Lecture 7 – Self Esteem and Social Interaction<<Objectives>>- To understand the fundamental nature of self-esteem in human life - To understand the paradoxical drive of heroism and self-esteem - To understand how social interaction serves as the stage of self-esteem- To appreciate the fragility and contingency of identity and selfhood The Heroic Drive: - Humans have the need to expand their own life force and life meaning beyond themselves, they have the need to be beyond their immediate self- May take the form of a cultural achievement like a high status carreer, a victory in a competition, or an intense experience or “peak moment” had through art, religion, sex, or athletics - Not just for great people, it drives everybody - The heroic drive toward specialness is called self esteemo Precarious – it’s what all of us want o Don’t confuse praise with self esteem o The child with healthy self-esteem knows she is loved, feels special about who she is, and feels good about things she produces and does. The world is a place of opportunity for her that she approaches with confidence - The person who pulls back from embodying heroism lives the life of the “wasteland” o Life lived without passion, integrity, or zealo They are against the rules but still following all of themo Complacento Stick around with their shitty jobs and shitty friends o Life unlived- Nothing is all right/all wrong- How is my need to stand out & need to blend in contributing to my own self-meaning? - The human drive toward heroism is manifest in two paradoxical needs. o One need deals with the extent to which people are driven to merge with a group, community, or a purpose larger than one’s self (Agape). o Other need deals with people that want to stand out and apart from their cohorts, to feel a sense of specialness (Eros). o We need to be able to stand apart and be apart. The better people are at balancing both of these skills are more socially skilled.o Hedonic treadmill- when you attach your personal worth to material goods - Heroic Belonging- our heroism comes from expanding the power, prestige, membership, and lifespan of our group rather than our individual selves - People afraid of death and mortality and also of life and their own potential, talents, powers, and gifts “transfer” it to their heroes. In one sense, having ahero allows the ordinary person to “expand” their own life force vicariously without having to risk life’s pitfalls. The meaning and significance of one’s own life expands the more people give in to the truth and power of their heroes. o Think about you and one direction. You strived to make charity effortsin lou of their red-nose day campaign. You do things because they do good things and feels like their the drive to make you do those things. - One problem with heroes, is that they can cast a nexus of “unfreedom” around their followers***- we don’t have to do things because our heroes willdo them for us. - Another problem with heroes is that many of them need villains and if the appropriate villain can’t be found they can make them be out of whom ever appears convenient. With the villain in sight, the “hero” with an armed follower (both content on expanding the meaning of their own lives through heroic belonging) can wreak the chaos of a holocaust. o If you’ve gotta be a hero, who will your villain be? If you make your hero part of ailments then you’re a hero, but if your villain is another group of people then you’re just at war. Why do we have to have a certain group of people? Why do we make it their fault? We need to learn to not hate people that are simply misguided. Face-to-Face Interaction as a Heroic Arena: - Face- social identity. How I want you to feel about me. Something that we do not know that we have. It’s self-esteem made social and then negotiated between 2 people. - Face is what you do, identity is what you take away from your experiences with your face. - In our social encounter our inner sense of esteem is exposed to others socially as our sense of “face”. Like esteem, face is not something one “owns”, rather face resides in the stream of events between people. - The problem with self-esteem is that it is both the most precarious and precious thing a person has o With it life is meaningful and the world is a place of opportunity. Without it, one feels worthless in a world devoid of possibilities. o The more we care about the opinion of others, the more we make ourselves their slaves. - Social encounters are a “hallowed event”, the sacred Deity honored is nothingless than self-esteem of both participants. In every social encounter we “entrust” our self-esteem to the other. o Civil inattention helps us save someone else’s face. The person that has to down others is the most insecure. o Compliments are face challenging because they limit our ability to respond** o We make decisions every time we’re with other peopleo Who we are changes as we are put in different situationso We learn face by watching our parents; parents are important sourcesof self-esteem- “I don’t have a face; other people have mine and I have theirs…the seeableness of my face exists only through other people.” When we see another seeing us, regarding us, who we are to them is presenced for us upontheir face. o I have to be somebody to somebody or I am nobody. Do I have the right friends? Do they know they’re valuable to me? Friends are a reflection on who we are. - Our sense of face is negotiated in our enactment of self in interaction with others. We may try to gain face in class, protect our face, or attack the face of others. As Goffman explains, face, status, and social position is not a thing to be possessed and displayed, it is a pattern of appropriate conduct that is articulated in the enactment of self. - What’s the difference between Face and identity? Face is something we do & identity is something we take away from the interaction- Recognizing the face of another through the ritual care attests to the sacredness of other human beings. These rituals are mostly attended from; they are unconscious habits of cultural behavior. It is only when someone blunders, says something that embarrasses another or themselves, that we attend to these ritual behaviors of face maintenance.** (p.70)- Facework describes our ritualized attempts to avoid losing face and experiencing embarrassment, or loss of poise, and to maintain