Week 20: The identity spectrum

“Your appearance is now what we call Residual Self Image.  It is the mental projection of your digital self.”  - Morpheus to Neo, The Matrix, 1999.

I wanted to pick up a thread on last week’s theme of the identity spectrum.  Gender is one aspect our overall self-identity.  Another component is our personal perception of our physical bodies.  In one sense, gender is a sub-category of physical identity, because external secondary sex characteristics have a strong categorical tie with our gender identities, whether they are in agreement, disagreement, or some state of neutrality.

Physical characteristics can also have a profound influence on feelings of self-worth and ego.  Perhaps we are unsure of our capacity to be objective critics of ourselves.  Thus, we may rely heavily on the actions and reactions of others to inform our physical presentations of certain traits and our decisions about fashion choices, body modification, and other identifying characteristics.

Self-identity with respect to outward physical appearance recalls a similar question to the one I posed last week - the question of ideas found independently of social influence.  As with gender identity, it’s challenging to dissociate individualistic conclusions from those that have been taught by society as though they were true by default.  On the surface, we can look at things like the trend of the ideal sexual body in the media and its influence on our feelings of sexiness.  Going a layer deeper, we arrive at a place where we can begin to wonder about the origins of body stereotypes and other identity trends, and whether our physical self-identity is in fact a product of ourselves at all, or if it is an exclusive byproduct of imagery and social pressures.

Aristotle said something to the effect of “the virtue lies in the mean.”  It lends credibility to my writing when I paraphrase Aristotle because he was way smarter than me.  Point being that the truth of many things lies somewhere in middle-ground between extremes.  It’s very difficult to give a succinct and truthful definition of “self-identity,” even though I’ve been talking about it for 5 paragraphs.  Fundamentally, the identity pie chart that I use to represent “me” - a product of instinct, inborn genetic characteristics, and environmental factors - has unclear divisions.  

Thus we circumvent the binary - exclusively self-projected vs. the exclusive product of society and media - by suggesting that how we appear to ourselves must be some combination of inborn and external factors.  I make my self-image agree with how society says I ought to look to a certain extent.  This seems fairly obvious, but it raises another interesting question: which component of is the more valid contributor to self-identity?

Put another way, if we were to ask Aristotle, and I were to pretend that I could speak on his behalf, he might say “well, kids, it’s probably best to locate some comfortable balance of the two.  Nothing wrong with having a nice wardrobe, but make sure you’re comfortable in your own skin.”  It seems like a valid point, but it falls short of explaining why the highest value is given to a “balanced” self-identity over one that trends towards an extreme.  

In a similar way to the male-female gender spectrum, some individuals will be further along the physical identity spectrum towards one extreme or the other.  One one hand we may find, say, a monk who lives where there are no mirrors and has dedicated years to introspective meditation.  I feel it’s fair to say that such an individual would project a self-image with very little influence from fashion magazines.  On the opposite end of the dial, we find the most culturally immersed people who seem to draw exclusively from images and popular trends - and the need to stay ahead of them - to inform and define their physical self.  Which view is more authentic?

By what measure is the merit of one expression of physical identity weighed against another?  If we call someone a “fashion victim,” we imply that they are a slave to trends and pop culture.  But they might rebut by saying that approval from their peers, the masses, and their competition to stay ahead of the curve is empowering.  To present one’s self for constant physical scrutiny under the social microscope can lead to bold moves of creativity, outlandish experimentation with self-image, and it can be the trigger of massive cultural trends.  This seems to give high merit to this end of the spectrum since its consequences can generate large ripples in the pond of society.

Conversely, it seems tempting to idealize the quiet, introspective life of a monastery.  Surely an identically-dressed group of monks who are given to thoughtful, quiet contemplation would be much more self-aware and internally grounded in their construction of self-image.  Free of the constraints of popular approval, they seem to be in a position to evaluate their corporeal forms through a true, clear lens that is not clouded by the gaze of society.  But alternatively, they’re really boring.  “It’s so much fun out here!” cries the fashion mogul.  “Perhaps, but the fun is temporary, while the self is eternal,” the monk sagely replies.  Who is more correct?

When we identify and qualify our physical bodies, the origin of our perceptions may not be present in our thoughts.  Perhaps our self-assessment - of our looks, of our body type, of our feelings of attractiveness and ego - cannot be objective since it is unclear whether our reflection is internally consistent, or if it would appear different to us under less socially influenced circumstances.  I would suggest that the absence of this knowledge makes our personal role in determining our self-image a matter of where we choose to assign value on the identity-spectrum.  Just as a female is no more “correct” than a male, perhaps our understanding of physical identity is most valuable or most consistent when it places us at the point on the spectrum where we feel the highest sense of self-worth.


Word count:  999(!)*

*When I realized it was close, I totally did this on purpose.