This is the 6th lecture of [[Keith Campbell]]'s *[[PA Psychology of the Self]]* from [[Peterson Academy]] Keith Campbell "The self is the narrative centre of gravity." Daniel Dennett says that you can imagine a story in your life where you are the main character. ## Life is a play metaphor Erving Goffman took the self as an actor metaphor further, by suggesting that there is a front stage and a back stage to the play of the self. The front stage is the more performative aspect of the self, where the back stage is the more private and informal self. In every scene—scenario— there is a personal front and a set(ting). A workplace can be seen as a movie set. In today's world, the backstage is vanishing with the advent of social media. Since life is a performance, we have a tendency to present ourselves positively, which is self-enhance strategically. The way we express how we expect to be treated is through symbols, and the way people actually respond may or may not fall in line with our expectations of who we are and want to be seen as. This is part of identity negotiation or symbol interactionism. However, whether these symbols would work depends on whether my environment agrees with my understanding of said symbols. There is also social scripts, which are largely implicit, but they are functioning all the time. When we don't have scripts for a certain novel scenario, we get confused, probably anxious, but also probably exciting because we have to improvise. Social roles are similar to roles in movies too. Usually for each role people will find role models to model after. As kids, our audience is usually just our parents, but our audience would later develop more socially. George Herbert Mead is a sociologist who developed this idea of the generalized other, which is a generalized idea of an audience that we are performing for. Bob Weir once said that "the performance doesn't happen on the stage. The performance happens at the apex between the audience and the band." ## Self as narrative A narrative of of our self is the story we tell about ourselves. A good story is one that has drama, but it is not the life that one that many would wish for themselves. It is through story we can make sense and meaning out of our experiences, and writing diaries is a practical example of that. Jamie Pennebaker did research looking into diary writing and its relation to health. University freshmen who were journaling about this transition into college life were sick less. This seems to suggest that through journaling the students were capable of intentionally making sense of this challenging time, which gives them agency and control. ### Common narratives - Tragedy or Contamination — "I had it and I lost it" - Horatio Alger or "up from my bootstraps" story — started from the bottom working to the top - Redemption — "I had it, and I lost it, and I brought myself back" - Generativity — shifting from personal achievement to nurturing the next generation - Hero story ### Story of all stories — the hero's journey The hero's journey was first put out by the psychoanalyst Otto Rank, and later picked up by Joseph Campbell. The hero's journey is the journey that turns normal people into heroes. Joseph Campbell saw similarities between Freud's and Jung's hero journeys.[^1] He then set on a quest to document different hero stories throughout the world. 1. Introduction to protagonist as a normal person 2. Call to adventure 3. On a quest 4. Helped by allies — often shadow figures 5. Alchemy of challenges, tests 6. Rock bottom, underworld 7. Transformation, or apotheosis 8. Come back to the world with a gift, or a boon, or a legacy — Becomes a hero ### Living the narrative Either you live as a hero on a journey, or you live as a consumer. Teddy Roosevelt famously spoke of being "the man in the arena" striving instead of the man who sits on the side criticizing. The 'man in the arena' either triumphs gloriously or fails daringly, but "his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." ### Lost of narrative Nietzsche's passage in the Gay Science essentially prophesied our postmodern lost of meaning now that we have killed God without us knowing it. Ker Gergen in his book The Saturated Self describes the modern person as somebody who just does what is interesting in a cosmopolitan world that sees materiality as prime reality, but apart from that humans do not share any foundational beliefs. That means living in our world today means having to choose our narratives, instead of having them given to us. Today, living a narrative is essential, but difficult to come by. [^1]: Freud's theory was that it was "about you face your father, your father's going castrate you, and so you identify with your father and find somebody like your mom." Jung's theory was that it was about "looking inward and finding your soul and then finding the center of yourself." Subject: [[Psychology]]