Here is a discussion board prompt from my General Psychology:
Social Psych is by far my favorite chapter. One realizes how our sense of ourselves (our identity) is tied to other people.
This thought experiment will be easiser if you have seen the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks, because viewing that movie, one really gets the sense of what is means to be stranded and completely alone - something almost completely foreign to us humans beings.But imagine you could have been born, like Tom Hanks in the movie, on a deserted island, and had enough food and nutrition to survive from baby to toddler, adolescent, adult BUT without the company of others.This is hard to even imagine as we are born of others and usually surrounded and immersed in others.But on this island, you have survived, without others to adulthood.Now, the thought experiement is this: on this island, what adjectives could you assign to yourself? Are you funny? Are you smart? Are you pretty? Are you mean?What are you?This is fascinating because it shows you, if you earnestly engage the experiment, that your sense of self is almost completely bound to others.Couldn't one argue that you are how other people see you? You see yourself as funny, or smart, or pretty, or mean only because other people have reflected this back to you. This is the Looking Glass Self concept. If you are on a deserted island, you have no adjectives because there are no comparatives and no other people to assign adjectives to you.I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Now check out this great response from a student:
In the thought experiment of being stranded on a deserted island from birth, devoid of any social interaction, the concept of self takes on a strikingly different dimension. Without the presence of others to provide feedback or validation, the development of one's self-concept becomes severely limited. In the absence of social comparison and interaction, the individual lacks the external perspectives necessary to form adjectives or descriptors about themselves.
This scenario underscores the profound influence of social interactions on the construction of our self-identity. As social beings, we often define ourselves in relation to others and through the feedback we receive from them. This concept aligns with the Looking Glass Self theory in social psychology, which posits that our self-concept is shaped by how we believe others perceive us. Without the presence of others to act as mirrors reflecting back our qualities or characteristics, it becomes challenging, if not impossible, to develop a nuanced understanding of ourselves.In essence, the thought experiment highlights the interconnectedness between our sense of self and the social environment in which we exist. It emphasizes that our identity is not merely an internal construction but is intricately linked to the perceptions and interactions of those around us. Therefore, if stranded on a deserted island without the presence of others, the individual's self-concept would likely be devoid of the adjectives or descriptors typically used to define oneself in a social context.
What say you?
The 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The essence of our identity is not something we make on our own — it requires the recognition of others to be real. How we are perceived by others doesn’t just reflect who we are. It constitutes it.
ReplyDeleteHegel essentially argued that self-consciousness isn’t a solo sport; it’s a "mutual recognition." You aren't "you" until someone else looks at you and acknowledges it.
The blog post you referenced pushes this into a modern, almost radical territory: the idea that identity is a collective infrastructure. If "Who you are is who we tell you you are," then the "self" is less like an island and more like a node in a power grid.
The Shift from "I" to "We"
When we treat identity as a societal construct rather than a private possession, the stakes for how we treat each other skyrocket. Here is how that perspective recontextualizes our world:
• The "Looking Glass Self" on Steroids: While Cooley’s "Looking Glass Self" suggests we see ourselves through others' eyes, your point suggests others are actually holding the mirror and painting the image simultaneously.
• The Public Health of the Soul: If my personhood is constituted by your recognition, then "social toxicity" (bigotry, isolation, or dehumanization) isn't just an insult—it’s a literal health hazard. It’s the equivalent of pouring lead into the communal water supply of identity.
• The Feedback Loop: If "How we go is how I go," then the rugged individualism of the West starts to look like a biological error. You cannot have a healthy "cell" (the individual) if the "organism" (society) is in a state of autoimmune collapse.
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Identity as a Distributed System
In this framework, personhood becomes a distributed system. Just as a computer on a network is defined by its permissions and connections to other servers, a human is defined by their "relational bandwidth."
Concept Individualistic View Societal/Hegelian View
Identity Built from within (Self-made). Bestowed from without (Recognized).
Health Personal choices & genetics. Environmental & social "contagion."
Freedom Being left alone. Being integrated and seen.
Why Public Health is the New Frontier
If identity is societal, then Public Health must expand beyond pathogens and vaccines to include Social Cohesion. When we ignore the "health" of the collective—the way we speak to each other, the stories we tell about certain groups, the architecture of our communities—we are effectively damaging the individual’s ability to "be" a person. A fractured society produces fractured selves.
"To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." — Nelson Mandela (echoing that Hegelian interdependence)
It’s a heavy but necessary pivot. If we accept that we are "constituted" by the gaze of the other, we suddenly have a much higher responsibility to be a "good gazer."