I’ve often heard my American friends say, “Oh no. That’s just not me.” They’d be talking about their preferences on a piece of clothing or some rugged outdoor activity like rock climbing. Or when they see another friend make poor decisions, they’ll say, “No, she’ll come around. That’s just not her, it’s not who she is, you know.” They all seem to reference a stable and distinct ‘self.’ It appears to be second nature here in the West to reference the self as a readily definable and stable construct.
I can’t seem to find that stable, internal self. Perhaps it’s a reference to a Platonic ideal, a self that’s strictly essential or definitional, and implicitly out of reach. At the same time, I’ve also experienced a different understanding of self.
Other cultures, in particular the Korean one, practice a mode of social thinking in which the self does not belong in such isolated ownership. Its ownership spreads out to those around you who believe they have a rightful stake in who you are and who you present yourself to be.1 Unlike the Western view of self, the process of self-identification does not lead one to an internal reckoning with a stable self, but onto a self-definition that’s established vis-à-vis contextual social markers around you: where you are, who you’re with, and what you’re doing all matter for who you are. Unspoken expectations and common traditions compose the fabric of an identity that extends and therefore exists beyond oneself.
It’s a terribly un-Western notion, one that perhaps many of my American friends find reviling. I have to admit I’ve felt suffocated by the frequent bending of the will and constant vigilance that’s required to function properly in such a society. Yet I think this understanding addresses a fundamental aspect of our humanness that perhaps the Western concept of self can overlook. Namely, that we are fundamentally social beings.
The Western concept of self, I think, fails at times to see the extent to which what we do has a clear and direct effect on others. I’m not downplaying the value of tolerance, acceptance, and legitimate self-expression. It’s more to do with the simplistic confidence about how much we can truly know ourselves and the knee-jerk reference to a seemingly stable, projected self as a legitimate point for self-justification—all without a jot of worry about how that may affect others. It worries me to see myopic views of oneself. What’s left if and when we stubbornly hold onto a strictly individualistic notion of our identity, expression, and self? I think we risk ending up alone. In short, self-actualization requires much more than the self.
And I believe there’s an alternative understanding that may expand our notion of self. It’s to think of belonging, not just identity. Belonging, I think, can lead us to a higher order of self-actualization than identity.2 Identity commonly connotes an internal grappling with, figuring out, and naming of a retrospective or a removed ‘self’ that we construct and then attempt to deconstruct. Belonging entails an entity and an environment. At the very least, it requires a dyad, an interaction, a dialogue, or a mutual relationship. It’s a reckoning that requires one to observe and feel the environment around oneself and realize the points of congruence and divergence from those external forces. It’s a much more tangible process than referencing an artificial construct of the self. The process is therefore directly challenging yet enlightening.
In short, I don’t think there’s such a stable self we all encompass or possess. We are simply not an “I am who I am.” I’d rather look for ways in which I belong.
- Marx, Patricia. “About Face: Why is South Korea the World’s Plastic-surgery Capital?” New Yorker (Mar 23, 2015). http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/about-face.
- The original idea I owe to Elif Safak’s talk on the TED stage, which was later adapted for radio by NPR’s TED Radio Hour, Oct 11, 2013. http://www.npr.org/2013/10/06/229879937/identities.
Greg Kim (’14) graduated with a BA in history and international relations. He lived in Grand Rapids for a year and has since moved back to South Korea to fulfill his mandatory military service.
