The traditional view of self is that of a immortal soul that will live on after the physical being dies. This has been challenged by modern philosophy, going as far as to say, that the self is really just a collection of perceptions collected by neurons. I think this is dangerous. I am not going to argue for or against a spiritual entity that lives on past death, but I will argue that this view has been around for many thousands of years. To alter that in just a few decades could be very poisonous, and in fact, may have already had an immensely negative impact.
Beyond that basic argument, however, is a more complex view of self. That is comprised of several internal mechanisms that our own mind, body, soul considers as we develop and draws conclusions. This is a deep area of self probing and happens from active conscious thought all the way down to the molecular level. How we create our own self identity is very important to our mental health.
Lately, many have started to create some new ideas around possible inputs to our self view. One of the areas is the concept of gender. I am not going to argue for or against that as a concept, as gender identify is absolutely part of our self view. What I worry about is that the view of self is so complex, such wild area of consideration at a deeply subconscious level that I think there is one rule that we should all hold to, in an effort to remain as stable and as confident as possible.
We should never allow other people to infiltrate, manipulate, or challenge our own view of self. I daresay that any attempt to do so is maleficence at the worst level. The process of building a self view is something that takes years and years to build and even then is constantly changing. It is a highly personal matter and it is very important that that view develop independently of others. Our single biggest impact to that is our parents, then our family and then peer groups. That are times when those will influence our self view, but the moment those groups become deceitfully or deliberately involved in how we view ourselves, they are treading on thin ice.
In my life, in my company, in my society, and on the news I hear constantly people trying to influence they way that I view myself. I have made the conscious decision to tell those influencers to shut the bleep up and let me define my oneself, thank you very much.
Guy
