I heard a lecture the other day from queer theology (Mary Lowe) about how our selves are constructed through social discourses. It comes from the works of Foucoult and Derrida, who I feel like I need to read now. These constructed selves do not really have a static center according to the French theorists, although that is where I have some trouble, because if there is nothing but a constructed self, how can one explain those who have been raised in the same social structures but who do not fit where others do? I feel like there has to be some core something that feels a tension when a constructed discourse truly does not fit, because if everything is constructed it seems that we should all be able to be constructed to fit into various discourses, but there are some people that just don't fit in ways that I can hardly see were constructed by anything except a core something. I do think this is a very valid analysis of social structures, however.
I wish I didn't have so much homework...I have too much else I want to read/think about, too. Alas.
You MUST read some Foucault and Derrida! It will eff with your mind, for sure, but in a good way!
ReplyDeleteBut you raise an interesting question/challenge. If everything is socially constructed-including the self-why is it that some selves do not fit with the discourse that supposedly shapes them in the social context? Hmmm...