Tag: Self

  • Altruism vs Selfishness

    Alexis de Tocqueville, nearly 200 years ago, cited extreme individualism as the potential Achilles heel of America democracy. He was struck by a pervasive self-regard that was a cardinal feature of the national personality – a fixed reference mark for how people saw the world and acted in it. The most evident risk, to his […]

  • The Dark Side of Left-Brain Operations

    The Dark Side of Left-Brain Operations

     Orientation Left and right brain divisions and dependencies Why is the brain so clearly and deeply divided? Why are the two cerebral hemispheres asymmetrical? Is the division of labor in the brain complete or do the sides overlap in functions? A lot of what we once thought went on in one hemisphere alone is now […]

  • The Sanctum of Self-Identity

    The Sanctum of Self-Identity

    In early 6th century Athens (BCE), it was all the rage.  Introduced by Thespis, play-acting quickly attained widespread popularity among the Athenians who, like most people, were looking for diverting forms of entertainment to fill the evening hours. On one such evening the aged patriarch Solon, celebrated lawmaker and civic founder, was persuaded to attend […]

  • Against the Cult of the Child

    I recently witnessed the birth of one of my relative’s daughter. The entire event was bathed in a spiritual halo. The relative’s tormented screams – likened by a person to an animalistic agony – were supposedly neutralized by the prayer which she was loudly reciting. When the baby finally came out, everyone was thankful to […]

  • Collectivist, Individualist and Communist Selves Part II

    Collectivist, Individualist and Communist Selves Part II

    Summary of Part I In Part I of my article, we began by distinguishing the social self from two forms of identity that are often confused with it: temperament and personality. The focus of part one is to show how very social (or even socialist) was the work of social psychologist George Herbert Mead. We […]

  • Collectivist, Individualist and Communist Selves, Part I

    Collectivist, Individualist and Communist Selves, Part I

    Medieval alchemist working in his laboratory Orientation Preliminary social psychology questions and answers People’s identity can be made sense of as existing in the cross-fire between our biological, psychological and social lives. This helps us to understand the differences between someone’s temperament, personality and self. Among social psychologists such as George Herbert Mead, the species […]

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