What it means to be a person

MadArchitect · Sun Nov 11, 2007 1:41 pm

In the prologue to the book, Arendt traces the English word person back to its Latin roots in person, and I think her discussion points usefully towards the ideas that still "sound through" our use of the term:


	Hannah Arendt wrote: Persona, at any event, originally referred to the actor's mask that covered his individual "personal" face and indicated to the spectator the role and the part of the actor in the play. But in this mask, which was designed and determined by the play, there existed a broad opening at the place of the mouth through which the individual, undisguised voice of the actor could sound. It is from this sounding through that the word persona was derived: per-sonare, "to sound through," is the verb of which persona, the mask, is the noun.

I'll leave it to everyone else to follow that etymological premise down the various paths it opens up. I bring it mostly to note that it helps put to rest a thought that concerned me a great deal when I was a teenager, and that still rears its ugly head from time to time: namely that we all wear "masks" in our daily interaction, and that we are all, in that sense, false. But the notion that the masks are determined to play a socially symbolic role, though still allowing "the individual, undisguised voice" to sound through, ought to mean that our use of masks in public life can be, in some ways, more honest than whatever we would mean if we talked about walking around with our faces naked, this being, of course, an extended metaphor. The mask of a public persona can make it unambiguous what role it is we intend to play at a given moment.

The danger, it seems to me, lies in so relying on one particular public persona that it becomes virtually inseperable from the private person, at which point everything you say or do becomes associated with a role you can't reasonably be expected to play at every moment.

Why · Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:42 pm

Following this line of mask-wearing through Arendt's own theory, she says "actions cannot be justified for their own sake, but only in light of their public recognition and the shared rules of a political community." But, in contradiction to the idea that we are wearing masks, she says "It is through action as speech that individuals come to disclose their distinctive identity"

So which is it? How can you be distinctly individual if you are speaking or acting for the sake of public recognition?

What may clarify the use of the mask is her theory of labor being that which satisfies necessity, and work being that which satisfies our society. Her opinion that the rise of the latter threatens extinction of the former would perpetuate the need for the individual to have a less distinct or individual/unique persona, but to have many selves which correspond to many different societal expectations or requirements or ambitions.

But I could be completely out in left field.

What I do find compelling is that the more we "work" the less we are free and the more we are, perhaps, false. The freedom, or more precisely the illusion of freedom which has become acceptable in our society, that we believe we are "working" towards every day, is the very thing that is diminishing our freedom.

But again....I could be wrong....and this could have nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion as you had in mind. But, my point would be that individuality and true self is dependent upon freedom.

MadArchitect · Thu Nov 15, 2007 8:29 pm


	Why wrote: Following this line of mask-wearing through Arendt's own theory, she says "actions cannot be justified for their own sake, but only in light of their public recognition and the shared rules of a political community." But, in contradiction to the idea that we are wearing masks, she says "It is through action as speech that individuals come to disclose their distinctive identity"

Why, where does that first quote come from? I'd like to take a look at the context.


	Quote: What may clarify the use of the mask is her theory of labor being that which satisfies necessity, and work being that which satisfies our society.

Is that from a later essay? A lot of this is coming out of left field for me, and I'm not sure I can place it into any sort of logical scheme (if that's possible) until I know the context those statements were made in.

That, unfortunately, is one of the limitations of a discussion like this. For better or worse, the only text we can count on having as a shared basis for discussion is the one that we're reading at the time.


	Quote: ... and this could have nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion as you had in mind.

That's fine. If we can make it fit the topic of this thread, we'll do so. If we can't, we can always spin it off into a new thread.


	Quote: But, my point would be that individuality and true self is dependent upon freedom.

That depends, I'd say, on what you mean by freedom. Individuality and selfhood depend, to a certain degree, on the context of the self. Work is a kind of context, and how we do it, or how we react to it, is an aspect of selfhood. What's difficult to imagine is how we would know the character of a truly free individual -- with nothing against which to react and nothing with which to interact, there'd be no reason for an individual to act at all.

Dissident Heart · Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:36 pm

All the world's indeed a stage... .. . Arendt leaves out the role of the script in determining the lines and dialogue on the stage: determining who says what and when. Unless the entire process is impromptu and improvisational, someone has already transcribed the action, plot, and knows how it all will end. Actually, unlike real life, all the performers know the ending of the play (as well as everyone else's lines): and if it is something the audience is familiar with, they will know it too. The mask displayed the pathos of the character and prompted an emotional response from the audience: pay attention to my performance and learn something about your own, all of our, tragic fate. Its affect inspires an emotional reaction in those attuned to its pathos.

Thus the sounding through of an individual, undisquised voice is not entirely accurate: it forgets that the words spoken are the result of the imagination of the playwrite...as are each performers places on stage, their entrances and exits, and when the final curtain is drawn.

Still, I think Arendt is on to something if we focus on improvisation and impromptu performance; or if we understand the play as the creation of the entire acting troop: with each member bringing something to an organically developing and participatory process of building a script in action. This requires a certain kind of flexibility and trust in the troop, and the audience. No one really knows how it will unfold or end: what holds it together is the appropriate interaction of pathos between characters...a believable sequence of emotional exchanges that tell a captivating story.

I think this relates to something she asserts in Responsibility and Dictatorship (and Mad points to as well): good judgment is not the result of clearly determined rules and moral systems...but is instead a certain kind of personal act that arises from an internal response to what it means to live with oneself. The desire to be a certain kind of person who does the right thing, coupled with a self-loathing that results from doing the wrong thing: this desire, this wanting, this emotional attachment to a way of acting in the world...seems similar to the cultivation of virtues. A virtue being the emotional drive that spurs one to do the right thing: it is cultivated and tested and prompted into becoming a full-fledged component of one's character. So much so, that one no longer requires a list of rules or duties: one simply responds to a given situation according to the demands of virtue.

Just like the actors in our anarchic troop without a script: they have practiced the art of performance so often, embraced its discipline as a way of life, that they can spontaneously and freely produce lines and action in proper accord of the pathos between characters.

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