cut away from a cultural language of self-understanding. Rather,
we have little choice but to rely for answers on the accumulated wisdom of
the past. Here, it seems to me, we stand today as the beneficiaries of two
primary traditions. Both are highly respected, both give us a sense of
strong and stable identity, and both are now in jeopardy.
The first is the romantic tradition, which reached its pinnacle in the
last century. It is largely from the romantic tradition that we derive our
beliefs in a profound and stable center of identity--a center which
harbored the vital spirit of life itself. Poets such as Shelley, Keats,
and Byron; composers such as Beethoven, Brahms, and Chopin; and a host of
philosophers, painters, architects, theologians, and the like, all created
a vivid portrait of the romantic self. It was a compelling account of
powerful forces buried beneath the surface of consciousness, in the deep
interior of one's being.
These forces once defined the individual, furnishing the essential reason
for being. For some, the forces were identified as the soul; others saw
them as fiery passions; and still others felt they were dark and
dangerous. Invariably, however, the forces were wondrous, and their
expression (in committed love, loyalty, and friendships) was fulfilling if
not heroic. Because of the power of these passions, one could experience
profound grief at the loss of a loved one, and a sense of longing or
remorse so intense that suicide could be an attractive option. The deep
interior was also held to be the source of inspiration, creativity,
genius, moral courage--even madness.
Romanticism continues to be a pervasive cultural presence. It is alive in
everyday life--in our popular songs, television "soaps," and epic films.
The romantic vocabulary is essential to most courtships, weddings, and
funerals. And if ever asked what makes our lives worth living, most of us
will talk about these deep and vital forces.
Romantic views also remain robust in psychotherapeutic groups. The
theories of Freud and Jung, for example, are the children of the romantic
tradition. Without their poetic and artistic forebearers, Freud's belief
in unconscious dynamics and Jung's search for primordial archetypes would
seem nonsensical. And when contemporary therapists speak of
self-actualizing tendencies, primal screams, catharsis, defense
mechanisms, and rebirthing, they are keeping romanticist flames alive.
They are making real the self's deep interior.
Yet for most people the romance with romanticism has cooled. For, as most
cultural commentators agree, romanticism has been replaced by
perspectives, ways of life, and a conception of the self that we now call
modernist. As a cultural movement, modernism can be traced largely to
industrialization, the world wars, and major advances into science.
In each case, fascination turned from the deep interior of the individual
to the demands and opportunities made possible by technology. It was time
to "get down to business" and "enter the fast track of progress." It also
appeared that scientists were beginning to master the fundamental order of
the universe--harnessing energies, mastering flight, curing illnesses, and
filling homes with marvelous conveniences. With such mastery, one could
truly begin to imagine creating a Utopian world.
Fired by such optimism, philosophers set about to generate the rules of
procedure by which such progress could be achieved across the cultural
spectrum. A rational search for fundamentals enabled composers to cast
aside popular conventions in favor of tonal experimentation, invited
choreographers to abandon ballet in search of elemental movements (now
termed modern dance), and stimulated poets to emphasize formal properties
over sentiment in their verse. Modern architecture was preoccupied with
reducing design to its most functional elements, while modern art
abandoned the decorative in search for the essentials of form and color.
Through modernism, the self was slowly being redefined. The emphasis
shifted from deep and mysterious processes to human consciousness in the
here and now. The deep interior of the romanticist no longer seemed so
important; indeed talk of souls, passions, moral courage, and inspiration
began to seem quaint, ill-suited to life in the material world. To survive
in a complex world, the modernist needed conscious capability for keen
observation and careful reason. Such capacities allow us to make progress.
Where the romanticists placed drama, passion, and intensity at the center
of existence, modernists valued efficacy of action, smooth and stable
functioning, and progress toward a goal. The difference in attitude toward
love is emblematic. For romanticists, love could be all-consuming; it was
a reason to live (or to die), it was unpredictable, and for its sake one
might pledge a lifetime--or an eternity--of commitment. The modernist
attempts to develop a technology of mate selection through the use of
computerized software. Questionnaire compatibility replaced love by
thunderbolt.
Modernist views of the self now dominate the profession of psychology.
Most research is lodged in the assumption that psychologists can use their
powers of observation and reason to master the fundamentals of human
functioning. There are, by definition, no mysterious reservoirs, souls,
inspirations, and evil forces deep within the individual.
Rather, for contemporary psychologists, people are much like input/output
machines--what they do depends on what goes into them. The critical
psychological ingredient of the self is thought, or cognition. And
cognition, too, is machine-like, functioning much as a computer. With
increased abilities to predict and control human behavior, it is believed,
programs can be developed to change and repair the individual. Good
personalities, like motor cars, can be properly manufactured through
social engineering. Should individuals go astray, therapists, like
mechanics, can put them right. Both behavior modification and cognitive
therapy--primary technologies for repair--define the self in the modernist
idiom.
Yet there is good reason to believe that modernism, while dominant, is now
slowly crumbling as a cultural movement. New cultural conditions have
emerged which many characterize as postmodern. Not only do soul, passion,
and creativity become suspicious as centers of human existence, but so
does rational thought and the efficient control of one's own actions.
Slowly we are losing confidence that there is a coherent, identifiable
substance behind the mask. The harder we look, the more difficult it is to
find "anyone at home."
What is the driving force behind this shift to postmodernism? In my view,
the central ingredient is technology, more specifically a range of
technologies that shower us with social relationships both direct and
vicarious. The telephone, automobile, radio, television, motion pictures,
mass publication, Xerox, cassette recordings, urban mass transportation,
the national highway system, jet transportation, satellite transmission,
VCR, the computer, fax, and the mobile telephone--all have emerged within
the past century, most within the past 50 years. All have grown by leaps
and bounds, becoming standard equipment for a normal life.
And all expand the range of our social life. No longer is our social
existence tied to a small town, a suburban community, or an urban
neighborhood. Rather, as we wake to Good Morning America, read the papers,
listen to radio talk shows, travel miles to work, meet people from around
the globe, answer faxes and electronic mail, drive children to cross-town
games, check the answering machine, phone long distance, visit with old
friends from out of town, order air tickets to the Caribbean, and take a
late evening graze through cable-TV channels, we consume and are consumed
by a social world of unbounded proportion. We are exposed to more
opinions, values, personalities, and ways of life than was any previous
generation in history; the number of our relationships soars, the
variations are enormous: past relationships remain (only a phone call
apart) and new faces are only a channel away. There is, in short, an
explosion in social connection.
What does this explosion have to do with our sense of selves, who we are,
and what we stand for? How does it undermine beliefs in a romantic
interior or in a rational center of the self.
First, there is a populating of the self, that is, an absorption of others
into ourselves. Through countless exposure to others, we rapidly increase
the range of appreciations, understandings, and action possibilities
available to us. Through friends, acquaintances, family members, the media
and so on, we come to see and to feel myriad possibilities for
being--along with their opposites.
We come to appreciate the possibility of homosexuality, and yet to
understand reasons against it; we are encouraged to feel heterosexual
longings, and yet to consider ourselves capable of homosexual urges, along
with homophobic reactions. Standing alongside these multiple tendencies we
also come to see the rationality of androgyny--expressing characteristics
of both genders--and the many arguments against any gender differences in
the first place. Each of us becomes populated with dozens of potentials,
all reasonable and good by some criterion, in some relationship, in some
context. Where in the mix is the genuine self, the true feelings, or the
rational core? To paraphrase the poet Walt Whitman, "We contain
multitudes."
The sense of a centered self also begins to collapse under the demands of
multiple audiences. In one of the most rousing scenes from the film Bugsy,
the infamous gangster (played by Warren Beatty) races desperately from one
room of his mansion to another. Breathlessly he plays the affable host for
his daughter's birthday party, abandons her to plead for the affection of
his doubting wife, reappears with swagger and gusto to impress his
gangster cronies in the adjoining room, only to race away again to his
daughter's failing party. As we laugh, pity, and loathe this poor figure,
we are simultaneously reacting to our own lives. For the socializing
technologies are constructing an enormous mansion of conflicting demands
for each one of us.
Consider the poor man of today, who must simultaneously demonstrate
professional responsibility, soft and romantic sensitivity, macho
toughness, and family dedication; he must have expertise in sports,
politics, software, the stock market, mechanics, food, and wine; he must
have a circle of friends, a fitness program, the right CDs, interesting
vacation plans, and an impressive car--that is, if he is to survive in an
increasingly complex world. So, like Bugsy Seigel, he races from one
situation to another, shifting demeanors, clothing, intensities, views,
and values. Where in the chaos of competing personas is he to locate the
true and the real man behind the masks?
The third way in which the socializing technologies undermine confidence
in deep or essential selves is through the repetition of images. The
countless reproductions of our ways of life slowly sap them of
authenticity. Consider the case of romance. By traditional standards,
expressions of love, passion, and desire should be spontaneous eruptions
of one's basic self--energetic impulses that suddenly burst into the open.
Now consider the number of times you have been exposed to such
expressions--on television from your fourth year to the present, in film,
books and magazines, in friends' accounts, and indeed in your own life.
You know all the words, all the movements of eyes and mouth, all the
gestures and postures.
And with these countless repetitions, authenticity begins to wear thin.
Substance slowly becomes style. One loses trust in romantic expressions;
the words are stifled in the throat. "Where am I? Hollywood? The soaps? A
teenage novel?" And so it is with all our cherished expressions--religious
devotion, grief, happy enthusiasm, political remonstrance. With continued
repetition, reality becomes rhetoric.
Is this just another disgruntled commentary on the sorry state of
contemporary life? Not entirely. Yes, there is room for lament, as we
cease to believe in inner mysteries, passions, or inspiration; when we no
longer seem to be the authors of our lives, knowing who we are, what we
stand for, or where we are going; when reason no longer leads in any
particular direction; when expanding relationships turn quiet days into
chaos; when intimacy turns into ritual, and commitment becomes a relic of
yesteryear.
Yet, when we complain, we are revealing our own roots in the past. If we
did not still retain a romanticist belief in the deep interior, would we
care whether passion and inspiration were vanishing ideas? And if we
didn't cling to the modernist idea of a rationally organized life, would
chaos be a problem?
Our children will scarcely feel the pinch as we do; they will scarcely
understand why anyone would make such a fuss over real, true, or inner
selves. And for we who do feel the pinch, there are good reasons for
expanding our horizons as well. For the technologies that saturate us with
others will hardly be abandoned. There is no reversing the cultural clock.
As many scientists proclaim, the socializing technologies are only in
their infancy.
As we troop toward the future, let us consider some of the positive
possibilities of a postmodern life. For there is in these expanding
technologies an enormous increase in the possibilities for human
development. Each new relationship is simultaneously an opportunity, an
open door to growth of expression, appreciation, and skill.
This is especially noticeable in the lives of young women. A half century
ago, there was only one strong model against which women could measure the
value of their lives: that of devoted wife and mother. The limitations on
expression, exploration, and development were numbingly oppressive. Today
that image is simply one of many. And even though daily life may bring a
torrent of competing demands, each new wrinkle in personality is also a
new dimension. The best of moments may even bring an enormous sense of
exhilaration, an awed sense of "look at all that I can do, be, see, feel,
and know!" During these moments one scarcely worries about inconsistency
and incoherence; one does not question what lies behind the many
performances. The games are on, and they are everything.
We experience the satisfaction of continuous and sometimes rapturous
engagement. Such engagement not only welcomes new facets of self, but
opens the way to recapturing the past. In romanticist and modernist times,
one had always to be concerned with the true and the genuine: Is this
really what I feel, what I think, who I am? If the answer was "no,"
certain actions were ruled out for plans abandoned. But if we cease to ask
such questions, then nothing is prevented in principle. If we cease to
believe that there is any deep and essential criterion, any rule of logic,
or any internal essence against which actions must be compared, then we
are liberated to play the many games offered by this culture, as well as
by others.
In the example of romanticism, talk of souls, passions, and inspirations
has lost much of its vitality during the modernist age; for the rational
and objective mind, such talk is so much folklore. The socializing
technologies have further reduced our beliefs inthese dimensions of self.
Romantic passions are as quaint as old movies. Yet, from the postmodern
standpoint, such actions are also essential parts of some of our most
valued traditions. We can be romantic not because it is a true reflection
of our inner core, not as a life-or-death matter, but because it is one
way for us to participate in a special form of relationship our culture
offers to us. We can sing in a chorus or play touch football on Sundays
not because these actions "reveal the true self." Rather, the actions are
themselves part of relationships, and gain their value in just this way.
If postmodern life is more richly expressive, it is also less
self-centered. Beliefs in a singular, coherent and stable self can be
closely linked with greed, egotism, and selfishness. "If I am a separate
self from you," the logic goes, "then better my welfare than yours." But
as the socializing technologies expand, beliefs in separate,
self-directing individuals decline. We become increasingly aware that all
our expressions, beliefs, values, thoughts, and desires are legacies from
other persons, little gifts they leave with us in passing.
We may indeed be unique, never repeating these expressions in just the
same way. But this uniqueness is not self-determined; rather, it reflects
the particular patterns of our relationships. "I am you within me," one
realizes, "and you are me within you. We are united." With the dawning of
this consciousness, selfishness becomes unrewarding. To stuff one's own
face, seek one's own riches, be exclusively concerned with one's own
image, cuts one away from the very wellsprings of one's potentials. If it
is I against you, then I am removed from the sources that fire my
enthusiasm, enrich my potentials, and furnish life with value. Left to
feed upon the residues of past relationships, the "I" would slowly wither.
If our concerns move away from the interior of the self and outward toward
relationships, a new sense of optimism is born. We exist in a society
where conflict abounds--between racial and ethnic groups, religions,
unions and management, men and women, the rich and the poor, pro-choicers
and pro-lifers, and more. Much the same picture can be painted at the
global level, where Arabs and Jews, Muslims and Hindus, blacks and whites,
the haves and the have-nots, are pitted against each other. These
conflicts follow a familiar logic: each group believes itself to be
singular, bounded, and independent, and that it must stick up for its
rights, privileges, and well-being in the face of an opposing group. In
effect, conflicts among groups are based on much the same thinking that
has traditionally colored our perceptions of self.
If the socializing technologies can break down the sense of independent
selves, can we look forward to a time when the same can occur at the
national and international level? As the technologies increase our contact
with those from other walks of life, other value systems, and other
cultures, we may continue to expand our range of understanding and
appreciation. As we form relationships in business, government, education,
the arts, and so on, we may further our sense of interdependence. Have
Americans not already absorbed many Japanese points of view, tastes, and
appreciations, and vice versa? And is our economy not dependent on theirs
and vice versa? To this extent, there is no distinctly American identity.
America exists as it does because of the relationships of which it is a
part.
So in the end, as the socializing technologies continue their expansion,
we can move from a self-centered system of beliefs to consciousness of an
inseparable relatedness with others. Perhaps then our postmodern selves
will contribute to making the globe a better place for living.