[lit-ideas] SOS - Colin Morris and Taylor
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 May 2006 09:38:34 -0700
A couple of days ago I got a notice that I can expect Taylor's book in from
8 to 10 days. I have been reading the comments however and on Omar's
question about the self there is something from my own reading that seems to
bear - or perhaps I should say that I have an interest in when the idea of
our individuality originated (which Morris addresses) and the relationship
of the modern self to that origination:
Colin Morris wrote The Discovery of the Individual, 1050-1200, 1972. In it
he argues that our sense of individuality has not been the norm throughout
our history as a species. He argues that it originated in the 1050-1200
period.
Morris introduces the contrast the modern sense of self with the premodern
sense by providing a couple of quotations.
He represents the modern sense by a quotation from Auden:
Some thirty inches from my nose
The frontier of my Person goes;
And all the untilled air between
Is private pagus or demesne.
Stranger, unless with bedroom eyes
I beckon you to fraternize,
Beware of rudely crossing it;
I have no gun, but I can spit.
He quotes the advice given a son by a West African father as representing
the premodern sense:
"There is a certain form of behaviour to observe, and certain ways of acting
in order that the guiding spirit of our race may approach you also. . . .
If you desire the guiding spirit of our race to visit you one day, if you
desire to inherit it in your turn, you will have to conduct yourself in the
selfsame manner; from now on, it will be necessary for you to be more and
more in my company."
Morris follows the last quote with, "This relative weakness of the sense of
individuality is not confined to those societies which we normally call
primitive. The student of the Greek Fathers or of Hellenistic philosophy is
likely to be made painfully aware of the difference between their
starting-point and ours. Our difficulty in understanding them is largely
due to the fact that they had no equivalent to our concept 'person,' while
their vocabulary was rich in words which express community of being, such as
ousia, which in our usage can be translated only by the almost meaningless
word 'substance.' The Asiatic and Eastern tradition of thought has set
much less store by the individual than the West has done. Belief in
reincarnation virtually excludes individuality in the Western sense, for
each person is but a manifestation of the life within him, which will be
reborn, after his apparent death, in another form. Western individualism is
therefore far from expressing the common experience of humanity. Taking a
world view, one might almost regard it as an eccentricity among cultures."
But this isn't the main the argument of Morris' book. He is arguing that the
idea of the modern individual didn't begin as had hitherto been argued with
the Italian Renaissance but began much earlier, in the 1050-1200 period.
I'm sure everyone has read about the modern idea of individuality growing
out of the Renaissance.
One can see the premodern idea of the individual in Islamic Fundamentalism.
Individualism and even individual states ought not to be important. What
ought to be important is the ummah. Of course the Islamists are in the
modern world like it or not and so could never again perfect a premodern
condition equivalent to the premodern ummah, but that is their ideal. We
have other modern examples of people voluntarily giving up their
individuality, or at least striving to do so, when they join religious
cults. In the 30s that sort of ideal was held up for Communists. They
should sacrifice their individuality for the good of the proletariat.
If Morris is right and our "modern" idea of the individual can be regarded
as an eccentricity among cultures, is our idea of the individual an
unadulterated improvement over the premodern idea or are their pathological
penalties to be paid?
I read Phil Enns earlier comment from his May 18, 4:21 note in which he
wrote "If Taylor is right, then the claim that frameworks could be dispensed
with is nonsensical." I can't read the context and so can't respond to
Taylor, but it occurred to me that modern Americans (and I doubt this is
restricted to Americans) seem to love to claim to be uninfluenced by
religion, philosophy, other people's orders, and restrictions of various
kinds. They love to claim that they are utterly original and that all their
ideas are self-conceived. Beyond that, it isn't uncommon for individuals or
groups to seek to "drop out" of society. Of course what they are actually
achieving doesn't live up to their desire, that is, in rejecting one set of
standards they accept another, but psychologically they believe they are
dropping out and becoming nihilists. So what is more important here, that we
can show that there is still structure to their existence, or that these
nihilists believe that there is not?
Feel free to ignore the above if it has nothing to do with Taylor. But it
is something that occurred to me while reading the notes, primarily Omar's
comment (and I guess Omar doesn't have the book either) and one comment made
by Phil Enns.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 7:51 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: SOS or Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self
--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> But when Paul writes, "this guy is going to give us
> the
> necessary and sufficient conditions of the 'modern
> identity" I think
> that he's flat wrong. I take Taylor to be a careful
> writer who chooses
> particular terms deliberately and see Taylor
> sketching a prototype
> that illustrates "various facets" of selves that
> exemplify the modern
> condition but does not amount to a classical
> definition in terms of
> necessary and sufficient conditions.
> --
*Let me ask an ignorant question. Why is Taylor
talking about "modern self" ? I can think of two
possible implications, although there are probably
more:
1) The "self" is a uniquely modern idea or product.
2) There is something about "modern self" that is
unique and distinct from pre-modern (or un-modern ?)
selves.
I don't see how either implication would be
sustainable without some fairly precise definition.
O.K.
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