This past week, one of our keywords was “image”, and while reading through my classmate’s blogs, I noticed Arlen commented on image as well. In his post, Arlen states that an image is “…an image. It’s what people, who don’t know you, see you as. Only when the person really gets to know you, the image of you they see is actually what you truly are”.
This statement relates to the notion of people who are self-conscious of their outward appearance and thus present a façade to the outside world; a façade that is concealing a person’s true self. The idea of self-perception has a long history dating back to Adam and Eve in the Bible, where Adam and Eve become aware and ashamed of their nakedness after eating the fruit from the forbidden tree, so this idea of self-image is nothing new.
Although this idea is not new, it seems to be more prevalent because of the media. In Arlen’s post, he writes “for example, when an individual (usually a famous one that is in the spotlight) talks about needing to clean up his/her image, he/she wants to change the way people see and think about him/her”, and I agree wholeheartedly. For instance, celebrities are always in the public eye, and therefore must present a proper self-image of themselves in fearful of being scrutinized, an example being Michael Jordan. Many kids including myself looked up to Michael Jordan as a role model, and he constructed a clean image of himself so that he can be a marketable athlete, but what people don’t know was that Jordan had an extramarital affair with another woman, and was a compulsive gambler.
Another example would be myself. Random people often come up to me and say “Wow, you’re big and tall” and probably assume that I am a tough, firm person. Unfortunately, that is my public perception, but in reality, inside of this shell is a caring person who likes to make people laugh.
1 comment:
I am a little concerned by the slippage between the terms "self-image," "self-conscious," and "self-perception"—these terms are importantly different, aren’t they? It seems to me that part of the trouble lies in this idea of a "true self," as if there is a 'core' to who we are that we can either hide or reveal. But isn't it the case that we are always mediating between our exterior selves and our interior selves? In fact, isn't this mediation *so* constant that these two places (the interior and exterior) are neither clear nor distinct? I would argue that humans are always developing different senses of self, and never simply being a 'true' or a 'false' self. We know this from your Jordan example, where his so-called 'false' self certainly allowed him to gain a lot of 'true' publicity. Do you see what I mean? I'm just cautious of these binary ideas of true and false selfhood—it seems to me that being human is always more complicated this these ideas imply. If you are interested in this subject you might want to read the essay on 'self' in our New Keywords text.
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