From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: BHA: Re: A DPF thematic: the Stratification of Personality
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2001 11:16:41 -0500


Hi Gary--

The relationship between documentary and imagination (fact and fiction, if
you will) is, I think, an intriguing and problem-raising issue.  It has long
been a question in theater, appearing in a variety of forms (and it was the
subject of a plenary session at a recent theater studies conference in the
U.S., which was not a sign of the issue's fashionability so much as a
testament to its enduring significance).  For example, a director may
instruct an actor to talk to the audience directly, cutting through from
theater to reality, but the moment (immediately or eventually) is
effectively scripted and the "real person" is in fact another character in
the performance.  Or, an accident occurs on stage, and the audience fails to
realize that the blood on stage is genuine.  And the border between
documentary and fiction is now blurred on a daily basis in the mass media,
through dramatic reenactments broadcast in news programs, a range of
"reality television" programs, and other genres.

I agree that this relationship has connections to our understanding of
personality and its stratification.  However, I don't concur with your
analysis at the end:

> The independent observer was a creation of Orwell's but he was also part
of
> Orwell as well.  In other wards 'Orwell' the character was a particular
> layer of Orwell the man.  In that sense both exist but what is crucial is
> the relationship between the layers. The layers are all authentic but
some,
> presumably the deeper ones, are generative or more generative than others.

Seen this way, the individual is at the center of analysis and the ultimate
origin of her own self, as the expression of a personal essence.  This
approach obscures the considerable role that social context and social
relations play in the formation of selfhood--the degree to which personality
is constructed on the condition of and with respect toward social
structures.  Orwell developed "independent observer" character as part of
his relationship to his (real or desired) reading audience, and was made
possible by his class trajectory, his complex relations with literary
culture and political organizations, and so forth.  Williams's concept of
structures of feeling alludes to this social matrix, though Bourdieu's
concept of habitus may capture the matter more fully; either term, however,
recognizes the social nature of "individual" personality. The "independent
observer" is not so much a "layer" as a "facet" or a "form of appearance"
that was produced (partly by not entirely by choice) in and through Orwell's
interactions with his world, and its production of him (neither side is a
sole origin).  The metaphor of a sociocultural "role" has some value here,
insofar as roles exist only within a context wherein they can operate.  Thus
it is problematic to say that "The layers are all authentic but some ... are
generative or more generative than others" (the phrase sounds oddly
Orwellian!).  Is the notion of authenticity even relevant?  Is what sense is
someone "authentically" a father, a teacher, a writer, a practical joker, in
a way that makes any of these more generative than another?  If one insists
on speaking of authenticity here, it is surely not with the same meaning.
Please note, I am not advocating a theory that "it's all surfaces without
reality"; rather, I'm saying that we have to think of personality as a
complex of structures bridging between individual and society, and that
these structures are *relationships*.

Thanks, T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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