Subjectivity

Subjectivity

Subjectivity is the creation or understanding of identity through the notion of 'self'. This is determined and created through different philosophical, social, cultural, political and religious positioning of the dichotomous relationship of subject and object. Subjectivity considers the self in context and constructs itself through place and space. Dominant theories of subjectivity are those that came from a Cartesian subject crafted through the phrase "I think, therefore I am". This has shaped much social ideology in the centuries since and faces criticism from feminist, anti racist scholars. Subjectivity has become important as well to anti-colonial research methods, especially in deconstructing the power implications of access to narrative.

History

Different popular ideas on the self existed in much of human history, including different ideas and names of self from soul, spirit, selfhood, and daimon . Plato argues for a soul that “survives embodied life” . The Stoics believed the nature of members of the “human community” entailed a care of soul that would signify living in the “service of the human community” . This “ancient psyche” was neither ‘subjective or objective’ but functioned as an “ethical voice” .

Enlightenment

Descartes' famous words "I think therefore I am" marked a distinct shift in the understanding of self . It was an indicator of a new dominating ideology of humanism, creating an autonomous human individual that could separate thought and reality, self and other . As such, this created a divide between the individual and its environment, enabling the human subject a capability of intellectual and imaginative power in representing and consuming the world, or the reality in which they were located . This was linked closely with an emphasis on rationality as the driving force of the human subject, in order to "know" the environment. Such a knowing spoke to a necessity to order this world. The "autonomous human consciousness was seen as the source of action and meaning" in its world . This tradition placed human subjects as being formed outside the influence of any social, cultural or political process.

Post-Enlightenment

Sigmund Freud complicated the relationship of subject-object through his theories of the unconscious and use of psychoanalysis to draw out self-experiences beyond logic and reason . This unconscious cannot be known precisely by the mind or logic, as it constitutes much of human desire that is repressed by social taboo. Freud thus put forth a challenge to the emphasis placed on rational human mind by introducing the idea that not everything can be known. Karl Marx challenged this further through his statement that “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” . There has been a push towards the link between language and subject-ness, as well as ambiguity in beginning to understand ‘self’ .

"Social Being"

This ‘social being’ idea spurred further inquiry into the part that ideology plays in consciousness and ‘self’-knowing, a further deconstruction of the sterile and fully formed human mind inside the autonomous human subject who is always the actor, the one who acts upon a static environment. Michel Foucault was a seminal thinker on the intersections of knowledge, power, language and access, focusing on the importance of discourse in who shapes it and how it emerges. He argues that those who have the power shape the knowledge understood and commonly worked into society . There is an even greater challenge that arises to such an autonomous human consciousness, as Foucault positions every individual as within a webbed network of this intersection of knowledge, power, language and access. There is much that is crafted insidiously throughout the discourses and power regimes of a time.

Post-Structuralism

This is a historically newer philosophy that looks beyond the base assumptions of human consciousness as an actor. The subject is here constructed as a "site" which is acted upon, and not one which necessarily acts . As such, there is a degree of inception-like questions that are raised when highlighting the subject, which asks how this subject can possibly be highlighted without first creating it, or demanding its creation. This therefore offers the final challenge in how a subject is produced and reproduced by different social forces. Agency is another concern, in the access that is granted to each subject to actively choose its fate and realize the potential of human dignity . The idea is that if there is nothing inside of the subject which can define or construct itself (it is all acted upon by dominant social ideologies and discourses), then how can it come to existence and who is able to layer meaning over such a subject? .

Deconstruction

Subjectivity has been a contested site of social science knowledge production, given its reliance on binary oppositions of mind/body, subject/object . There has been a move towards a closer analysis of how Enlightenment understandings of subjectivity have created the unjust system through which Western society now operates, as a naturalization of hierarchy and logics of slavery, capitalism and Orientalism . This arises from the post structuralist contention of the creation of the subject. Through the contestation of subjectivity, it itself contributes to and acts upon a subject. As such, space has been opened for feminist, antiracist, decolonizing scholars to enter and put forth research and theories that look to deconstruct the base ideology of dominant social structuring.

Feminist Anti-Racist Analysis

Some of the central arguments put forth in these new incarnations of subjectivity are the dangerous privileging of masculinized subjects . This is seen as the basis for oppression in the West, and implicates all actors within it. It is constructed on the monopoly of power and voice that European philosophers had while creating subjectivity: that is, “subjects” were tied to the rational, a logic that put forward an illusion of unity and truth in human experience while reducing the diversity of human and physical worlds .

A feminist, anti-racist conceptualizing of subjectivity involves a critical analysis of dominant social ideology in order to further deconstruction power structures. It is an investigation into language to further understand the production of subject. It is a reflexive discipline that works to contextual discourse and disrupt or subvert totalities and naturalized binaries .

Present Implications

There are shifts especially in social activism organizing that focuses on the importance of “story” and narrative as a means of political identity and organizing . This involves and demands an understanding and acceptance of emotions as important in reconciling injustices, and in crafting new narratives for society .Such work is crucial to understanding the importance of such social campaigns and movements like “Black Lives Matter” and various body positive and body-inclusive movements. These push back against dominant understandings of “whose lives matter” and which bodies carry what kind of social weight or are considered deviant .

Particularly when subjectivities intersect racial identity and narratives of racialized experiences, there is a general resistance in contemporary North American society to see “race”. Such colour blindness is a product of an immature understanding of intersectional identities and oppressions, and leads often to accusations of “playing the race card” . Critical theories are beginning to take hold that look at the intersections of race, power, and politics, such as Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory considers the difficulties of addressing or ‘curing’ racism, the entrenched benefits afforded to many who would not want to dismantle such privileging systems and the social construction (and non-fixed status) of racism and racial hierarchies . It begins to dissect the discourses that surround power and privilege, which contain inherently an examination of subjective realities and constructions of self.

The idea of who matters can be extended to most aspects of human life in contemporary North American society, from the proliferation of neoliberal capitalism and consumerism to considerations of illness and health. Consumer goods play an important role in how ‘self’ is conceived in Western society, creating what is deemed important to the self through different neoliberal rhetoric of both goods and narratives to be consumed . The “hard sciences” or biological sciences are no longer simply “present in nature, waiting to be discovered by scientists or physicians” . The medical profession is reconsidering how illness is formed, performed and treated by allowing for a wider sociological consideration of a holistic ‘self’.

Indeed, an intersectional understanding of feminist, anti-racist research on subjectivity would resist Wikipedia as it is, for its “view from above” positioning that does not hold itself accountable to any of the insidious power structures of knowledge and access . This is an “irresponsible knowledge claim”, as it is not located, situated or aware of its specific privilege in existing . Although arguably “anyone” has access to the production of knowledge contained within this website, not all subjects are granted equal or similar subject status in Western society. This is a fact that makes it almost impossible to write authoritatively and “objectively” on such a subject as this.