From: William Benzon (bbenzon@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat 14 May 2005 - 10:32:56 GMT
Don't have time to comment now as I've got a plane to catch. I'll get back
in a week or so.
Bill B
on 5/14/05 12:51 AM, Scott Chase at osteopilus@yahoo.com wrote:
> Having an armchair interest in musicology I'm finding
> Benzon's book _Beethoven's Anvil_ fascinating
> (although I'm a little hesitant on the triune brain
> stuff myself). Anyway he starts talking about
> something he refers to as *persona* at which point my
> ears perked up, since I have some intellectual
> investment here myself. Like the diagrams and how he
> defines (page 61) it as "the representation of an
> individual distributed across all individuals in the
> society". This overlaps with my understanding of the
> concept, but curiously he refers to some works by Erik
> Erikson (likening it to "a person's identity") and
> omits reference to Carl Jung, the guy with whom I most
> strongly associate this concept. Maybe I'm mistaken,
> but my trusty MWCD10 explicitly refers to Jung in its
> definitions of persona, so I think I have a case to
> make here (ie- "an individual's social facade or front
> that esp. in the analytic psychology of C.G. Jung
> reflects the role in life the individual is playing").
>
>
> Benzon's usage of the term is neutral and Jung likens
> it to the *mask* of an actor in his "Definitions"
> section of _Psychological Types_ (CW6). But here Jung
> is also talking about character splitting and the
> capacity of someone to engage in deception of
> themselves and others, so there's a negative
> connotation implied here. In _The Archetypes and the
> Collective Unconscious_ (CW9) and the Glossary of
> _MDR_ Jung defines persona as "the individual's system
> of adaptation to, or the manner he assumes in dealing
> with, the world." He talks about the roles adopted in
> various occupations and then warns of identity with
> one's persona (eg- "professor with his text-book, the
> tenor with his voice"). That latter musical example
> would have fit nicely in Benzon's musically oriented
> book.
>
> As far as the negative implications of deception, I
> had thought somewhat idiosynchratically before of a
> syncretic mind-meld between Jung's persona concept and
> the political philosophy of Machiavelli. The way one
> portrays themselves in a social setting can be
> deceptive (eg- pick your favorite politico).
>
> The part of identity with the persona was explored,
> strangely enough in the TV series Miami Vice. In one
> episode during the first season, Crockett and Tubbs
> run into a character (federal agent) played by Ed
> O'Neill (of Married with Children fame) who gets too
> wrapped up in his undercover role. That kinda
> foreshadows what happens to Crockett in a couple
> episodes several seasons later when he survives an
> explosion while fishing on a boat in the ocean and
> loses his memory of who he is and identifies with his
> undercover alter-ego Sonny Burnett. I think he winds
> up shooting his partner Tubbs during one of these
> episodes.
>
> I don't see Jung listed in Benzon's bibliography or
> index, though he does talk about persona several times
> in the book, according to the index. I see Erikson
> listed though. I think it would have been fair to have
> referred to Jung when introducing the concept. The
> MWCD10 gives 1909 as a date of inception for the term.
> Not sure if this means Jung used it then, but Erikson
> (ca 7 yo) would have been quite young at the time
> anyway.
>
> Does anyone have an OED handy that gives actual dates
> and usage of this term?
>
> Nonetheless, when I read Benzon's adoption of the
> term, I'm carrying some conceptual baggage that
> influences my views on the matter. Should be
> interesting.
>
> The meme machinists might try approaching the persona
> as a memeplex or the outward face of the selfplex
> anyway. Interestingly Jung refers to the persona as a
> "functional complex" in CW6 on the same page as above.
> In the Jungian context, "complex" carries much
> conceptual baggage.
>
>
>
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===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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