Me & Myself
The word self-conscious is vague and confusing, though I don’t doubt it can be made clear when people know what they mean it to refer to. Like Ryle, I tend to suspect that its only really clear meaning is “embarrassed”.
Mary Midgley (1998)
...still you are attached to [mother], relishing the occasions she scratches your back with her long nails in long, luxurious strokes. She is not yet, for you, a completely separate person but someone with whom you are still unselfconscious. ...[Later, on his mother's mental withdrawal]... I understand that [mother] will never descend from her surreality to our reality, except for occasional brief visits. I am ambushed by myself, sobs and tears rupturing the wall that separates you and me, me and myself.
Viet Thanh Nguyen (2023)
Two views of ‘self-conscious’. In Viet's case hopefully it is not confusing, but valuable as it well describes a social aspect of the development from the unselfconscious infant, to the adolescent - crippled in self-awareness. The phrase “still unselfconscious” helps explore the mystery of donning this persona that we call
myself.
The self: at the very least a highly debated contruct.
Myself, once having emerged, is
encounterable,
Meeting requires another - not myself. When is the other other?
while remaining profoundly ambiguous, spanning both the
objective
Distinguishing the objective from the subjective.
world of which it seems to have become part, and yet not separated from that subjective world from which it emerged. This change is the epitome of
emergence,
How can anything ever be new?
from that which cannot be known to what is known; and it lies at the heart of the development of the individual, from the child within its family to independent human; while also announcing the realization of the self, where me can now ambush myself.
Mary Midgley made this point in a letter of January 1998. The Nguyễn Thanh Việt (Vietnamese name style) quotes are from his marvelous A Man of two Faces published by Grove Press, New York, pages 182 and 292.
These two-year-olds were playing in Thành Công Village, Thanh Hoá Province, Vietnam, in 2009.
Above, hovering on blue introduces a link: click to go, move away to stay.
Saturday 27th September 2025
...guide to this site