An unconscious act of kindness and the Social Self – Where does ‘You’ exist

My wife is the kindest person I know, and most of the time she has no idea. Recently we were in a supermarket in the north east of Bristol in the UK. As an area to live it’s not the worst, maybe not the best, it has its ups and downs. A pretty standard British working class, lower middle to middle class mix. If you’re not familiar with the British class system and that just sounded ridiculous, it is!

Wandering the local supermarket isles one Saturday afternoon I noticed a couple of checkout girls embarrassed and giggling at a tall, middle aged lady with long messy brown hair.  It is summer, and she was wearing a bright yellow patterned dress with smart heeled shoes. She was catching everyone’s eye against the beige shop interior.      

 As we shuffled our trolleys past each other, I realised with a mild jolt she was transvestite or transgender. A man dressed as a woman, or a woman in the body of a man working towards the body of a woman?  Now there are not that many transvestites and/or transgender people walking around northeast Bristol on a Saturday afternoon, and her body language seemed to acknowledge this fact. I was sure she could hear the girls sniggering and she appeared to be bravely ignoring them. I got the impression this was the first outing in the dress. It was a scene that seemed to belong to another time.  

A few seconds later my wife bowled round the corner and almost ran into her. After apologising profusely (British people say sorry for anything and everything in public contact situations, even if you stand on their foot) Kath looked down at her and in a flash of complete sincerity said “Oh that is a really beautiful dress, you look absolutely lovely”.  

Slightly taken aback the lady’s face relaxed. She smiled a broad smile and in a very deep voice said “Thank you very much…… I love it”.

The Social Self

The nature of the Self is one of the most debated issues in philosophy, and for good reason. It is a fundamental question from which many if not all major philosophical questions arise.  Before we ask anything of the world, shouldn’t we first fully understand who is doing the asking? 

In Douglas Adams book the ‘Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy’, DEEP THOUGHT the most complex computer ever created is tasked with the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. 7½ million years later the machine has computed and checked the answer, which turns out to be 42.   

The computer explains our confusion isn’t due to the answer per say, but that we didn’t understand the question in the first place. ‘Know thyself’ was the message inscribed over the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Advising us to take a look in the mirror before deciding to bother  the Oracle.

The concept of the ‘Social self’ suggests we are not defined internally, by some central repository of ‘mee’ ness broadcasting out to the world, but through the external world transmitting in. Our personal construct is not built from the bricks of separate internal identity, but woven from the thread of social relations.  

As we all have experienced, self -esteem can be profoundly upgraded or downgraded dependent on the people we find ourselves in front of, and our own susceptibility to and desire for external confirmation. Extrovert or introvert this woman in the supermarket was out and expressing who she was, however she receiving two very different messages.   

Together

We are born into collective, social and cultural interaction; with some recent evidence suggesting it can start even before birth.

Since the 19th century, western philosophers such as George Herbert Mead have gone as far as proposing that the sense of self is defined only by our existence in a social context. 

“Social interactions enables the subject to turn back on his/her self, to view themselves from the outside or as another would view them, and so develop self-consciousness. Hence, individualisation is the outcome, not the antithesis, of socialisation” George Herbert Mead 

The word ‘Idiot’ comes from the Greek word idiōtēs, and originally meant a “private citizen" or "individual".  It was considered that Self-centeredness, and a lack of social interaction and citizenship resulted in a flawed and diminished human being. 

“We are incomplete or unfinished animals who complete or finish ourselves through culture”
Clifford Geertz

 Where Does ‘You’ exist? 

So it begs the question, if our sense of self is reliant on an external world that is in continuous flux, how can there be an essential, permanent and continuous ‘You’. Because this is how it feels right? as if an ever-present human CPU is running and experiencing our lives.  

A body of philosophical ponderings and scientific evidence suggests this is actually an illusion. For centuries the Buddhist doctrine of ‘Non-self’ (anātman) has described the lack of a permanent, static soul. Neuroscience provides no evidence of a central controlling region in the brain. Consciousness seems to arise from various parts of the mind operating together, to create a sensation of unity that has no basis in fact.  

So where are we to be found? 

Is the ‘You’ ness simply the sum of your lifetime experiences? Are we that autobiographical consciousness only present in higher primates?  It’s a difficult one to get our heads around. Happily there are more intelligent people than me available to help. The concept was eloquently described at TED by philosopher Julian Baggini and in his recent book ‘The Ego Trick’. 

He provides the example of water, which is nothing more than hydrogen and oxygen. We don’t say there is a thing called water which we attach hydrogen and oxygen to. Why do we state there is a separate Self which experiences the world?    

In my mind this woman’s chance encounter with my wife went some way to repair any hurt from those Saturday gigglers. The woman’s Social self must have been strengthened and confidence provided. Maybe the dress was worn in the future with a little extra swagger. However maybe she just went home, had a cup of tea and thought no more about it.  

As we left I said to Kath “that was such a lovely thing you just did for her”.  

She replied “what do you mean, I didn’t do anything….I just liked her outfit”. 

Some believe there are no unconscious acts of kindness, even that the conscious non-random nature of a kind act is key to its value. However I’m not so sure.