Psychology: Our Many Selves

In our Digital Civilizations class last week we talked about psychology.  We discussed Freud and Jung and their theories and beliefs about the human mind.  When we were talking about this someone (I apologize that I don’t remember who it was) mentioned a quote from C.S. Lewis. 

I was very interested in the quote and decided to look it up.  Here it is,

“We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed.  And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected: I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself.  Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated.  On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.  But the suddenness does not create the rats:  it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man:  it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.  The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.”

This quote really got me thinking about who we are and times when who we really are shines through. 

In class we also talked about how the digital world gives us the opportunity to be the different “self’s” within ourselves.  Are we different on Facebook than we are in person?  Does our avatar on Second Life have a striking contrast to what we look like and how we behave in reality?  Dr. Burton talked about how this outlet for our “other selves” can be constructive or destructive.  He also talked about how sometimes it is good for us to not expose our “shadow self”—as Freud would say.  I think that the digital world has provided opportunities for those other aspects of who and what we are to come forward, but we still have the responsibility to wisely decide who we are and how we are going to represent ourselves.