Cogito, ergo sum

After reading the Identity and Consciousness chapter, I have a different view on self-identity. First off, meeting people online is completely different than meeting people in person. When meeting people online there are many things that are missed, than if you were to meet in person. Online you won’t see a persons mannerisms or the way they dress. You also won’t know if they have an accent, how they talk, if they have a disorder, if they are confident or shy. All of these things really help us get to know and understand someone. Online we may say and do things that we would never say or do in a traditional class. Because we aren’t in a traditional classroom being judged and seeing the reactions from people, we feel more freedom to say and do things. We are able to be more opinionated and be more honest with people online. In a traditional classroom I am afraid to speak out because I don’t want to say the wrong thing or get laughed at, but online I feel I can say just about anything and because I have never met these people, and they would know me if I walked past them, I don’t care what their reactions are.

            Can you ever really know me if we haven’t met in person? According to this chapter, we don’t even know who we are. Therefore, it would be almost impossible for strangers to really know me. In an online blog, you are more likely to say what you really feel and be honest with others. Then again, you can be who ever you want online. If you want to pretend you are some forty-year-old dude, you can. Nobody will ever know the truth. With me, I think I am more honest online. In class I’m not very talkative and keep to myself, so nobody really gets to know me. I think it really depends on the person, whether or not you can really know them online rather than in person.

            I honestly don’t know if I agree with Gergen or not. According to Gergen, “We become pastiches, imitative assemblages of each other… selves become increasingly populated with the characters of others.”(Beedles, 54). What he is saying is that we are really imitators of those we have seen. We act a certain way, dress a certain way, and talk a certain way depending on whom we have seen. I partially agree with this. I think every person has their own identity that they have just for themselves that isn’t an imitation of someone else. I also think that people do imitate in certain situations. If you go into a business interview you will act, dress, and speak differently than you would with your friends. You know how you are supposed to act because you have been told, or seen, how to act. I don’t think that people walk around dressing a certain way, talking a certain way, acting a certain way in everyday life, being themselves, because they are imitating someone. You imitate in certain situations when necessary, not 24-7 because you feel like you have to. The society plays a role on how we act, but I don’t think we are all imitating people. I think we are who we want to be, and we act the way we want to because that is whom we truly are.