Identity lecture.
Essentialism (traditional approach) draws on the idea that you have an inner essence, a biological make up that cannot be changed.
Physionogomy.
The closer you are to the vertical, the closer you are to the perfect race, the more intelligent you are, as you move away towards a diagonal line you are seen as unintelligent.
Phrenology.
18 th century - In a balanced human being you have equal parts of the brain broken down to represent 'society's good character'. If your animal instincts are larger, you are looked down upon by society.
Historical phases of identity.
Pre modern
- Personal identity is stable, desfined by long standing roles.
Institutions defined identity - church, monarchies etc.
Farm workers, soldier, factory worker, housewife and gemtleman, husband and wife. Tied to institutional agencys, industrial capatilism, the state, the church.
Modern
- People begin to have anxiety about who they are, and the idea that you can start choosing who you are.
Charles Baudelaire - The painter of modern life (1863)
Introduces the gentleman stroller, they are seeing and being seen, he has time on his hands, doesn't have to go to work, this is how his identity is formed.
Veblen - Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. Consuming things that can be seen by others. Showing off wealth, in terms of visible objects. If you can show off in what you're wearing, you do not need to go to work.
Thorstein Veblen - The theory of leisure.
Emulation - The lower class aspires to be the upperclass, invention of cheap knock offs, and so the upperclass constantly change what they are wearing. Relevant today in the idea that new things always come around, Thinks are built in...
The mask - People hide behind what they wear.
'The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as one is a stranger without relations...
demonstrates the anxiety we feel when separated in society by what we own/wear, so much so that we feel more alone when surrounded by people than we do when we are alone.
Post Modern
- You can change at will who you want to be.
Discourse analysis.
Cavallaro quote on discourse.
- Age
- Class
- Gender
- Nationality
- Income
- Education
- Race
Class
Nationaity
Race/ Ethnicity
Gender and sexuality.
To be non white european, middle class, and hetro sexual you are cast out.
others of this are deemed the 'Otherness'.
Zygmunt Bauman.
quote on identity.
Introspection - when you find yourself alone, instead of collecting their thoughts, scan their mobile phone etc, in case someone out there may want them.
I think therefore I am/ I shop therefore I am.
Barabra Kruger - Buy me, i'll change your life.
In the past on sundays family would have gone to church. The family trip to the shopping mall is the of incarnation.
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