ABSTRACT
My objectives in this chapter are to sketch a view of the self as a social structure, show that the self is problematic, that is, that its development and continuity cannot be taken for granted, identify conditions for stability and change in the self, and discuss the self as a creator, agent, and product of society, culture, and sociocultural change. Inevitably in writing about the self I have found myself walking the tightrope between humans as agents and humans as programmed machines. This means that there are numerous tensions and contradictions afloat in this chapter. The resolution is to read and perhaps now re-read it with the ideas of Durkheim, Marx, and Gumplowicz in the forefront of your interpretive mechanics. We are not and cannot be free willing agents; but we can be free as opposed to enslaved. The self and the self-actualization behavioral imperative, like all forms of life, can be hi-jacked by commodification, marketing, and branding, especially where profiteers are driven by the forces of capitalism’s ideology. We find this kind of hi-jacking taking place, for example, in the marketing of “self-actualization” as a product by awareness-training organizations that are subsidiaries of consumer product companies. Caveat emptor, self-actualizer.
