Intersection of game and school
Or: why this one class is my favorite
Reflection and Reconstruction: Beyond Narrative in the Negotiation of Therapeutic Meaning
Is the individual thus reduced to a social con artist, adopting whatever posture of identity gains the highest pay-off? Certainly, the postmodern emphasis is on flexibility of self-identification, but this does not simultaneously imply that the individual is either duplicitous or scheming. To speak of duplicity is to presume that there is 'true expression' of self that could otherwise be available... One may interpret one's actions as duplicitous or sincere, but these ascriptions are, after all, simply components of different stories. Similarly, to presume that the individual possesses private motives, and a rational calculus of self-presentation, is again to sustain the modernist view of the self-contained individual. From the postmodern vantage point, the relationship takes priority over the individual self. That is, selves are only realized as a byproduct of relatedness. It is not independent selves who come together to form a relationship, but particular forms of relationship that engender what we take to be the individual's identity. Thus, to shift in the form and content of self-narration from one relationship to another is neither deceitful or self-serving. Rather, it is to honor the various modes of relationship in which one is enmeshed. It is to take seriously the multiple and varied forms of human connectedness that make up a life.
Gergen, Ken & Kaye, John. (1992) Beyond Narrative in Negotiation of Meaning. Sage Publishing, London, p180
Reflection and Reconstruction: Beyond Narrative in the Negotiation of Therapeutic Meaning
Is the individual thus reduced to a social con artist, adopting whatever posture of identity gains the highest pay-off? Certainly, the postmodern emphasis is on flexibility of self-identification, but this does not simultaneously imply that the individual is either duplicitous or scheming. To speak of duplicity is to presume that there is 'true expression' of self that could otherwise be available... One may interpret one's actions as duplicitous or sincere, but these ascriptions are, after all, simply components of different stories. Similarly, to presume that the individual possesses private motives, and a rational calculus of self-presentation, is again to sustain the modernist view of the self-contained individual. From the postmodern vantage point, the relationship takes priority over the individual self. That is, selves are only realized as a byproduct of relatedness. It is not independent selves who come together to form a relationship, but particular forms of relationship that engender what we take to be the individual's identity. Thus, to shift in the form and content of self-narration from one relationship to another is neither deceitful or self-serving. Rather, it is to honor the various modes of relationship in which one is enmeshed. It is to take seriously the multiple and varied forms of human connectedness that make up a life.
Gergen, Ken & Kaye, John. (1992) Beyond Narrative in Negotiation of Meaning. Sage Publishing, London, p180