In his book on identity, the French
philosopher Vincent Descombes tells a fable made by Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) for
teaching one of his pupils (1). Usually I look up the original source of such a
text, but since it’s not important here, I’m too lazy to do this and I follow
Descombes’s interpretation (more or less). Here is the story:
A shipwrecked person is washed ashore on an
unknown island. By chance, not so long before the king of the island had
disappeared and the islanders couldn’t trace him, despite their efforts.
However, since the shipwrecked person resembles the disappeared king, the
islanders think that he is the lost ruler and they reinstall him on the throne.
The person doesn’t protest and accepts being the king. From now on he has
double thoughts, so Pascal. On the one hand he has the thoughts as the king he
now is, but behind these thought he hides the thoughts of the person he really
is. We can also say that from now on the shipwrecked person leads a double
life: In public as the king and in his heart as the man he really is. In fact,
so Descombes explains, we have here an identity problem: Because the “king”
doesn’t want to reveal his real identity, he must continuously be on the alert,
just as impostors must be.
Pascal used this fable to teach his pupil,
the son of a duke, that in future he’ll come across the same problem. Of
course, the future duke is not an impostor, but once when he has become duke,
people will bow for him, will praise him, will be friends with him, simply
because he is the duke and not because of the person he “really” is and because
of what he thinks of it himself. For the duke then the problem is how to handle
this double identity. He can behave like two very different persons: in public
as the duke and in private as himself. Then he must fully separate the two
persons functionally as much as he can. Or he can try to integrate both persons
and to put as much of himself in his function as the duke, in addition to what
the function formally requires. Rules are always open to a strict
interpretation or a lenient interpretation and not everything is prescribed. In
other words, the boy who has become the duke must continuously ask himself: Who
am I? On the one hand, I am the duke, a function that I inherited from my
father; a function with rules I didn’t make myself; a function I got without
desiring it but imposed on me by others. On the other hand, I am myself, with
all my personal preferences, desires, likes and dislikes, characteristics, and
so on. To what extent must I, can I and do I want to keep these functions
apart?
Actually, the problem that Pascal puts
forward here is one of the basic problems of life: How to be authentic and when
to be authentic? How and when to be yourself? In fact, Pascal wasn’t original
when he raised the problem, for implicitly we find it already in Shakespeare’s
words “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. In
his fable Pascal dealt with a function that we are thrown in by others; a function
we cannot help to be charged with. But functions – or roles, to go on with
Shakespeare’s metaphor of the world as a stage – can also be chosen by
ourselves. They can be taken up voluntarily. But even when the choice of the
role (function) is voluntarily, the rules of the role usually aren’t. It’s an exception
that the main lines of a role are made by ourselves. Usually they are already prescribed.
So in any role we play, in any function we occupy the basic question always is:
Will I be authentic in this function or will I not; and to what extent? Will I
play a role or will I play myself?
In the Internet you can find many websites
on how to be authentic and how to be yourself. I arbitrarily mention two
websites (both by chance from Psychology
Today): “Develop Authenticity: 20
Ways To Be A More Authentic Person” (2) and “4 Ways To Be A More Authentic
Person” (3). It seems simple: Follow the rules there and you’ll become more
authentic in what you do (if you wish). However, I can assure you that being
authentic, being yourself is not as easy as that. Being yourself is very
difficult and often it is impossible, even if you are and want to be honest. The
reason for this is simple: Being yourself is not only dependent on you but also
on the people around you; the people you go along with or those you meet in
your role. Often authenticity is not valued by them.
Sources
(1) Vincent
Descombes, Les embarras de l’identité.
Paris: Gallimard, 2013 ; esp. pp. 147-156.
(3) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/201503/4-ways-be-more-authentic-person
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