Felt moved to observe upon point raised in last class discussion vis a vis the nature of a class blog. Personal or scholarly?
A fellow classmate (and then there were three...) commented that she wrote in a journal only in times of unhappiness or stress, and that if anyone were to read it the conclusion would probably be that she was a very angry person. I have attempted several times to keep a formal journal and failed miserably save when ranting bitterly about something, so I can relate to where she is coming from. One wonders, however, whether this leads to a point on the expression of self. Does a polemic upon the shortcomings of mankind qualify as true expression of self? "Expression" it surely is, but so is the work of an artist who places a single black dot on a white canvas and with great pomp and circumstance presents it as a commentary upon individuality. As inexorably biased as an angry viewpoint is by nature, it cannot by itself serve as a window to the person entire. Yet the emotion of that person is undoubtedly present and undoubtedly poignant, and to shuffle off the work of any mind as illegitimate (that word again) is a crime against the gods of self-expression. So how do we react to this sort of one-sidedness? Do we merely take what we have and try to form a complete picture of it? Randomly looking down the wrong end of a telescope at a gigantic mural and attempting to describe the subject from the pinpricks that appear comes to mind as a suitable analogy. A person is a vast array of form and feeling that defies explanation or definition. We can only pray for periodic enlightenment.
And what of the self online? In the far reaches of anonymical cyberspace one can become whoever - whatever - one desires. As Sherry Turkle described it in "Identity In the Age of the Internet," "the obese can be slender, the beautiful plain, the 'nerdy' sophisticated...the anonymity of MUDs gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones" (Holeton, Composing Cyberspace, 8). The argument has been made that this leads to deception. The male can pass himself off as female, the female male, the 60-year-old 20, and an endless list of other disparities with no one the wiser. Why do people feel compelled to "play with their identity" and become either their ideal or simply something that they've wondered about being? The desires of a mind (or perhaps we have strayed over into the domain of the heart by now) express themselves in as physical a way as the Internet can provide, in the virtual reality of a chat room. A window in more ways than one...a little piece of a life and a soul boxed off and often side by side with mutiple others. For simplicity's sake let us assume that an individual creates a persona stronger, faster, smarter, more attractive, and generally better than the original in every way. This is a desire expressed as an ideal, but that desire sprang from a living, breathing person and must therefore be considered a part of him. It may not be fundamentally true in physical reality, but are our desires and wishes any less a facet of our character than our hair color? Identity is marked by fluidity. In the so-called physical world we can change everything from the color of our eyes to the shape of our noses, so one might argue that desires are actually more real, more constant, than the tangible body. "To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to." ~Kahlil Gibran. Armed with that journal, we can add more little pieces to the puzzle of that human being, his hopes and dreams along with the angry entry about obnoxious siblings and the hurt and confusion of a divorce. We see him in a mix of what he is and what he could be, would be, can never be, and every part of it is still him.
A fellow classmate (and then there were three...) commented that she wrote in a journal only in times of unhappiness or stress, and that if anyone were to read it the conclusion would probably be that she was a very angry person. I have attempted several times to keep a formal journal and failed miserably save when ranting bitterly about something, so I can relate to where she is coming from. One wonders, however, whether this leads to a point on the expression of self. Does a polemic upon the shortcomings of mankind qualify as true expression of self? "Expression" it surely is, but so is the work of an artist who places a single black dot on a white canvas and with great pomp and circumstance presents it as a commentary upon individuality. As inexorably biased as an angry viewpoint is by nature, it cannot by itself serve as a window to the person entire. Yet the emotion of that person is undoubtedly present and undoubtedly poignant, and to shuffle off the work of any mind as illegitimate (that word again) is a crime against the gods of self-expression. So how do we react to this sort of one-sidedness? Do we merely take what we have and try to form a complete picture of it? Randomly looking down the wrong end of a telescope at a gigantic mural and attempting to describe the subject from the pinpricks that appear comes to mind as a suitable analogy. A person is a vast array of form and feeling that defies explanation or definition. We can only pray for periodic enlightenment.
And what of the self online? In the far reaches of anonymical cyberspace one can become whoever - whatever - one desires. As Sherry Turkle described it in "Identity In the Age of the Internet," "the obese can be slender, the beautiful plain, the 'nerdy' sophisticated...the anonymity of MUDs gives people the chance to express multiple and often unexplored aspects of the self, to play with their identity and to try out new ones" (Holeton, Composing Cyberspace, 8). The argument has been made that this leads to deception. The male can pass himself off as female, the female male, the 60-year-old 20, and an endless list of other disparities with no one the wiser. Why do people feel compelled to "play with their identity" and become either their ideal or simply something that they've wondered about being? The desires of a mind (or perhaps we have strayed over into the domain of the heart by now) express themselves in as physical a way as the Internet can provide, in the virtual reality of a chat room. A window in more ways than one...a little piece of a life and a soul boxed off and often side by side with mutiple others. For simplicity's sake let us assume that an individual creates a persona stronger, faster, smarter, more attractive, and generally better than the original in every way. This is a desire expressed as an ideal, but that desire sprang from a living, breathing person and must therefore be considered a part of him. It may not be fundamentally true in physical reality, but are our desires and wishes any less a facet of our character than our hair color? Identity is marked by fluidity. In the so-called physical world we can change everything from the color of our eyes to the shape of our noses, so one might argue that desires are actually more real, more constant, than the tangible body. "To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to." ~Kahlil Gibran. Armed with that journal, we can add more little pieces to the puzzle of that human being, his hopes and dreams along with the angry entry about obnoxious siblings and the hurt and confusion of a divorce. We see him in a mix of what he is and what he could be, would be, can never be, and every part of it is still him.
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