Strangely Familiar
1. The Metropolis and Mental Life
George Simmel (1858–1918, German sociologist, philosopher, and critic)
The key point of this essay is that the changing environment of metropolis, division of labor, and its size, influence the mental model that people react to the stimuli, including punctuality, calculability, and reserve. And especially:
bla·sé /blɑˈzeɪ/ adj. unimpressed or indifferent to something
because one has experienced or seen it so often before
I am sitting in the Manhattan office, laughing my tears out reading this.
A few years ago, before I moved to New York City, I was hooked by the sci-fi Ender’s Game. The story is told from Ender’s point of view, the little boy and the main character. Ender is the military genius in the training camp, and he gets upgraded to a more advanced team frequently. He has a very cool headed analytical strand of thought each time he shifts to a new team. Rational, indifferent, and efficient. I loved it.
Ender says he doesn’t take any personal belongings, whatever defines him is within his head. He gets a new set of uniform each time he moves, then he accomplishes what he needs to, then he moves on. He spends a lot of time in solitude, reading, observing, practicing, and developing the skills that no one could take away from him.
I resonated so much with the story because I relate so much to the frequent moving experience.
Investing emotional energy and time on people and relationships is not optimal for people who changes their place of residence very frequently. As soon as you move, what you have invested in the relationships suffers a great loss. You cannot take the trust and closeness away with you, despite all the advances in communication technologies.
The number of people in this frequent moving situation is increasing incredibly due to globalization. It happens so often that you don’t feel the pain anymore. Farewell becomes redundant. Saying goodbye becomes lighter.
Mentally, we adjusted to this continuously fast-changing life, for better or worse.
And in metropolitan areas, this moving happens everyday. People shift in and fade out always. Strangers, friends, passers-by. All busy with their own agenda and allowing that freedom and not getting too attached have become a most basic etiquette when socializing.
Because there is always another opportunity of interacting with another person just near the corner, literally; because there are so many different options available for each purchases; because there are almost limitless new things to see and try; because there is no boundary that limit the scope of actions, the state of mind is changed.
In Chelsea Market where we usually get our lunch from, you see different types of people. We navigate “gracefully” our way through the crowd, fast-paced, oriented, and somehow even can manage holding a conversation, constantly picking up where we left of when we were departed by the crowd. Everything comes almost naturally, because of blasé, because of we don’t react to the stimuli anymore.
I thought so. Until last week I went to Vancouver and everything seems to have slowed down. Only then I realized how stressed I was when I was in New York.
2. Self-Presentation, Social Rules, and Mortified Self
Erving Goffman (1922–1982, Canadian-born sociologist and writer, considered as “the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century”)
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.
— As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII
Imperfection of background information in social situations makes people rely on a lot of cues and concentrate on appearances. In a way it is presenting oneself as a performer on a stage does. But “a character staged in a theater is not in some ways real, nor does it have the same kind of real consequences as does the thoroughly contrived character performed by a confidence man [p.25]”.
The concept of role distance is an interesting one. It describes this dialectic relationship between experiencing in real-life and role estranging. The “actor” is in and out at the same time. It refers to “actions which effectively convey some disdainful detachment of the performer from a role he is performing [p.39]”.
Next, on mortified self. “The processes by which a person’s self is mortified are fairly standard in total institutions; analysis of these processes can help us to see the arrangements that ordinary establishments must guarantee if members are to preserve their civilian selves [p. 55].” This has a parallel with Simmel’s opening sentence in The Metropolis and Mental Life: “The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life.”
In Social Life as Drama, the discussion between “real” and “fake” performance is particularly interesting. “We tend to see real performances as something not purposely put together at all, being an unintentional product of the individual’s unselfconscious response to the facts in his situation. And contrived performances we tend to see as something painstakingly pasted together, one false item on another, since there is no reality to which the items of behavior could be a direct response. [p.105]”
What is the true self? I have been studying anonymous self-disclosures online and a lot of the users I interviewed mentioned that they could be more “real” and say what they “truly” think.
But coming from a traditional Confucius upbringing, I believe strongly the value of silence, of refrain, and of indirectness. Sometimes it is easy, just to be true and speak whatever is on your mind. But it takes more self-discipline and deeper thinking, to be what some people call “fake” instead.
I was surprised when I found the parallel refrain ideas in the Old Testament.
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
— Ecclesiastes 3
If speaking the truth hurts someone, is it better to not be sincere? If yes, how do we deal with the psychological burden of acting insincerely? Confession? Self-disclosure? Writing it down in journals? Talking to strangers? Or keeping it as a secret, that weighs heavy on the heart?
3. It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens
danah boyd (styled lowercase according to her wiki page, 1977–, social media scholar, youth researcher, MSR)
The concept of self-representation online taken out of context is interesting. Teen’s practices around crafting a profile and creating an identity online is a digital extension of the performer’s idea in Goffman’s writings. danah cited Goffman’s writing on the “impression management” [p.47] and extended to “impression management in a networked setting”. “Context don’t just collapse accidentally; they collapse because individuals have a different sense of where the boundaries exist and how their decisions affect others [p.49].”
In chapter 8, searching for a public of their own, the author begins with a story of Emily, a middle-class sixteen-year-old girl. “For Emily, going to places where he peers gather is a freedom…When she’s out in public, ‘It’s a time when you can just fool around and be free and do whatever you want.’”
The concept of public places, and the role of mobile technologies in shaping or reshaping it, highly interests me. Especially in urban settings, where public spaces serve as a place to socialize with a distance held between people. People watching; eating at a restaurant, alone, but together; reading in a coffee shop. These are typical activities in a city where I call “passive socializing”.
Being together with strangers, offline and online has a sense of that warm glow. Quite queerly, it’s comforting. As if I’m not alone.
