Directionality in the Constructed Self: "Cultural Poetics" or Autonomous Creation--Katie Moore

Relying heavily on Greenblatt, as well as noted anthropologists like Geertz and Foucault, the first part of Martin’s article reviews the New Historicist argument that there is no intrinsic or “natural” self, only that which is created by the set of cultural constructs or “poetics” that one is subjected to throughout their lives (Martin 1997:1317).  This constructed individual is a reactionary creation to political, social, religious, and other authorities which serve to create a false sense of self to a person.  This is linked very closely in my mind to Kostlin’s ideas about the construction of “folk” culture in feudal Europe, with the obvious difference of scale (peasant group versus peasant individual) to consider; Lindholm touches on this as well.  Kostlin’s historistic framework for explaining the rise of folk culture is couched in the control and power, of land, of clothing, of morality, of politics.  The folk are defined through asserting who they are and who they are not; “farmers…attempted to set themselves apart from the other groups through ascribed and representational culture” (Kostlin 1997:112).  This was a culture codified and canonized in feudal life.  Similarly the individual cannot escape the “decisive” influence of the cultural ‘powers that be’ (Martin 1997:1319). 

Martin challenges these concepts with the ideas of prudence and sincerity in the construction of the Renaissance self, the development of inward-looking and the concept of the individual with multiple layers that can be masked from the public.  The self is indeed crafted by “cultural poetics” but these do not wholly define us, as there are internal processes beyond those that can help us define ourselves.  While I understand the power of cultural authority in shaping the individual, the deterministic ideology of the New Historicists as described by Martin did not sit well with my postprocessual sensibilities of agency and identity in anthropology.  The Processual movement which gained popularity in the 1960s was founded in the principles that anything could be solved by application of scientific principles; human behavior could be explained with science.  This included the search for general law-like principles that govern culture and behavior; in this search for overarching human truths, the individual was lost among the masses.  It seems that in the New Historicist school of thought, the individual is similarly swallowed in processes that operate beyond their reach.  Postprocessualism sought to reclaim the power individual through studies of human agency, motivation, and the mind.  As my “Culture Contact and Colonialism” professor pointed out in class this past week, “Cultures do not come into contact with each other, individuals carrying those cultures do.”  While authority and power do play a part in the construction of self, and no doubt, in the construction of the groups we identify with, this does not mean that the self is “soul”-ly dependent on these influences.

Perhaps I, like Greenblatt, “want to bear witness at the close to my overwhelming need to sustain the illusion that I am the principal maker of my own identity” (1316), but I agree with Lindholm that the individual has its own “essence” and “roots” separate from the social and political constructions surrounding us (2).  There would be no way to find our “authentic selves” in the word of Oprah and Dr. Phil, if we take the autonomy and free will of individuals out of the picture.