After reading Galen Strawson’s article I agreed and disagreed upon many of her many points. One of her major points she brings up is the idea of having many selves rather than just a single self. I totally agree with this statement to an extent, I agree that moods essentially need to be different for whatever the task at hand may be , but I would not consider it to the extreme in saying it Is a different self. For example the way I would converse with a boss at a job or even other employees would be very different than if I were to have a conversation with a life long friend. Even taking it to another level talking to a customer would be a very different attitude than to a coworker. I truly feel her points about other selves are necessary. If we were not able to switch the gears for these tasks I feel like the world overall would turn dull, the stress feeling before giving a presentation would be much different if the same attitude and mood was used if you were talking to a group of friends. I feel like as a society this idea of many selves is necessary, otherwise it would lead in one of two extremes: chaos or dullness. A point she brings up I was not really fond of had to do with the idea of self control being a personality trait. I ultimately feel like the way she looked at self control that she conceptualized it in not the best way. I personally do not feel that this is a personality trait due to the fact that so many other things can tie into it. The basis of self control comes from inherited traits in my opinions as you can see not always in every case but a great deal that children have similar controls that their parents possess. That is of course until teenage years where I then feel like personality could tie into the idea of self control and also the rebellious mindset of the teen. A question for us to think about was to think of a time we thought our life may have been impeded. I truly feel like that had happened to me during my high school years where events were not geared in the best direction and I ultimately did not think I was capable of achieving certain things just based on my own self ideas that I was not good enough or that my background and past would physically and mentally block me from moving on.
I agree, that without having different emotions and poise towards different groups life could potentially be boring or chaotic. I feel like if we talked to everyone in the same way we would not be able to feel safe or at home with someone. I like how you talked about self-control not necessarily being a personality trait when you are younger but can kind of be when you’re a teen.
Owen, you did a great job with developing your ideas! I thought it was interesting that you described the “selves” Galen discusses as “moods” instead.” I didn’t think of this connection before, but you described it well, though I still feel as if they are the same. I also appreciated that you included a part that you disagreed with. This highlighted your view nicely and tied the text together well.