RE: Tutchev in English... and the issue of identity

From: Eugene Matusov (ematusov@UDel.Edu)
Date: Mon Mar 06 2000 - 16:57:47 PST


Dear Doris--

Thanks a lot for such fascinating essay in cross-cultural history of the
notions that roughly correspond to English word "self." I think that it
will be great if it is possible to complement your semantic analysis of
cultural terms with analysis of social relations and practices that
historically gave birth (and resurrection) these culturally diverse terms.

I also think that the problem of translation is a blessing rather than
obstacle -- in this problem diverse cultures meet each other and also learn
about themselves as having cultures. In one of my classes, after playing
simulated culture games Rafa-Rafa, students ask why can't people describe
their own cultures for people from other cultures to avoid
misunderstandings? The problem is that the culture becomes known for self
and involved others as a relationship of misunderstanding. In a way, culture
as a culture is always an emerging problematic relationship between at least
two cultures. Culture is not only relationship but also a social
construction. For example, a person who systematically moves away from me in
a conversation is a snob. One who moves too close is aggressive. However, if
one is from another country, I can see the problem as a cultural difference.
Culture is one of possible interpretations of problematic ambiguity in
relations with other people. It is not arbitrary interpretation either since
a foreigner also can be aggressive or snobby.

What do you think?

Eugene

> -----Original Message-----
> From: DGeorgiou@aol.com [mailto:DGeorgiou@aol.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 1:13 AM
> To: ematusov@UDel.Edu; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Cc: DGeorgiou@aol.com
> Subject: Re: Tutchev in English... and the issue of identity
>
>
> Hi Eugene and everybody,
>
> Being bilingual by birth and having done translations from one
> language to
> anotherfrom time to time, I have often experienced struggles of
> the sort you
> describe today. I too have wondered if differences between terms reflect
> differences in historical experiences of the communities, and I find your
> comments very interesting, indeed..
>
> I believe the the notion of "identity" is tied to the development of
> "individualism" and the concept of the "self." A few years ago, I
> did some
> research for a paper I wanted to write on cultural context, self
> and social
> behavior, and I found some information that resonates, much like your
> comments on identity.
>
> For example, according to an anthropologist, the human self as
> considered in
> Northern Cheyenne culture has four basic parts: "ametane"
> (living), "omotone
> (soul); "mahta?sooma" (spirit), and mahtsehestah (heart, the
> center of the
> individual). Individuation and consciousness of self are said to
> bring with
> them what Cheyenne consider to be the universal human
> condition--loneliness.
> But in Cheyenne culture, self-reliance implies intense
> involvement with those
> who are "close" and entails a personal strategy for increasing
> the network of
> "close" ones. In other words, individuality supports a tribal purpose, a
> tribal identity. Indeed, without the tribe, there is no freedom, there is
> only being lost.
>
> Japanese demonstrate a fine sense of differentiation between the
> self as a
> social participant (omote) and the self as a personal, internal
> consciousness
> (ura), and are more aware of a dualistic orientation to the world
> (Doi, 1973).
>
> In China, Confucian selfhood involves two interrelated
> assumptions: (a) the
> self as a center of relationships, and (b) the self as a dynamic
> process of
> spiritual development (Wei-ming, 1985).
>
> In studying the Polynesian population of Kapingamarangi, Lieber (1990)
> stresses the fact that Kapinga define the person as a locus of social
> relationships, of shared biographies (personal histories of people's
> relationaships with other people and things).
>
> In describing Balinese personhood, Geertz (1973) pictures a world that
> minimizes individualized selfhood. The Balinese have elaborate systems of
> birth-order names, status names, and names that they acquire as
> parents or
> grandparents of particular offsprings. Geertz says: "The most
> striking thing
> about the culture patterns in which Balinese notions of personal
> identity are
> embodied is the degree to which they depict virtually everyone--friends,
> relatives, neighbors, and strangers; elders and gods; even the dead and
> unborn--as stereotyped contemporaries, abstract and anonymous
> fellowmen. Each
> of the symbolic orders of person definition, from concealed names
> to flaunted
> titles, acts to strengthen the standardization, idealization, and
> generalization implicit in the relation between individuals whose main
> connection consists in the accident of their being alive at the
> same time to
> mute or gloss over those implicit relations between ... persons
> intimately
> involved in one another's biographies, or between predecessors
> and successors
> ... The illuminating paradox of Balinese formulations of
> personhood is that
> they are--in our terms anyway--depersonalized (pp. 389-390).
>
> Kavolis (1984) compares the English "self" with its equivalent in
> Lithuanian--possibly the most archaic of the living Indo-European
> languages.
> The Lithuanian word for "self," "pats," "pati," derives from the
> same root as
> the Sanscrit "pat," "to be master, reign, govern, control, own, possess,
> dispose of" and describes a kind of "householder self" which
> differs from the
> English, more Christianized self by the absence of introspective
> elements:
> "Whereas the literate English is "substantial" to the extent that it has
> inherited the structure (or memory) of the soul, in Lithuanian, which may
> express an older "peasant" stratum of the history of (Indo-) European
> selfhood, the self draws its "substantiality" from its masterful
> participation in the smallest operant unit of society. The civilized (or
> esoteric) type of "self" is more likely to need an ideological
> foundation,
> whereas the peasant (or exoteric) type of "self" needs social
> foundation to
> keep it from dissolving--into an escalating "self-consciousness"
> without an
> object in the first case, into a detail of earth-boundness in the
> second. The
> psychological need for ideologies as confirmers of selfhood
> should increase
> with any weakening of the social foundations of selfhood,
> specifically, with
> the transition from "peasantry" to "civilization" (p. 141).
>
> Pei-yi Wu (1984) describes the varieties of the Chinese self: "No
> single term
> matches the English "self " in versatility and flexibility. As a
> separate,
> freestanding noun, "chi" is equivalent to "self" in English, but "chi" is
> seldom used as a prefix, nor does it always connote reflexivity
> in the rather
> rare instances when it does appear as a suffix in a compound.
> "Tzu" resembles
> "self-" in English or "auto" in Greek when it functions as a
> prefix: e.g.,
> "tzu-ai," self-love ... Most Chinese pronouns of the first person
> singular
> can be generalized to denote the "self," much in the same way as "moi" in
> French does not even have a term comparable to the limited "chi"
> in Chinese.
> Among such Chinese pronouns "wo" is most often pressed into this broader
> service, whereas "wu" is used much less frequently in this
> manner. Another
> distinction of the pronoun "wo" is its viability. It has survived in the
> standard modern vernacular, whereas its synonyms have not.
> Perhaps even in
> ancient times "wo" had already displayed too much vigor, for Confucius
> assigned an additional meaning to it and denounced it as a moral
> defect to be
> avoided. As he juxtaposed "wo" with "i,"
> "willfullness," "pi" "arbitrariness," and "ku" "obstinacy," its
> new meaning
> must have stood somewhere between "egotism" and "self-assertiveness." (p.
> 107).
>
> Confucious must have been in Pascal's thoughts when, in the seventeenth
> century, he vigorously proclamed: "Le moi est haissable" !
>
> What do you think?
>
> Doris.



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