Conversion - at least as the term is commonly used today - implies violence. That is to say, the old self is killed and a new self takes it's place. This implies not a loss of self (selflessness), but a rejection of self. In the process of conversion, we are either active or acted upon. In the former case, we actively (consciously) aspire to escape our past identity, to cut ourselves off from it (usually as the result of some aversion - shame, guilt, embarrassment). The violence results from the power one identity exerts to erase the other.* This type of conversion is a form of self-alienation. In the later case, conversion as being acted upon, power is deployed against my historical identity from an outside agent (culture, missionary, etc.). Here, it is the outside agent who exercises violence against my historically rooted identity. I am converted to the extent that I have been dominated by the agent.
Since both forms of conversion result from violence, neither can functionally establish an authentic form of self-expression - i.e. an authentic identity. We can also state this as follows: since the new identity is ultimately the result of coercion, it takes the form of an obligation. We are trapped in a duty-bound way of life. "I must... (e.g.) be a Christian."
I do not mean to imply that every genuine identity is static. Instead, I wish to say that there can be no such thing as an authentic conversion. The term conversion implies too radical a break with one's former being and this can only be a sign of alienation or domination. When we are speaking of an authentic change of self, we should use the word "transformation." When something is transformed, it does not alienate itself from it's historical embeddedness, nor is it dominated by outside forces. Instead, a new self grows out of the old. This growth is initiated by the being itself, without outside pressures (though, of course, there are conditions - think of the cone becoming a fir tree; the process is internally initiated thought it depends on environmental stimuli as well as rain, sun, etc.)
Finally, the transformation is superior to conversion in that conversion implies that the use of effort, a difficult struggle. Transformation, percisely because it comes naturally from within and grows out of our own past, is effortless. Therefore, we need not struggle to be converted, but should wait patiently to be transformed.
*If we provide a Freudian interpretation, we might insist that even here the identity that attempts to repress my past is in fact an internalized form of the outside agent.
4 comments:
Jacob-
Thanks for your blog. I have enjoyed reading and considering your posts, and I hope you don’t mind my comments here. Please forgive any philosophical failings--your abilities are certainly abler than mine--and I just hope that I can think and communicate as cogently as you.
I agree that the characterization of conversion as a “violent” process is misguided. It does seem that notion of conversion comes from the Christian sense of death and rebirth in Christ, though for me this makes as little sense as other mysteries of religion.
I cannot accept that conversion ever involves more or less than one “self.” As you say, there can be no “selflessness,” that is, in the process of conversion there is no self-gap or self-vacuum where the killed or rejected self leaves space for the new. If one is without a self, then what is acting in the conversion? On the other hand, to say that one self rejects the other is equally difficult. What is guiding the process? When or how does agency change from one self to another? Whatever a conversion is, I cannot believe that whatever “I” is and I am changes substantively.
Here may be a source of confusion for me: Is there a difference between self and identity? For instance, you say that “the violence results from the power one identity exerts to erase the other.” Is identity a component of self? This is where my belief comes in: there is some underlying foundation of self onto which identity is written. It is this self that guides change, though it is identity that transforms.
What is self? It is the sum of everything that exists in my brain: structure, pathways, memory, knowledge, temperament, and everything on an atomic level. In this way, identity is a component of self, and identity is composed of smaller, discrete elements. So, sure, to change identity is to effect a small change in self. For instance, if an atheist were to become a Christian, they would be assuming a constellation of facts that replaces old ones (Is there a God? No->Yes), leaves some unchanged (What color is chlorophyl? Green->Green), creates new ones (What is the nature of Evil?), and causes others to become meaningless (um . . . can’t think of an example . . .). There is a new mapping of facts and concepts and identities within the self, but no wholesale change. Of course, for bigger questions, like those of religious identity, the conversion is more extreme, but it also takes longer and more effort. But in any case, there is a certain set of facts that may not be changed, including elements of memory (though not infallible, and barring extreme trauma, I don’t believe I could alter my memory sufficiently to change my identity), temperament, and cognition, and these are enough to constitute an irreplaceable self. This irreplaceable self effects transformation one fact at a time. This is transformation, though it still requires the self. Patience is also required, but we are the ultimate agents.
On the question of authentic self-expression, I don’t understand how the leap is made from coercion to obligation. As I wrote above, I don’t think the self can commit violence against the self. For external agents, I think of my parents. At what point of my development did I escape from under the yoke of their imposed identity forming? Which elements of me are “inauthentic?” The unexamined elements, those things I take for granted? But even those elements I examine are done so in the context of my parents forming me, so any judgement is inauthentic as well? Just as the seed transforms under the energy of the sun, we transform from the input of those around us. Though this may be out of our control--the presence and identity of those around us--their influence on us is just as authentic as the sun’s. It may be disconcerting that elements of our identities are out of our control, but this is a fact we cannot change, but only seek to limit or exploit.
-Jeff
I agree with Jacob that the notion of conversion implies violence. However, no vacuum results in the process, there is no selflessness, but rather a superseding of the old self. I would add that usually negative motivations (such as shame, guilt) induce conversion. I also accept Jacob’s definition of conversion as a form of coercion and self-alienation. Thus, transformation is the sole form of authentic change initiated by the self, generally as a response to positive motivations such as a desire to grow closer to an emulated identity.
The question Jeff is raising is very relevant – what is self and is there a self-gap. If there is, what guides the process of rejection and adoption that constitutes conversion? I think that here we really need some definitions here. For me the self is the bare sense of self-consciousness – “cogito ergo sum”. All other individual characteristics constitute one or another form of identity. Identities are not of equal value. There are primary and secondary identities. The individual is less conscious of primary identities – value hierarchies that have been inherited by a family tradition, for example. This base framework is the agency that chooses secondary identities – religion, nationality, etc. Thus, I do not believe that transformation and coercion are an alteration of self, but rather a rejection of an old identity and the adoption of a new one. Identities are layers coating the self with primary identities beneath secondary identities.
Rositsa
May I suggest that Hoffer's The True Believer be read at this point. His view is that an individual who undergoes a seemingly dramatic conversion is actually a conversion-prone individual. Thus e.g. Weil's "conversion" from Communism to Christianity is a case of an obsessional personality switching objects of obsession, but remaining obsessed.
As best as I can tell from Perseus, the first Christian use of conversio ("turn around") is by Augustine. I'm going to guess he got it from the Neoplatonists, who got it from Plato.
From Rep VII 518cd (right after the allegory of the cave): The soul "is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body" and so it "cannot be turned around from that-which-comes-into-being without turning the whole soul until it is able to study that-which-is and the brightest thing that is, namely, the one we call the good".
As for violence: In the allegory of the cave, one compels the ignorant cave dweller to stand up and look away from the cave shadows and towards the light (515c); one drags him out of the cave, by means of force or violence(515e). After spending all his life looking at cave shadows, being turned towards real light causes pain, irritation, and disorientation. (But it doesn't always happen this way. No one compelled Socrates to do anything; he is a result of divine intervention.)
But in this process the self is not lost. Quite the contrary: the converted one is the only one who can be said truly to have a self. To use Plato's city-soul analogy: an ill-governed city isn't really one city; rather, it's a collection of different groups with conflicting aims, clashing with each other in the same space. Similarly, the average soul, which has not been converted to the light, is not a properly integrated whole, but rather consists of a bundle of conflicting drives (for honour, wealth, food, drink, sex, etc.) coexisting in the same body.
Of course, the soul oriented towards the Good also has some desires for this and that, but in such a soul those desires are organized in a principled way, into an integrated whole. Conversion is then the process of transforming a haphazard collection of soul-bits into a single integrated soul.
Post a Comment