July 08, 2005
Fear
"Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same."
Michel Foucault
The idea of blogging terrifies me. Yet the syllabus for an Anthropology class lies calmly on the desk next to my computer, and no matter how often I reread the requirements they still include the assignment of keeping a daily blog. I have kept a journal since the day I learned to read and write, but blogging is different. Blogging feels too vulnerable, too accessible to the public, too transparent to the unknown You who is now reading and interpreting my words. Who are you? Why do you keep reading my shy and awkward word clusters? What inspired you to look up other people's blogs and read them? Are you searching for entertainment or hoping for a visceral connection to humanity through the words of a stranger when the touch of those around you feels shallow? The irony is that while I admit my judgment of you, your judgment of me is the thing I most fear.
Perhaps this is how people have felt after being interviewed by anthropologists, revealing their life histories to a stranger while knowing that the stranger will be judging and interpreting their words and actions. We all judge, but would we be as disturbed in having our "persona" judged by an online community during a game? Do we not construct and present a "persona" in every situation, available to those in that environment for disdain or confusion or fascination or desire? Why am I so afraid of being judged if I am merely creating a "persona" on this blog, one that I can more easily transform, exchange, and destroy than the personas I have created in my other environments?
Geertz's definition of the "Western" person as a "bounded...and dynamic center of awareness" (From the Native’s Point of View) seems revealing in the context of my blogging fears, for it leaves even the transformable persona of my blog vulnerable to any other "dynamic center of awareness" who can claim that mine is not so "dynamic."
Perhaps blogging in Morocco would feel less disturbing, at least, according to Geertz, where "selfhood is never in danger," for while a Moroccan is categorized according to tribe, territory, language, religion, and family, these categories are meant to "classify him but it doesn't type him; it places him without portraying him." Essentially, one can know things about you, but a deeper experience of knowing you is "left to be filled in by the process of the interaction itself." The distinction reminds me of the Spanish verbs meaning "to know:" conocer and saber. Conocer means to be acquainted with something or someone, while saber means to have full knowledge or understanding of something. Thus, one could never use saber when talking about a person, for one can never claim to have full knowledge of a person.
Posted by Jennifer at July 8, 2005 11:25 AM
Comments
Wow, great first post. Keep up the good writing and you'll go far;) haha
Anyway, welcome to AnthroBlogs.
Posted by: Will at July 14, 2005 01:02 AM
Great first comment! Thanks for your post and the welcome to the AnthroBlog community.
Posted by: Jennifer at July 14, 2005 02:37 PM