To what extent are the ‘self’ and ‘identity’ separate from society?
To what extent are the ‘self’ and ‘identity’ separate from society?
The concept of self and identity has become increasingly important in social science in recent years. There are many competing concepts about them. The term ‘identity’ can be basically understood as how we understand ourselves. It generally entails how to category people into groups by differentiate them according to their characteristics. This essay will focus on the correlations of self and identity, and society. It will stress on if self and identity are separate from society with scholars’ support, particular on Mead and Goffman.
George Herbert Mead is widely considered as the founding father of theoretical thinking concerned with the self and identity. There are two main innovations in Mead’s work: the social nature of self and the importance of symbolic communication in terms of language (Crossley, 2005). He rejected that self is an isolated thing that embed in individuals’ head from previous concepts. In contrast, he pointed out that the sense of self is a social thing that arises through social interaction (Elliott, 2007). He emphasises on the individuals have the sense of who they are through the feedback they receive from others. All these processes depend on the language that all people agree and understand in the same meaning.
From Mead’ options, self and identity cannot leave alone without society. He disagreed that self is only matter with individuals—with their heads. Individuals get the basic sense of self from other people’s opinions about who they are. Then, people develop the ideas of the information they get to achieve processing sense of self. It is such like a mirror. People cannot know what they look without the reflections from mirrors. In this sense, if nobody around you and give you information about yourself, you will have no ideas about yourself. Thus, the sense of self arises from the process of social experiences and activities. In the other words, all the process
The concept of self and identity has become increasingly important in social science in recent years. There are many competing concepts about them. The term ‘identity’ can be basically understood as how we understand ourselves. It generally entails how to category people into groups by differentiate them according to their characteristics. This essay will focus on the correlations of self and identity, and society. It will stress on if self and identity are separate from society with scholars’ support, particular on Mead and Goffman.
George Herbert Mead is widely considered as the founding father of theoretical thinking concerned with the self and identity. There are two main innovations in Mead’s work: the social nature of self and the importance of symbolic communication in terms of language (Crossley, 2005). He rejected that self is an isolated thing that embed in individuals’ head from previous concepts. In contrast, he pointed out that the sense of self is a social thing that arises through social interaction (Elliott, 2007). He emphasises on the individuals have the sense of who they are through the feedback they receive from others. All these processes depend on the language that all people agree and understand in the same meaning.
From Mead’ options, self and identity cannot leave alone without society. He disagreed that self is only matter with individuals—with their heads. Individuals get the basic sense of self from other people’s opinions about who they are. Then, people develop the ideas of the information they get to achieve processing sense of self. It is such like a mirror. People cannot know what they look without the reflections from mirrors. In this sense, if nobody around you and give you information about yourself, you will have no ideas about yourself. Thus, the sense of self arises from the process of social experiences and activities. In the other words, all the process