A Jester in the King's Court

So, the idea of identity has been lost in the contemporary world. Or rather its changed. People no longer see themselves as something, but rather as something in relation to something else, or something manifested one way in some situation and in another in another situation. The self becomes less objective and more subjective as it were.

Some see this as a huge step forward. We are no longer bound by what we ought to be, or by what we seem to be, but we can define what we are. It’s a very Sartian view of the self. My essence, my identity is defined by how I see myself and what I will to be.

It seems that media has some contributing factor to this identity disassociation. The entire premise of the entertainment industry, at least as it was, is that people pretend to be what they aren’t so others can watch and relate/respond to what they present. The introduction of reality TV has changed this a bit given that now people do not need a character written before hand for them to act out, instead they manifest themselves in any manner they like on TV.

Further, news has been replaced by “infotainment” (which is a word according to spellchecker) in which facts aren’t presented, so much as spun. If Obama opens the door for his wife when going out to dinner, Fox News will say, “Obama is against women’s rights and thinks Michelle cannot open her own door” since they want to present Obama as the devil. On the other hand, MSNBC will say, “Obama is a chief humanitarian, full of grace and kindness” since they are in Obama’s back pocket. And clearly CNN will tell us what people are tweeting about Heidi and Spencer Pratt.

The world has moved in such a way that facts are not presented as facts, but rather as ammunition for supporting any understanding of the world one wishes to have. The postmodern/poststructuralist would be fast to say that everything has always been interpretation. Derrida’s claim is that we interpret the world around us and interpretation is merely all that we have. With this idea in play, one that I am not yet discrediting, it makes sense that “fact” becomes a dubious term, and identity becomes a less than concrete idea.

This leaves us with the question that Os Guinness has asked in many Vertias Forums, “How does one live in a world of hype, spin and lies?” I think that question is a good one for sorting out truth in the post-postmodern milieu, and is a trajectory for establishing one’s work with identity.

To be continued…