Chapter 4, “Subjectivity”, really affected me in a way I wasn’t necessarily expecting. I had just been reading about what divides the idea of a “writer” and an “author”, with respect to the construct of the literary canon. Really, this sudden self-deprecating chapter on uniqueness came as an utter surprise. I hadn’t previously considered these ideas of a socially-determined mindset, explained on page 40: “Our subjectivity is socially constructed, not mystically or naturally found“. In essence, no one is actually unique and totally unlike any other. “Such an absolutely ‘free’ interpreter–such a wholly unconstrained self–simply doesn’t exist” (p. 41). Much to my chagrin, I realized that we are all a product of society in a whole, and are affected by every aspect of it, even that which we don’t wish to associate with. Thus, the idea of a unique individual is immediately thwarted. “Unique” is but a label, such as Democrat or Republican or any other associative category. We often find that we are striving for a mere label, embodied by different sects, depending on the current generation. This was seen in the Hippie movement of the 60’s and 70’s and, especially, the Hipster movement of today. Surely, Hipsters feel a sense of heightened individuality while wearing their glasses with 20/20 vision, listening to “wildly obscure” music and when sucking down a pack of American Spirits. But even these actions are categorical and are not, in any sense, unique. So, too, goes for any other person soul-searching or merely living their daily lives. We “subject [our]selves to cultural categories of self-hood and uniqueness” (p. 39). I, as an English major and aspiring writer, always hoped that I had some totally unique information to spread to the world–wholly mine and untouched by society and its restraints. However, after reading this chapter, I understand that this is unattainable. We all stem from one another. Though this can be seen as a promising connection between denizens of the universe (this really depends on your ultimate goal), I find this to be rather unsettling in a way upon which I had never previously ruminated. However, this is an uncovering of the truth and a bit of a knocking-down from my English major pedestal.
2 Responses to A Sudden Doubting of My Own Uniqueness
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“I, as an English major and aspiring writer, always hoped that I had some totally unique information to spread to the world–wholly mine and untouched by society and its restraints. However, after reading this chapter, I understand that this is unattainable. We all stem from one another.”
You can! It’s about how you frame and interpret what you have to say. Everyone puts a lens on the world–and every lens is different–no one sees the same thing in the exact same way. Similarly, no one writes about the same thing in the same way. Don’t doubt your own creativity; what you have to say is unique and important even if we are all the sum of our parts.
I second what Ainsley says, and what we also discussed in class. I think the idea that “we all stem from one another” can be rather calming and beautiful. When we make fun of hipsters and hippies, it’s not just that we are cynically stripping others of their effortful uniqueness; we are also calling them back to the fold, back to the community where we all work together to define one another as we define our world. We are intensely social beings, and our attempts to look or act a certain way aren’t so much attempts at uniqueness as they are attempts to fit into a recognizable pattern of behavior that we value for a time before we decide to value something else.
Another word on words: as a writer, your situation is very much like your situation as a human being. Writers function with certain pre-ordained constraints. There are only so many letters in the alphabet, and one must follow accepted rules of syntax in order to be understood, much less widely read. And then there are accepted genre norms: what poems or stories can do. And yet, with 26 letters and just over a million words (last time I checked), there are infinite possible combinations with which to navigate these constraints. Just as you can write a sentence no one has ever written and tell a story no one has even dreamed, you can be a person wholly unique, wholly yourself. The fact that you are also comprised of the world around you should be comforting rather than depressing.
Broader post advice: use paragraphs (readers like navigating smaller chunks of info rather than a big sea of information). Use links when relevant. I’d have loved to see a picture of a hipster somewhere in there, or a meme, or something. And wen you write, write for an audience that might not have read our text. This will change the voice a bit and also how you introduce things.