Subject: Understanding the Self Instructor: Lerramie J.

Bato

Section: BSED ENGLISH 1

LESSON 2

THE SELF, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

What is the Self?

 Commonly defined by the following characteristic: (Stevens 1996)

1. Separate – the self is distinct from other selves
2. Self-contained – its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its own thoughts,
characteristics, and volition. It does not require any other self for it to exist.
3. Independent – in itself it can exist
4. Consistent – it has a personality that is enduring and therefore can be expected to persist
for some quite some time.
- It can be studied, described, and measured.
- The self-traits, characteristics, tendencies, and potentialities are more or less
the same.
5. Unitary – it is the center of all experiences and thoughts that run through a certain
person.
- It is the chief of command post in an individual where all processes, emotions,
and thoughts converge.
6. Private – each person sorts out information, feelings and emotions, and thought processes
within the self. The whole process is never accessible to anyone but the self.
- Self is isolated from the external world. It lives within its own world.

 But according to a French Anthropologist Marcel Mauss, this phenomenon can be explained.
Every SELF has two faces:
1. Personne – composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who he is.
 It has much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a particular family, a particular
religion, a particular nationality, and how to behave given expectations and influences from others.
2. Moi – refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity, his biological givenness.
 It is a person’s basic identity.

The Self and Culture

Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are
passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society."
Culture is commonly divided into material culture- the attire, tools, weapons, architectural designs, religious
implements- and nonmaterial culture or the belief systems, the values, the norms or expected behaviors, as well
as the shared language and symbols.
NORMS- are rules on what to do or what not to do in a certain situation.
VALUES- are ideal behaviors or principles that set the standard of what is acceptable and admirable from a
person who is part of a society.

The Self and the Society

STATUS- is our position in the society or particular group. Status can be ascribed and achieved status.
 ASCRIBED STATUS- is a term used in sociology that refers to the social status of a person that is
assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life.
 ACHIEVED STATUS- is determined by an individual's performance or effort.

Social Institutions
1. Kinship/Family- this is the most basic social institution of a society that organizes us based on our
familial ties. It can be based on blood- relations, like sibling relations, by marriage.
2. Economics/Market- this systems aims to regulate the flow of resources and services. Ideally, this should
ensure that everyone gets a fair share of goods or that a person in need will get the service he or she
needs in order to address a necessity.
3. Politics government- this is usually composed of various organizations ensuring peace and order by
legitimizing the use of power of certain people or groups.
4. Education/ School- the basic function of schools is to ensure that the knowledge of the past and the
culture of the society gets transmitted from one generation to another. It aims to produce people who can
live harmoniously in given social environment as well as able to be productive citizens for the economy.
5. Religion/Church- This is an organized set of practices, symbols and artifacts regarding the belief of the
supernatural.

THEORITICAL APPROACHES
Theoretical approaches and frameworks enable us to combine and use concepts in a meaningful way to look and
understand a part of reality- in case, the connection of self, society, and culture.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD (1863-1931) - claimed that the self is created, developed, and changed through
interaction (Hogg and Vaughan 2010)
RUTH BENEDICT (1887-1948) AND MARGARET MEAD (1901-1978) - they argued that the personality or
the self is dependent on the cultural practices and socialization process of a certain group.
CLIFFORD JAMES GEERTZ (1926-2006)- from the school of symbolic and interpretive anthropology looks at
culture as a collection of symbols with meanings, and these meanings are made, communicated, and negotiated
by each person to make sense of their lives and interactions (CLIFFORD GEERTZ: Work and Legacy, n.d)

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