-James Baldwin 1
I frequently have difficulty
sorting out how to think about a number of issues in my life.
The problem is not so much that I do not know what I think and
feel. Instead, it is that I think and feel many different
and conflicting things and I do not have the capacity to simply
sort them out. 2
Sometimes, I let the different voices engage each other in a dialogue
and find an intrasubjective solution. Other times I allow
the discordance to exist. Often, I engaged my friend Trina
Grillo in the discussion. Trina was, and is, not just a
good friend; she is a part of the multiple aspects that constitute
me. In the sorting process, Trina did more than help me
identify existing voices. She often helped me create new
voices that somehow made deep claims upon me, upon us. She
helped create the spaces where the silence laced between and within
the voices could be heard.
The dominant narrative
of Western society would find what I have just written problematic,
and perhaps unintelligible. This narrative, purporting to
be a meta-narrative, denies that we are or can be multiple and
fractured and still remain "normal." 3
It makes many claims upon us regarding the nature of the
individual. In fact, its individualistic focus is one of
the deeply rooted ideologies of Western society. It is an
"ideology" in the sense that Iris Young defines ideology:
a set of ideals that "helps to reproduce relations of domination
or oppression by justifying them or by obscuring possible more
emancipatory social relations." 4
In this Essay I attempt
to highlight some of the ways that the ideals of individualism,
the individual, and the self are used to destructively frame the
ways we talk about the self and race. As a necessary premise
of this task, I begin by examining the Western vision of the self,
the individualistic norm that pervades our society. By questioning
this largely unexamined norm, I invite the reader to look at what
has been traditionally excluded. 5
Increasingly in
the twentieth century, the modernist notion of the self as unitary,
stable, and transparent has come under criticism. Although
rumblings of dissension have been building for more than 200 years,
the advent of postmodernism in general, and the insightful criticism
of feminist thinkers in particular, have sounded the death knell
for this concept of the self. 6
By positing a contrasting antiessentialist, intersectional
self, Trina Grillo and her contemporaries (such as Angela Harris,
Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Patricia Williams) have made great
strides in pushing the dialogue on identity and the subject beyond
those traditional concepts (including early feminist renditions)
that have functioned to marginalize and subjugate oppressed groups.
This rejection of the unitary modernist self has in turn led to
vast and fundamental criticisms of our legal system, which is
predicated on the individual, autonomous self. These criticisms
assert that, by grounding legal doctrines on a conception of the
self or subject that at best only describes the White male, our
legal system has consistently functioned to create and perpetuate
the privilege of White males. 7
At the base of the
criticisms of Grillo and other feminists is the reformulation
of the self as a site constituted and fragmented, at least partially,
by the intersections of various categories of domination/oppression
such as race, gender, and sexual orientation. 8
Thus, far from being a unitary and static phenomenon untainted
by experience, one's core identity is made up of the various discourses
and structures that shape society and one's experience within
it. Many feminists and postmodernists have taken this argument
one step further and asserted that the self is by its very nature
fragmented: an illusory notion constructed as static and unitary,
but in reality completely fluid. 9
Building upon theories
of feminism and postmodernism, this Essay will attempt to advance
the dialogue of the self by addressing some problems that have
proceeded from the deconstruction and decentering of the Western
self. The tensions between modernism and postmodernism are
often framed in terms of essentialism and antiessentialism.
Feminism in general, and the intersectional thesis in particular,
have been ambivalent on this essentialist/antiessentialist issue.
I examine some of the issues concerning this debate and try to
expose some of the limitations of each position. I also
try to demonstrate how the positions often rely on a shared historical
and conceptual tradition that does not exhaust useful ways of
examining this issue and the self. Drawing on a reconceptualization
of the intersectional thesis, I try to show that resolving the
essentialist/antiessentialist debate is not a mandatory precondition
for accepting intersectionalism's claim of a decentered nonunitary
self. Finally, I try to suggest some of the legal implications
of an intersectional nonunitary self.
The essential, unitary,
and static self has come under serious attack. This critique
leaves the self decentered, fractured and possibly multiple.
This attack does not, however, mandate that there is no essential
self. 10 Such
a conclusion falls prey to a kind of reasoning that Richard Bernstein
has referred to as the "grand and seductive Either/Or."
11 Although antiessentialists
may ultimately be right, I think that it is incorrect to assert
that either the self possesses the Western liberal essence or
it possesses no essence whatsoever; multiplicity and essentialism
are not mutually exclusive. 12
There are a number
of presentations that share with postmodernists and feminists
the assertion that the self is constructed and fractured, but
do not share the claim that all is constructed, leaving nothing
essential or unconditional. Although these presentations
are numerous, this Essay will focus upon two in particular: the
psychoanalytic self, and the Buddhist theory of the self and the
uncondition. 13
My goal is not to advocate any particular notion of identity.
Rather, I intend to show that there is a general consensus among
those who think critically about the self that the modernist self-that
is, the Western, unitary, autonomous self-is simply wrong.
Furthermore, while there is an intense debate about the nature
of the self that should replace the early commentaries, resolving
this debate is not critical in addressing some implications of
how we construct and use the law. I want to emphasize the
need for caution in how we operate within the discursive void
left by the demise of the modern self.
From a jurisprudential
standpoint, the implications of rejecting the unitary self are
immense and pervasive. While it is impossible to know the
myriad ways in which this rejection will impact the law, it is
certain that the implications will go to the law's very foundations.
In this Essay I briefly sketch out some of the legal ramifications
of the multiple self, particularly in relation to how the law
approaches racism. Part I provides an overview of the origins
and conception of the Western self. Part II focuses upon
various challenges to the modern self, including the intersectional
self that has been advanced by Grillo, Harris, Williams, and Crenshaw.
Part III presents the Freudian and Buddhist conceptions of the
self and no self. These concepts of the self share the postmodern
position that the self is not unitary, while adopting different
positions on the strong antiessentialism of postmodernism.
I will show how they attempt to avoid some of the flaws of modernism
regarding the self. Finally, Part IV addresses some of the
legal implications of the move toward a multiple self.
Before the Renaissance,
Western society defined the self by its location within both a
"secular and divine order." 14
The center of pre-modern epistemology was "the great
chain of being," in which all members of society had a proper
place. 15 With
the rise of Renaissance humanism and the Enlightenment, however,
the individual began to be conceived as sovereign and epistemologically
central. 16 This
reconfiguration of the self, spurred by historical events such
as the Protestant Reformation and the scientific revolution, 17 ultimately led to the systematic
examination of the modern self. Although many participated,
four of the more influential theorists were Immanuel Kant, Rene
Descartes, John Locke, and more recently, John Rawls.
Kant asserted that
the definitive characteristic of the human self was its capacity
for reason. Reason allowed the self to understand and order
the world with certainty. According to Kant, "[R]eason
is the faculty which supplies the principles of a priori knowledge,"
18 and "pure a
priori principles are indispensable for the possibility of experience,
. . . [f]or whence could experience derive its certainty, if all
the rules, according to which it proceeds, were always themselves
empirical, and therefore contingent?" 19
Defining humans by their capacity for a priori reasoning reveals
that the essence of the Kantian self is individual and imperviousness
to experience (i.e., static). Kant deduced further that
this self he envisioned was unitary:
Proceeding from the notion of a unitary self or self-consciousness
21 governed by a capacity
for reason that is unaffected by the particularities of experience,
Kant felt that "pure reason" both enabled and compelled
humans to construct a "transcendental philosophy" that
articulated the structure and order of the experiential world.
22
A predecessor of Kant,
Descartes viewed the self in much the same fashion as Kant.
He too felt that the capacity for reason was the definitive characteristic
of the human self: "[A]s to reason or sense, . . . it is
that alone which constitutes us men." 23
Furthermore, Descartes saw this essential characteristic
of man as "by nature equal in all men." 24
Thus, all differences among humans were trivial, because
"the difference of greater and less holds only among the
accidents, and not among the forms or natures of individuals of
the same species."25
Like Kant, Descartes believed that reason contained the capacity
for knowing and ordering the world. He constructed his epistemology
upon the foundation of his awareness of his own existence via
the maxim, "Cogito ergo sum."26
Locke shared with Kant
and Descartes the belief that humans were essentially individualistic
and defined by their capacity for reason.27
Moreover, Locke posited that society ought to be ordered along
the lines of a social contract. All men, by virtue of their
reason, would assent to this contract insofar as it governed social
relations in a manner that enabled men to most freely pursue their
individual ends.28
John Rawls, a late
modern theorist, provides an explicit example of this social contract
theory in practice.29
Proceeding from the modern conception of the self as essentially
autonomous and a priori, Rawls endeavored to articulate a process
for ordering a just society.30
The key to this process was the notion of the "original position,"
a position where individuals could consider principles of justice
in their bare essence, without the benefit or detriment of bias
acquired through awareness of social constructions.31
From this hypothetical position, Rawls believed that one could
ascertain those principles that are most fair for ordering society
because the principles would be created without regard to any
"arbitrary contingencies."32
Rawls referred to this exercise as a collective one. Nevertheless,
Michael Sandel notes that if one accepts the premise that humans
are essentially autonomous and rational as unaffected by experience,
then the proper ordering of society is really univocal and solitary.33 Thus, in Rawls we see
the basis for the modern jurisprudential ideal that the law proceeds
from fundamental truths about the essence of humans, and need
not-in fact, ought not-take account of the particularities of
various individuals.34
It is this view of the self that places individual rights ahead
of societal good in deontological liberalism.35
Although the modern
conception of the self aspires to a universality independent of
experience, it is at least in part a response to an earlier socio-historical
conception of the self.36
Moreover, even as these universal claims regarding the self were
defining the modern era, they were subject to critique.
For example, David Hume argued that the self was nonexistent,
an imaginary referent that we construct in an attempt to order
the incessant stream of sensations we experience:
The development
of the ideology of individualism has very negative consequences.
As the modern essentialist conception of individuals informed
governmental and jurisprudential theory, there was a concurrent
need to construct an ideology to justify certain practices, such
as slavery and colonialism, which clearly violated norms emanating
from an equal and essential self. Yet the very manner in
which modernists defined the self justified those practices.
By construing the essence of the human self as individual and
autonomous, European thinkers deliberately excluded from selfhood
members of non-White societies that were organized around non-individualistic
norms.41 Similarly,
the adherence of modernists to Christian beliefs42
also justified the conquest and subjugation of non-Christian (i.e.,
non-White) "infidels."43
Other complementary ideologies have been employed as needed to
provide scientific (e.g., eugenics44
and polygenics45) and,
more recently, cultural (e.g., the "culture of poverty"46) explanations for the inequalities
of Western society.
Given the exclusively
defined "essence" of identity, it is not surprising
that criticisms of the Western self have arisen mainly from the
groups that Western society has marginalized. Writing at
the beginning of the twentieth century, W.E.B. DuBois articulated
his anguish as an African American trying to attain a sense of
self-unity in a society that defined him in ways that contradicted
his own sense of identity:
DuBois's reflections suggest the postmodern, intersectional
self, the self of "others" fragmented by society's dominant
discourse.48 Importantly,
DuBois demonstrates that those people whom society has marginalized
and dehumanized do not experience the unitary self as an essence,
but as an aspiration; a "longing" for coherence and
self-satisfaction.49
Zora Neale Hurston's
reflections on her sense of self also question the idea of a unitary
and static self. Hurston recounts how her experience of
possessing a racialized identity was not an essential one, but
rather was largely a product of her placement within a societal
framework:
This reflection demonstrates that Hurston did not experience
her self as unitary-she was both "Zora" and a nameless
"little colored girl."51
Nor was Hurston's sense of self static. Experience created
her identity, which changed as her context changed. Concerning
her sense of a racial identity, Hurston wrote, "I feel most
colored when I am thrown up against a sharp white background."52
In this White context
we can envision both DuBois and Hurston grappling with the reconciliation
of their own senses of self with the foreign subhuman notion of
self thrust upon them. Frantz Fanon, writing about colonizer
and colonized, articulates this conundrum of identity that the
modern self creates for marginalized groups: "Because it
is a systematic negation of the other person and a furious determination
to deny the other person all attributes of humanity, colonialism
forces the people it dominates to ask themselves the question
constantly: 'In reality, who am I?' "53
Hurston's metaphor
of the white background also illustrates how it is that White
males may not have a similar experience of fragmented identities.
Against a white background-within a theoretical framework that
defines them as coherent and human-individual whites are free
to choose the manner in which they distinguish themselves.
Confident that those aspects they find most central to their identity
are legitimate, White males are free to cultivate their "arbitrary
contingencies" with little fear of loss of humanity.54 There is no dissonance
between Whites' personal experiences of humanity and societal
definitions of humanity. Thus, the smooth fit between societal
norms of Whiteness and the constructed identity of Whites creates
an illusion of coherence and racial invisibility or neutrality-of
"normality."55
By attaining this sense of racial neutrality, White males are
thus able to adhere to notions of the essentialized modern self
without problematizing their own sense of identity.
The false unity and
transparency of Whiteness and maleness leave those who are not
White males futilely seeking the sense of unity they perceive
in a White male self that is in reality neither unitary nor transparent.
For example, like Dubois, Fanon expresses the view that it is
the experience of racial subjugation that fractures the self of
the colonized: "I am being dissected under white eyes [that]
objectively cut away slices of my reality."56
Thus the pull to be an individual, especially by Blacks and other
"others," is an effort to claim one's humanity by not
being marked by race, gender, etc. It is an effort to become,
or pass for, the White male. In a subtle way this error
of normalizing the unstated marker of the dominant discourse shadows
some of the language of intersectionality.
Contemporary feminist
theorists have made a significant contribution to the rejection
of the modern unitary self by asserting that if such a separate
and autonomous self exists, it is certainly not the female self.57 Instead, they propose
an alternative description of the female self. Early attempts,
by White feminists in particular, at creating a separate theory
of the self, however, fell prey to the same essentialist problems
inherent in the modern self.58
As the critical race theorists noted, description of the male
and the female could more accurately be described as White male
and female. By accepting the prevailing concept of the unitary,
autonomous self as applied to White males, and supplementing it
with an essentialist female foil, early White feminists replicated
the exclusionary tendencies of the modern self.59
These White feminists were aware of the problem but misunderstood
its nature. They assumed that to really deal with sexism
one should look at the experiences of White women "unmodified"
by race.60 They
failed to see that White is as much of a racial modifier as Black.
Thus, they assumed that Black women's experiences and ontological
space could be captured by adding the "race" and "gender"
categories together. As Angela Harris notes, this new framework
"re-duce[d] the lives of people who experience multiple forms
of oppression to addition problems: 'racism + sexism = straight
black woman's experience,' or 'racism + sexism + homophobia =
black lesbian experience.' "61
Some White feminist
theorists thought that the essential female perspective was best
articulated by White women whose experiences as women were somehow
equivalent to the Black female experience distilled of race.
To extend the mathematical metaphor, in White women, these early
feminists felt that they could "isolate" the variable
of sexism from the variable of racism, and so better understand
it. Similarly, the paradigmatic racial experience became
that of the minority male, whose experiences of racism were isolated
from sexism.62
Using this theoretical framework it was possible to construct
the experience of minority women without even considering them.
Hence, this conceptualization of the female self functioned to
exclude, rather than include, all but the "typical"
White female.63
In reaction to this
flawed analysis, several minority feminist thinkers proposed the
theory of the intersectional self. The basic tenet of intersectionality
is that "women of color stand at the intersection of the
categories of race and gender, and that their experiences are
not simply that of racial oppression plus gender oppression."64 These systems of oppression
combine in symbiotic ways to create unique experiences.
Furthermore, because all categories exist in relation to other
categories (i.e., "Black" exists in relation to "White"),
the intersectional self is descriptive of all individuals, not
only those victimized by multiple systems of oppression.65 Thus, intersectionality
subverts the notion of the modern self. Instead, it states
that "we are not born with a 'self,' but rather are composed
of a welter of partial, sometimes contradictory, or even antithetical
'selves.' "66
The significance of each of these fragmented "selves"
for one's sense of identity shifts as a result of both external
and internal stimulus and experience.67
Thus the importance of race for Zora Neale Hurston's own sense
of identity depended on her environment.68
Many postmodern
and late modern theories of the self echo the assertions of the
intersectionality critique, and assert that the self is fractured
and multiple. For example, Katherine Ewing describes how
some anthropologists have undergone a similar shift away from
an essentialist or unitary self. She writes that anthropologists
have typically viewed the self through a unitary Eurocentric lens
as "a symbol or cluster of symbols that they identify in
their writing as a culture's characteristic concept of self or
person which they contrast with the Western concept of self."69 In contrast, Ewing notes,
several "[r]ecent studies by anthropologists of the 'self'
are grounded in a relativist paradigm which, if not altogether
denying the existence of universals in human experience, is intended
to demonstrate that there is much less that is universal than
we might have supposed."70
Ewing posits that "in
all cultures people can be observed to project multiple, inconsistent
self-representations that are context-dependent and may shift
rapidly."71
According to Ewing, it is these individual self-representations
that create the illusory sense of wholeness that people perceive.
She states that "[p]eople construct a series of self-representations
that are based on selected cultural concepts of persons and selected
'chains' of personal memories. Each self-concept is experienced
as whole and continuous, with its own history and memories that
emerge in a specific context."72
Furthermore, challenges to the individual's sense of wholeness
are a challenge to our "integrative capacities,"73 testing our ability to preserve
the illusion of wholeness through synthesis and integration.74 Applying this framework
to the experiences of marginalized groups, the fragmentation felt
by "others" arguably results from the difficult task
of integrating the dominant discourse to individual experience.
Other postmodernists
have also expressed similar views on the self. For instance,
consistent with intersectionality's assertion "that 'identity
itself' has little substance,"75
Donna Haraway "skips the step of original unity"76 and states that "there
is nothing about being 'female' that naturally binds women."77 Gender is constructed
and is thus an "artificial" determinant of identity.
Postmodernists also tend to agree with the notion of the self
as relational and fluid-dependent upon the context in which it
exists. Susan Stanford Friedman offers an analysis of the
self akin to the intersectional critique. She calls it the
"script of relational positionality"78
and defines it as: "[a] feminist analysis of identity as
it is constituted at the crossroads of different systems of stratification
. . . acknowledging how privilege and oppression are often not
absolute categories but, rather, shift in relation to different
axes of power and powerlessness."79
Given the shifting crossroads each individual experiences, Friedman
maintains that the self is constructed by a "multiplicity
of fluid identities defined and acting situationally."80
One insight of postmodernism
that has very valuable implications for how we confront oppression
is the notion of the self defined in relation to its context and
its relation to other selves. Postmodernists advance a "new
concept of identity, one which is never fixed or determined, but
is forever shifting because it is generated by the individual's
perception of the difference between himself or herself and others
within a particular system."81
Given this fluidity and relationality, one's own sense of identity
is inextricably entwined with, and dependent upon, the identity
of "others." This recognition has led to a new
way of understanding racial identity: the multi-racial self.82
The power of this modern
discourse has had fundamental ramifications for the construction
of selves. Crenshaw describes how "racist ideology"
arranges "oppositional categories in a hierarchical order;
historically, whites represent[] the dominant antimony while Blacks
came to be seen as separate and subordinate. . . . [E]ach
traditional negative image of Blacks correlates with a counter-image
of whites."83
Harris notes that for "othered" groups the "experience
of multiplicity is also a sense of self-contradiction, of containing
the oppressor within oneself."84
James Baldwin takes this insight a step further and asserts that
the experience of the White male is similarly contradictory, if
not similarly problematic: the White male self contains the oppressed
within it.85 Ruth
Frankenberg similarly states that "White/European self-constitution
is . . . fundamentally tied to the process of the discursive production
of others, rather than preexisting that process."86
In addition to its
effects upon self-perception, the multi-racial self also has vast
implications for how we understand racism and how the law should
analyze and address it.87
Toni Morrison, in Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination,88 explores
the ways in which the construction and invocation of the "Africanist"
identity in White American literature has been central to the
development of an American ethos. Morrison chronicles how
the creation of the "New World" depended on Americans
overcoming the ills of the "Old World." She observes
that "[t]he desire for freedom is preceded by oppression;
a yearning for God's law is born of the detestation of human license
and corruption; the glamour of riches is in thrall to poverty,
hunger, and debt."89
Morrison contends that European Americans constructed the racialized
and polarized identity of Blacks as concrete proof of their transcending
this oppression, corruption, and destitution, for "[n]othing
highlighted freedom-if it did not in fact create it-like slavery."90 For White American writers,
this oppositional identity became a convenient and vital literary
device: "[T]hrough the way writers peopled their work with
the signs and bodies of this presence-one can see that a real
or fabricated Africanist presence was crucial to their sense of
Americanness,"91-that
is, their sense of Whiteness.
Despite the postmodern
consensus that the self is multiple and relational rather than
unitary and static, theorists have not paid enough attention to
the internal functions of the multiple self-that is, to the issues
of to what extent, and for what reason, the multiple parts are
integrated or separated within the self. For example, structuralists
tend to primatize the role of language and context in the structure
of the self.92
As James Boyle demonstrates, however, this view is problematic
in the way that it minimizes the role of individual choice and
agency in individual development. He notes that "[t]he
structuralist critiques portray the epistemology of subject and
object as a real fantasy, that is to say, something which is already
out there, which we need only to criticize. By doing so
they ignore or minimize the act of choice . . . ."93 This de-emphasis of
agency is an understandable consequence of the rejection of the
essentially autonomous and rational self. It manifests itself
in an absence of discussion about why the self organizes experience
in the manner that it does. For example, although Ewing
explains in great detail the shifting, multiple functions of the
individual, she does little to explore the internal impetus for
these functions. Ewing asserts that "[t]hese selves
are highly context-dependent and mutually inconsistent.
There is no overarching, cohesive self that is identifiable to
an outside observer."94
She offers little, however, that might explain what it is about
the self that leads to the construction of these multiple identities.
Ewing also fails to address the tensions among differing self-conceptions,
instead asserting that each distinct self-conception has its own
set of memories that give it a sense of wholeness.95
Although such fluidity of the self may at times be effortless
and smooth, the painful experiences of multiplicity and self-contradiction
typifying the narratives of subordinated groups make clear that
this is not always the case. There is a direct interaction
among the multiplicitous aspects of the self, and failing to recognize
this interaction threatens a return to the essentialist "math
problem" discussed earlier.96
If we are to benefit
from postmodern criticisms of the modern self, we must address
the difficult questions relating to agency, and the seemingly
integrated nature of the multiple self. It is also important
to consider other conceptions of the self that retain some degree
of essentialism. Amy Mullin cautions that "we need
to speak with more clarity when we refer to selves as unified
or divided. . . . [I]t is important to avoid assuming that
effectively unified selves must be homogenous or integrated to
the point that harmony is rarely threatened."97
She criticizes the leap from a unitary to an entirely multiple
and nonessential self98
as overly quick and flawed by the modernist need for certainty
that postmodernism purports to reject. According to Mullin:
Mullin advocates that, rather than presume that the self is
either unitary or multiple, we instead develop "new ways
of understanding the unity of the empirical subject as a matter
of the degree, pattern, and effectiveness of its organization."100 A necessary corollary
of this is that we "at least attempt to understand what shape[s]
and continues to shape our preferences, fears and values."101
Mullin cautions us
not to be overzealous in our move away from the modern self.
Recognizing that the self is multiplicitous does not require the
conclusion that there is no essence to the self. Given the
ramifications of reconceptualizing the self, we must consider
whether there is some viable alternative to the modernist conception
of the self that does not rest upon social construction.
Although this endeavor may ultimately prove fruitless, it is a
valuable one nevertheless. To this end, I briefly offer
two conceptions of the self that recognizes its multiplicitous
and constructed nature, while leaving room for an essentialist
understanding of at least part of the process of consciousness:
psychoanalysis and Buddhism.
Although people generally accept the notion that there are
unconscious processes that affect our functionings, very few have
used this insight to enhance understanding of the self and identity.
Perhaps this can be explained by postmodernists' distrust of theories
that attempt to provide universal explanations for the self.
Ewing expresses this sentiment in her statement that "a single
model of self or person is not adequate for describing how selves
are experienced or represented in any culture."102
Nevertheless, she recognizes that the psychoanalytic (or "Freudian")
self, though essential in some respects, has descriptive capabilities
that are not necessarily inconsistent with the notion of a multiple
and relational self. She claims that "[t]he phenomenon
to which the psychoanalysts are alluding when they speak of a
cohesive self-that is, the experience of wholeness that derives
from a symbolic constitution of the self and the phenomenon of
rapid shifts in the content of that experience-may be universal."103 Given that psychoanalysis
offers some insight into the notion of a multiple and relational
self, the theory should be considered.
Psychoanalysis focuses
on "the individual in his capacity to generate a sense of
'I-ness' (subjectivity)."104
According to Freud, this sense of unity is a function of the two
basic facets of the mind, the conscious and the unconscious.105 The conscious mind
is generally logical and consists of those mental processes which
we are aware of, while the unconscious mind consists of processes
that escape our awareness but nevertheless shape identity and
actions. The unconscious mind tackles the "desires,
wishes, and instincts that strive for gratification."106 Thus, Freud relocates
the self from the conscious mind, where modernism places it, to
somewhere in the interactions between the conscious and unconscious.107 Because it consists
of the interplay between the conscious and unconscious, the Freudian
self is "fundamentally dialectic in nature."108
According to Thomas
Ogden, this interplay of the conscious and unconscious is a "[d]ialectic
of [p]resence and [a]bsence."109
In this interaction, what is present in conscious experience "is
continually negated by that which it is not, while all the time
alluding to what is lacking in itself."110
What is absent from the conscious mind's experience is often present
in the unconscious mind, and the Freudian mind uses this dialectic
to maintain a sense of wholeness and placidity. When there
is tension between the (context-dependent) values of the conscious
mind and incongruous thoughts or desires, the subject employs
"[d]efensive mechanisms such as repression, denial, introjection,
projection, reaction formation, sublimation, and reversal [which]
resolve the conflicts between the primary and secondary processes
by disguising forbidden wishes and making them palatable."111
This dialectical process
also has an intersubjective aspect: how we define ourselves and
how we define others are interdependent functions of our interactions
with others.112
Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein asserts that the self is actually
"decentered from its exclusive locus within the individual;
instead the subject is conceived of as arising in a dialectic
(a dialogue) of self and Other." Through the process
of "projective identification," the subject is able
to resolve internal conflicts by projecting those aspects of the
conflict considered negative onto others:
Thus, the psychoanalytic
subject is contextual and relational in at least two key respects:
(1) the formation of the conscious self and its ethos, and (2)
the stability of the subject as internal conflicts are resolved
through the defensive mechanism of projection.
The Freudian account
of the self is in many respects consistent with postmodernism's
assertion that the self is relational and contextual. The
conscious self is largely defined by social interactions.
Consequently, it experiences incoherency and multiplicity as individuals
in any sociohistorical context do. To this extent, psychoanalysis
does not assert an a priori self in the manner that modernity
does. Furthermore, the dialectical self of psychoanalysis
offers an explanation of how the subject seeks to construct wholeness
or unity out of multiplicity and how "others" play an
integral role in this process. Yet Freudian theorists believe
that these processes of the mind, the interplay of the unconscious
and conscious involving drives and instinct, exist in everyone.114
The Freudian theory
of self provides valuable insight into the way that racism and
other systems of oppression function in our society. The
dialectic of consciousness and unconsciousness helps us to understand
the persistence and pervasiveness of "unintentional"
racism in our society despite the general disavowal of explicitly
racist ideologies. In a society such as ours where racialized
meanings are unavoidably pervasive, the ostensibly antiracist
individual is consistently confronted with conflicts between its
nonracist ethos and internalized racist attitudes. In order
to resolve this conflict, the individual resorts to the aforementioned
"defensive mechanisms":
This helps to explain the pervasiveness of actions that contain
racist meanings but are not driven by the actor's conscious "intent"
to behave in a racist manner.116
Psychoanalysis may
also provide useful insight into the multi-racial self discussed
earlier.117 Through
the process of projective identification, the subject is able
to maintain a sense of self consistent with its value system by
projecting those traits considered undesirable onto the Other.
Charles Lawrence notes how the two prominent racially stereotyped
narratives, that of the instinctive Other who is lazy, overly
sexual, and out of control (e.g., Blacks), and the Other who is
conniving, overly-ambitious and materialistic (e.g., Jews), correspond
to two of the most common types of internal conflict: "that
which arises when an individual cannot master his instinctive
drives in a way that fits into rational and socially approved
patterns of behavior, and that which arises when an individual
cannot live up to the aspirations and standards of his own conscience."118
Because this psychoanalytic
process involves the subject actively pressuring the Other to
behave in a manner consistent with the projected trait,119 the success of projection
in resolving an individual's conflict depends on his or her ability
to control the Other. As our history of racism makes explicit,
control is a key element of the racial project. In some
respects then, the psychoanalytic account of the self is a useful
and instructive alternative to the modern-postmodern debate about
the self. If correct, psychoanalysis has fundamental implications
for our current jurisprudence.120
Buddhism also offers a theory of subjectivity that is both essentialist and nonessentialist. A number of writers have suggested that postmodernism derives from and depends on modernism and that the very attempt to disprove modernism is based on modernist assumptions.121 This suggests that both modernism and postmodernism are conceptually and culturally related; they reflect a common, specific cultural and historical perspective. This insight also suggests that there may be ways of thinking and talking about issues of the self that do not fit within either the modernist or the postmodernist structure. If those two structures do not exhaust the possibilities, Buddhism may be an alternative structure. Anne Carolyn Klein makes clear that the current focus in the West upon the constructed nature of the self is in part caused by the failure to take seriously the interdependent nature of things that has always informed Buddhism:
The conditional and the unconditional, the essential and the
unessential, are not contradictory for Buddhism but are always
present together.
One of the central
tenets of Buddhism is that there is no permanent self.123 Rather, Buddhists
assert that the self and all phenomena are constructed and lack
permanent inherent existence. This lack of inherent existence
is also described as emptiness. Indeed, the emptiness of
inherent existence means that the self and all phenomena are constructed
and conditional-that is, put together and unessential. This
emptiness of inherent existence is often referred to as the unconditional.
But emptiness is not the opposite of, or separate from, phenomena;
indeed, phenomena are both unconditioned and conditioned.
As Klein notes, the unconditional and conditional coexist and
are compatible in Buddhist theory:
The self and all phenomena are put together, compounded, and
conditional. While this process of constitution or construction
occurs very rapidly, there are gaps nonetheless. In this
sense, Buddhism supports structuralist, postmodern claims regarding
the self by asserting that self-consciousness is largely put together
by language.125
This assertion of the nonessential self is more persuasive coming
from Buddhism, because it is based on a wholly separate tradition,
rather than the reactive refutation of modernism.
Hume and others of
the postmodern tradition have been compared to Buddhists,126 but these comparisons often
miss a critical difference. Buddhists' understanding of
the nature of the self does not end at the level of social construction
and mental artifices. As mentioned earlier, Buddhists believe
that there is the unconditioned emptiness that is not put together
or constituted. This uncondition is not a concept or a thing.
Emptiness is also empty of inherent condition. Emptiness
cannot be grasped directly by the language narrative because it
is not part of the conceptual world. This does not mean
that emptiness is beyond consciousness, but only that it is beyond
conceptual consciousness. Emptiness can, however, be experienced
directly through the practice of " 'mindfulness,' which is
the ability to sustain a calm, intense, and steady focus when
one intends to do so."127
Mindfulness involves accessing a state of consciousness that is
beyond and ungoverned by experience and context. Thus, much
of the Buddhist practice of sitting is directed towards gaining
access to the place that is empty of concepts. One may ask
whether this place, if we can even call it a place, is essential
or unessential. The problem inherent in this question is
that as soon as we ask it we are back in the realm of conceptual
duality and not in the "unpatterned" space that is free
of concepts.128
Buddhists agree with postmodernists that the world of language
and concepts is constructed and unessential. Buddhists believe
there is a consciousness that goes beyond concepts:
In asserting that there is an existence before and beyond concepts,
Buddhism asserts that the individual, as distinguished from the
individual's identity or self, "cannot be reduced to a 'site
of competing discourses,' as it often is in feminist and other
postmodern descriptions."130
I must emphasize that
my goal is not to resolve this question of essentialism and antiessentialism.
I want instead to show how the question itself and the apparent
answers are often products of a limited cultural discourse even
when the aim is to critique the limits of the cultural discourse
itself. Thus postmodernism may be an internal criticism
of modernism because it adopts certain fundamental premises of
the modern paradigm. My claim, then, is a modest one: there
are strong reasons to believe that the self is not unitary, transparent,
and stable in the way posited by early modernists. Further,
there are many things that we believe in, including the unconscious,
that strongly suggest that the self is at least fractured if not
multiple. Accepting the self as fractured and/or multiple,
however, does not compel a categorical adoption of the postmodern
position.
Although I am not advocating
an explicit acceptance of Buddhism, it is important to note that
Buddhism has positive implications for personal and interpersonal
interaction. Because Buddhism accepts the self as multiple
and at times conflicting or contradictory, it "departs from
the urge to master, override, rein in, or otherwise manipulate
the self."131
Thus, it does not seek to construct a unitary, coherent sense
of self. As Klein notes, this practice "of being nonjudgmental
toward oneself has special significance in a culture where self-hatred
is an issue."132
By being nonjudgmental, Buddhism also moves beyond the psychic
tension that psychoanalysis believes is the source of projecting
negative traits onto the "other." "When all
the voices of the self are fully owned, they are less likely to
be projected onto others. In this way, self-acceptance translates
into acceptance of the other."133
Thus, Buddhism requires, in establishing relations with oneself,
that the mindful person "[have] models of self-engagement
that do not denigrate or otherwise oppress."134
By rejecting the modern self, postmodernism strikes at the
very foundation of modern jurisprudence, the legal subject.
Consistent with modernism and social contract theory, the law
is largely premised upon the notion of an a priori self whose
"neutral" rights have priority over societal good.
This self, however, is clearly a fallacy. In their criticism
of Rawls's jurisprudential theory, Sandel and Boyle make clear
that a transparent, nonparticularized legal subject is an impossibility.
Rawls premises his
supposedly neutral theory of justice on the notion that there
is an essence to humans that justice can serve by promulgating
"principles that do not themselves presuppose any particular
conception of the good."135
Consequently, he asserts that these principles should be discovered
by placing oneself behind a theoretical "veil of ignorance"
that blinds the individual to the "outcome[s] of natural
chance [and] the contingency of social circumstances."136 However, postmodernism
makes clear that what modernism posits as the essence of the self-that
is, what aspects of identity Rawls and other modern thinkers would
take behind the veil of ignorance with them-is in fact based upon
a specific concept of the good. The methodology, though
purportedly neutral, incorporates a particular account of selfhood
and masquerades it as a universal concept. As Boyle remarks:
This juxtaposition of Rawls's conception of the self with others who have clearly contradicting conceptions makes clear that the process of determining what is essential to the universal self is far from neutral. By accepting and dismissing various aspects of the self as relevant or irrelevant, lawmakers inevitably give primacy to their own sense of self and, in so doing, divorce various other aspects of selfhood that many people perceive as vital. Grillo makes this point in the context of a woman of color:
Sandel exposes the non-neutrality of modern jurisprudence another way when he critiques Rawls's reliance on social contract theory. Although Rawls creates a social contract that he believes is neutral and fair, Sandel notes that the mere query into fairness takes the contract out of the realm of neutrality:
The question of fairness requires that we fall back upon some
substantive understanding about what is just. In doing so,
we necessarily rely on our own sense of self and what is good
for it. Crenshaw makes a similar insight into the futility
of searching for a universal jurisprudence: "To give rights
meaning, people must specify the world; they must create a picture
of 'what is' that grounds their normative interpretation."140
Although the implications
of rejecting the current legal subject cut deep and wide, it is
impossible to predict their vast ramifications. What is
needed is a sustained project that unmasks the power and coercion
of the law and removes the cloak of invisibility that we call
neutrality. This project must discover and make explicit
the ways in which "the law is actually constitutive of our
social existence."141
It will require a sustained community effort. I only attempt
to sketch out some of the implications related to the intersectional
thesis and the treatment of racism in law.
The theory of the
intersectional self presumes that identity is marked by many intersecting
traits and that the implication of this cannot be understood by
simply adding these traits together.142
For example, an African American female's experience is not adequately
captured by adding the traits of a (White) female with that of
a Black (male). Thus, in terms of the law, rules that prohibit
racial and gender discrimination by addressing them as discrete
phenomena do not adequately extend protection to a person marked
by both subordinate gender and racial status.143
But the intersectionality
thesis can be understood to describe not just the sites of discrimination,
but also the ontology of the self at these intersections.
That is, the intersectional self can be construed as multiple
because it is defined by the intersections of oppression.
One of the possible implications of this notion of intersectionality
is that a self not marked by systems of oppression (i.e., White,
male, heterosexual, etc.) is not necessarily multiple. This
conclusion, however, is a serious conceptual error that postmodernism
and feminism have rejected, if somewhat ambivalently.144 Such an understanding
of the intersectional self also leaves the "longing for coherence,"
seen in the experiences of oppressed groups, uncritically situated
in the dominant and dominating narrative. It fails to consider
the full implications of the assertion that the self is relational.
It ignores that the dominant and the dominated are dialectically
interdependent categories. The longing for coherence sought by
many marginalized people, especially those marked by multiple
oppressions, can be understood as a desire to pass, to attain
the status of the dominant self. On some level this longing
accepts the liberal notion that all categories, except that of
the individual, are artificial and do not fully embrace the postmodern
position that all categories, including that of the individual,
are socially constructed.
If race and gender
always mark the self, then the White male is also marked.
He is no more a unitary, cohesive individual than is the Black
female. Nevertheless, there is a lack of symmetry between
the White male and the Black female. We can help to expose
this by focusing on the marks of privilege and not solely on the
marks of oppression. Marks of privilege will vary at different
sites, times, and cultures. Once we develop a list, we can
consider what should be added or modified at a given site.
A preliminary list might start with male, White, Christian, able-bodied,
heterosexual, and middle class. This list can be augmented.
If an individual possesses all the possible markings of privilege
at a site, that person holds the maximum privilege available.
The advantage to this method of analysis is that it marks the
unmarked and helps to expose the interdependency of privilege
and oppression. It also makes it clear that all selves are
at least partially constituted and multiple.
But a problem remains
in thinking about intersectionality in this way. The approach
I have just suggested implies that each of the marking categories
are unitary-it implies that while gender and race may create an
intersection, gender and race are unitary concepts. This
is clearly wrong. Just as categories intersect to create
a composite, each category itself is a composite.
When we look at Whiteness,
for example, we see that Whiteness is made up of what it excludes,
particularly Blackness. The excluded other does not just
function externally-as in the exclusion from a particular neighborhood-it
also functions internally. The self is fractured by the
part of the self-Whiteness-that must deny the part of the self
that is equally present, yet loathed-Blackness. In a non-mutual
way, Blackness necessarily carries Whiteness with it, externally
and internally.145
It is not enough to look at how categories intersect to create
a sense of self. We must also examine how the categories
themselves are created and maintained.146
There may be times and places where it is pragmatically important
to talk about these categories as more or less unitary, because
we may need the broad concepts to communicate. They can
and should be contested, though-especially when they implicate
privilege and subordination. This approach affects how we
think about intersectionality in two ways. It marks the
privileged individual, and it exposes the multiple and relational
nature of categories without trying to do away with the categories
themselves.147
There are a number of ways that acceptance of a fractured, multiple, and intersectional self would change the way we think about the law. The issue of agency and choice would clearly be altered by moving away from the unitary self. Indeed, some have tried to hold on to the unitary self by making the claim that we need agency and that multiplicity would destroy agency.148 Although it may be true that we need agency, it seems to me that a fractured and multiple self does not entail the end of agency, only the reformulation of it. If we take seriously the claims of the constituted self, then we cannot situate agency solely within the individual. Instead, agency might be situated in the individual, in the intersubjective community, and in the structure of our society. Part of the flaw in claiming that agency dies with the individual is the assumption that if the self is fractured it must be radically determined and arbitrary. Judith Butler makes explicit this flawed reasoning:
The intersectional multiple self does not do away with agency.
It does, though, require that we reconsider our understanding
of agency.
The notion of the multiple
self and the way we think about agency clearly implicates the
validity of the intent standard used to evaluate claims of racial
discrimination.150
This standard is problematic in any context, but is clearly inapposite
in the context of racism because it fundamentally mischaracterizes
the way that racism functions within the individual and within
society. Under current jurisprudence, the claim that someone
intended to discriminate on the basis of race is interpreted as
the assertion that this person engaged in the conscious thought
process, "I dislike or disfavor this person because of their
race, and therefore I shall behave adversely towards them."
Such a characterization of racism is clearly erroneous under any
but the modern theory of the self.
As psychoanalysis asserts,
unconscious thought processes play a primary role in the interaction
between the self and the "other." Thus, "requiring
proof of conscious or intentional motivation . . . ignores much
of what we understand about how the human mind works."151 As Charles Lawrence
points out, psychoanalysis clarifies that the intentional/unintentional
dichotomy of current discrimination jurisprudence is a false one:
This misconception
of how the self functions has grave repercussions. It recognizes
only a small subset of racist actions-those that can be proved
to be a product of the conscious mind-and leaves unaddressed the
vast majority of racist conduct. In our current social context,
where overtly racist theories are generally discredited, the vast
majority of racist actions are inevitably driven by semiconscious,
subconscious, or unconscious motivations.
A related criticism
of the intent standard follows from the postmodern critique of
the self as socially constructed, constituted, and shaped by social
context. Given the centrality of racism to the construction
of both society and self (both minority and nonminority), any
jurisprudential theory that assumes a static, a priori self will
fail to recognize the full extent to which racist actions harm
individuals and the full extent to which intersubjective discourses
and structures contribute to the creation and perpetuation of
these harms.
Current discrimination
jurisprudence views racist actions as problematic because they
remove the a priori self from its original position and treat
it as if it exists at a point other than this origin by virtue
of certain insignificant appendages (i.e., "arbitrary contingencies")
that this self possesses. Namely, the racialized self is
assigned a position that causes it to be disfavored in various
otherwise fair transactions that occur within society (e.g., applying
for jobs, seeking housing, etc.). The law remedies these
transactional aberrations by returning the self to its original
and rightful position, regardless of its arbitrary contingencies.153 Criticisms of the
modern self recognize that racism is a far more complex and entrenched
phenomenon. This remedial method is necessarily inadequate
because it fails to acknowledge the larger discourse that causes
these certain "arbitrary contingencies" to be consistently
singled out. Also, it fails to acknowledge the effect of
this discourse on the constitution of all subjects that exist
within it.
Because the postmodern
self is intersubjective, and thus dependent upon others for definition,
oppression is a relational function: "you cannot get rid
of subordination without eliminating the privilege as well."154 In other words, contrary
to current jurisprudence, there is no original position to which
we can return the racialized self.155
Furthermore, because the self is relational and context-dependent,
race is an "intersubjective phenomenon"156
whose meaning resides in a discourse outside of the minds of particular
subjects, and functions to shape these subjects.
Because of the relational
and constructed nature of the self, the racial discourse can be
described as both "self-making" and "world-making"
in that it structures both individual identities and interpersonal
relations.157
Put another way, race relations are "not always about what
happens between defined groups but also involve [the] constitution
of identities and groups."158
Thus it is critical that we examine the way we create and utilize
race in our society. For example, we often think about segregation
as a limit upon the access of the excluded to economic resources.
Modern discourse views segregation as problematic because it precludes
certain individuals from having access to certain resources and
opportunities; but the problem goes much deeper than that.
As Martha Mahoney makes evident in her description of segregation,
the problem goes to the very core of the constitution of the self
and the other:
Thus, segregation not only deprives the racialized self from
accessing resources and opportunities, but it also plays a determinative
role in the way that racialized groups are constituted, as well
as how the dominant self perceives (and justifies) this perception
of the racial "other."160
We must shift our focus to the way the construction of Blackness
and "otherness" is related to creating and maintaining
the "normal" (White male) individual.161
As Toni Morrison does from a literary perspective, it is imperative
that we look at how racial structures have marked Whites.
For instance, David Roediger and Ruth Frankenberg suggest that
it is privilege itself that creates and maintains Whiteness.162
If the law is to adequately
address racism, it must acknowledge and expose the central role
that racial discourse plays in the construction of selves and
our society, and the process by which this discourse is created
and sustained. This requires recognizing that there will
be strong, often unconscious, resistance to policies and actions
that threaten the stability of the dominant self by threatening
the stability of racial discourse.163
It also requires the fundamental recognition that racism pervades
and structures our society and is not merely present in the aberrant
minds of a few racists. Finally, the law must address the
harm that racism causes by its effect upon the development of
racialized identities.164
What this may require in the form of jurisprudence is uncertain,
but our current "tort model" analysis of racism is certainly
inaccurate and inadequate. We must reject the assumption
that dominant groups are "innocently" marked by privilege.
One convention of
law and social organization that warrants mention is the use of
categories. There has been much discussion among postmodernists
regarding the use of categories. Categorization plays a
critical role in modernity's essentialist ordering of the self
and reality. Also, language and discourse have a profound
effect upon the constitution of the subject.
Most postmodernists seem to agree, with reservations, that categorization
is a necessary tool for understanding and organization.165 If we are to avoid
a descent into meaningless plurality, it is necessary that we,
particularly with respect to the law, make "claims about
what we believe to be better or worse ways of being a person."166 Furthermore, even
though we recognize that categories are socially constructed,
they nevertheless powerfully shape our experiential world and
our own sense of selves.167
If we are to respect individuals' senses of self, then to the
extent that it is possible, we must also respect the intersubjective
truths (categories) that shape this self.168
When we use categories,
we must do so with a functional goal in mind. We cannot
"fall back on reassuring, universal standards to justify
our beliefs."169
This requires at least two internalizations. First, a category's
function must be explicit: there can be no "invisible"
motive, or function masked in false legitimacy. As Flax
notes, it is necessary that the "benefits and limitations
[of the category] are always defined and take on meaning in relation
to specific purposes which we must also specify and defend as
our norms."170
Concerning race, Haraway argues that we need to reconceptualize
it as a "strategic essentialism" concerning "a
certain set of political and moral rights and obligations that
are argued to arise from a certain history."171
Second, in order to avoid the exclusivist and imperialist functions
of universal categories, a category must be "tentative, relational,
and unstable."172
We must continually evaluate a category's viability in terms of
its purpose, the manner to which it serves its function, and the
degree to which it may serve other unintended functions.
The problem with the unitary self may extend beyond the problem
of excluding normative logocentric, phallocentric requirements
for inclusion. The problem may be that modernity's goal
of unity also requires the silencing of those internal voices
that do not fit into the narratives used to maintain unity and
construct the self.
As I have tried
to make clear, my aim in this discussion has been to provide a
sort of "critique in progress" of the self. Building
upon the earlier endeavors of Trina Grillo and others, I have
attempted not so much to advocate a particular theory, but rather
to suggest that we bear in mind certain considerations as we maneuver
in the discursive void that is left by the rejection of the modern
unitary self. If we accept that the self is relational and
multiple, our efforts to address oppression must focus upon the
privileged as well as the oppressed. From a pragmatic standpoint,
we must acknowledge that subordination affects the position of
the dominant and the dominated. Postmodernists are unwittingly
accepting many of the flawed parameters and limitations of modernism.
An obvious example of this is the dichotomy of the essentialist/antiessentialist
debate. Given the fundamental ramifications of reconstituting
the self, we must critique the modern self externally as well
as internally. We must not repeat the epistemological flaws
of the modernist project. The discourse on the postmodern
self will be ongoing, with no fixed resolution on the horizon.
We can only hope that the debate is undertaken prudently and with
due respect for the great issues it affects.