Research Selfhood is a precondition for true community

[C C]

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1074553

INTRO: Comedian Groucho Marx famously once said that he did not wish to be a member of any club that would accept his membership. Marx’ comment, joking aside, highlights a key aspect of the communal experience; that you cannot be a member of a we, a community, without somehow endorsing that membership yourself.

- By birthright, we may belong to a variety of groups such as class, ethnicity or blood type, but group memberships that can be determined on the basis of objective markers are not particularly useful when trying to understand what it means to be part of a we, says Professor Dan Zahavi from the University of Copenhagen.

Professor Zahavi’s new book Being We: Phenomenological Contributions to Social Ontology explores what it takes to constitute a we with others and how being part of a we affects one’s sense of self. He adds:

- It is important to understand that a we is a particular kind of social formation distinguishable from e.g. the ones based purely on shared objective features inasmuch as you can be a member of such a group – possessing citizenship, for example – without ever having decided to. To be part of a we, you have to experience yourself as one of us. It involves subjective endorsement.

Community first? In many recent scholarly accounts of the collective and the self, however, the collective is considered prior to the individual. Some go even further and claim that the self is nonexistent, but Dan Zahavi is skeptical of such claims... (MORE - details, no ads)

[Magical Realist]

While some dimensions of self are clearly social and first established through socialization, a proper appreciation of our experiential life also has to recognize its intrinsic subjectivity. The experiences we as human beings have involve a point of view, they come with perspectival ownership, and this feature is not a social construction.

The problem is that the subjective first person self, the one we directly experience phenomenally, isn't the same as the objective identified-with self that belongs to a certain group or party or social class. That objective third person self to me IS a construct that fits nicely into the regime of an equally objectified "we" that we experience ourselves as being part of.

For instance most people who identify themselves as Republicans pretty much conform to and espouse all the values and opinions and talking points as all their fellow Republicans do. They constantly acquaint themselves thru social media and news editorials with the views and opinions they are supposed to have. This reinforces their sense of being an objective Republican who is a member of the Republican party. But it isn't their real subjective self. Their real self would be the first person subjective thinking about these issues and forming their own opinions independently of any ideal of belonging to an objective "we" category. But that is not as rewarding as being a well-defined type who doesn't have to think and merely agrees with all the positions provided to them. The illusion of being this objective member of the party is so complete that they can't even imagine forming views and thoughts on their own instead of just parroting what they have learned to from the media. Membership, iow, has its privileges, not the least of which is being comfortably certain about what you "think" and believe at all times.