Hour Glass II

Understanding Stupiddity

James F. Welles, Ph.D.

III The Schema as Adaptive

Language--Norms--Groups--Roles

pg. 61 The Self

Against stupidity the very gods 

Themselves contend in vain.

Schiller, The Maid of Orleans, III, 6.

Of course, this is a crucial conflict if the job is related to relief efforts and public safety. 

As a person shifts roles with changing circumstances, certain attitudes and elements of behavior remain constant and define the "Self". As a manifestation of the individual's core schema, the self consists of perceptions, motivers and experiences fundamental to identity. Moving outward from this central, consistent essence of character, each person has multiple, superficial attitudes and behavioral programs designed for the various roles to be played--each slightly different and each relating to a different reference group. Behavior in any situation is an expression of the self drawn out by the given role applied to specific conditions. 

Expression of the self by role playing may not always be healthy. Although it is normal for people to play roles, in that most people do so most of the times, it can be distressing. If playing a particular role means hiding one's real self, then that is the price that must be paid for the social reward of acceptance. While it may be psychologically distressing to hide from a required role, it can be socially deleterious to bury oneself in a role. Roles and situations are often said to dehumanize or "Deindividuate" the people caught up in them, but it is very human for individuals to take narrow roles to uncritical extremes. Even the happy state of "Being oneself" in a congruent environment can be both ideal and injurious, if the role has become limited or the environment artificially contrived. An example might be the archetypical "Pig" policeman who loves to push people around and gets away with it as long as official word of his abuses can be contained within the precinct.

October 13