Selfie

Confucius believed that the key to society maintaining harmony was for every person to know their place and stay in it. It is certainly a far cry from our modern world chock full of selfie sticks, Instagram influencers, reality television, and any other portal that allows one their fifteen minutes of fame. Aristotle perhaps may have welcomed the new digital narcissism of today, as he declared that a state of ‘self-love’ is a precondition for pursuing perfection. And the Greeks started us off with kalokagathia, - beautiful people were good people.

The cult of individualism is Will Storr’s focus in this book. Storr is not a sociologist or anthropologist. He is a journalist and novelist; however, he cites hundreds of studies in his research and has conducted interviews with developmental psychologists and anyone else who studies the self.

Storr looks at how the physicality of the landscape influences ideas, how what type of communal living shapes us, what happens when societies move from agricultural to industrial practices and what socio-economic factors are behind the drive to perfectionism, and how capitalism and class mobility have affected our sense of community and of self. The ego, the id, biology, genetics, eastern collectivism versus western individualism, globalism, the rise of industrialism, Freud, self-help literature, conscious awareness and many other factors which determine what shapes our society and gives rise to certain beliefs are discussed in this book.

Storr traces the concept of perfectionism from the ancient Greeks with their body perfect obsession through to the Christian era, where the state of the soul took over in importance. The state of the soul, however, meant constant scrutiny of the inner self. Hello, Catholic guilt. With the breakdown of traditional religion over time, new beliefs and practices abounded in the modern age. The author takes us on a journey through the influence of Ayn Rand, neo-liberalism, self-esteem movements, studies on the causes of narcissism, genetics and brain wiring, the causes of low and high self-esteem, analysis of parenting styles and political movements. It isn’t merely a matter of genetics or a combination of genetics and environment. Research has shown that humans are capable of having many different and often conflicting personality traits. We don’t have a single self. We have ‘selves’ for different situations. We are one, but we are many.

Storr paints the arrival of the ‘you’ phenomenon that permeates our culture today. ‘And to get along and get ahead in this new you-saturated arena, you had to be a better you than all the other yous that were suddenly surrounding you. You had to be more entertaining, more original, more beautiful, with more friends, have wittier lines and more righteous opinions, and you’d best be doing it looking stylish in interesting places with your breakfast healthy, delicious, and beautifully lit.’

Have we really moved on from what the Greeks thought thousands of years ago? At least today, we understand that a person can have the ideal body and not so ideal personality traits. The concept of what an ideal body looks like is a cultural construction and is apt to change as conditions in society change. The painter Rubens wouldn’t have looked twice at the catwalk models of today. However, with the rise of social media and images shouting out at us to be what advertisers and companies they think we should be (and shouting out at us to spend up big) it seems there are inherent dangers in our modern constructions. They are no less jeopardous as those of the ancient Greeks. Our capitalist society demands that we buy into and buy literally into the belief that something is wrong. Wrong with our shape, size, our nose, our skin. And there is always a product or a procedure to cure it. If there is not a problem, then the capitalist economy can dream one up. And we can buy it to fix what we are told is wrong. Storr points to studies in Britain and the USA where ‘being a celebrity’ and ‘being famous’ were at the top of the list of priorities for young people. We have a lot of work to do if we are to undo the damage that causes people to think that there is no meaning in living an ordinary life. What are the consequences of our expectations not being met?

Storr writes in an accessible style and is not an overly intrusive author. He doesn’t provide all the answers but rather gives us an overview of the problem of our culture trying to persuade us into becoming people we simply can’t be. Very interesting reading.