The clear mask
Identity, performance, and self-creating reasons
The clear mask
With Halloween upon us, I’ve been thinking about costuming and masks, as I often do around this time. In 2001, crossing Carnegie Mellon’s campus, I once saw an actor taking a break outside the theater building with a clear mask pushed up on his head. The symbolism of that object struck me then and sticks with me now. Masks are traditionally used for (at least) two things: concealing (“masking”!), that is, becoming mysterious or unknown; and for the wearer to take on the attributes of whatever the mask symbolizes. What in the world would be the point of a clear mask? As I reflected then:
If we take the interpretation from the first perspective, the wearer is hiding in plain sight. And isn’t that what we do every day, really? Our faces betray much; but they do not betray all. We do not read one another’s thoughts, and in fact can easily conceal or disguise them (some more than others). In this way we are continually wearing masks, are we not? But on the other hand, perhaps the mask is meant to remark that we cannot hide anything, ultimately; that a mask is a thin, temporary thing which we cannot wear forever. Someone will eventually see through the masquerade.
And what do we get if we take the interpretation of taking on the attributes of the symbol? A commentary on our own characters, perhaps? That we are continually assuming our own personae, putting on a show for the world, a clear mask that is molded but which permits some of the true qualities to show through. There is an interface between the world and our inner selves, and that interface is molded and shaped intentionally (at least to some extent).
Self as performance
Hiding in plain sight, taking on the attributes of the masks we wear: being a self is a constant activity. A few weeks ago, I ended my speculations on caffeine and identity with the idea of the self as a kind of performance:
I’m realizing that by making choices about when and how external things like caffeine (or phones, or clothes, for that matter) become or express part of us, we’re taking control of our own narratives and defining which of the many facets of ourselves are most “us.” … Being a self, then, is performative. Perhaps that’s what a “self” really is, in the end—a performance, a narrative we build and act out, which can change direction or be rewritten over time. I don’t think it’s pretending, however. It’s genuinely who we are.
The concept of self-as-performance is neither new nor original to me. Shakespeare, of course, said all the world is a stage. Centuries later, the idea was articulated in long form by sociologist Erving Goffman in his 1956 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. As writer Amanda Stern puts it, “Goffman’s central metaphor was that people performed versions of themselves calibrated for different social settings and situations.” Ben Folds sang about it: “Did I make me up, or make the face ’til it stuck? / I do the best imitation of myself.”
We do a lot of it without even thinking about it. As I said, I don’t think it’s necessarily fake or deceitful, though it certainly can be. I’d use the word curated.1 It’s the adaptation that comes with being relational creatures who are aware of and constantly responding to one another. To some extent, we can choose what to be transparent about and when—both good and bad. But in doing so, we’re framing the truth so that it’s viewed in a particular way, just as an exhibit is curated to reveal certain things about its subject, but it will necessarily not present everything.
I recently saw a quote from Kurt Vonnegut: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” This is exactly what self-as-performance is, it seems to me, except that I still want to insist that it isn’t pretending—or if it is, it’s a kind of “fake it till you make it” sort of pretending. Let me explain.
Performance and authenticity: self-creating reasons
The title of my doctoral dissertation was Self-Creating Reasons: The Normative Implications of Identity. I argued that when you run out of reasons when figuring out what to do at a fork in life’s road, it makes sense to break the impasse by considering the kind of person you want to be in the future. Your reasons then become self-creating in two senses2: they are reasons you didn’t have before (they create themselves), and they’re reasons that stem from the project of identity building: self-creation.
Performing—becoming—a self is guided in part by an ideal of who we want to be, then. In ordinary times, I don’t think we really notice this. Our values and ideals guide us without having to assert themselves and we hum along just fine. Now and then, however, we come to a crossroads and need to reinterpret or reorder our values and work out how to continue.
At this point we might worry: If identity is a constant performance, is there no such thing as authenticity? Are we never able to be genuine?
I don’t think so. If being a self is constant construction, interpretation, and revision of a narrative, it seems to be both genuine and incomplete, like a museum exhibit. Who we are is such a complex thing that we can’t possibly hold it all in front of us at once.
Still, if the self is a constant performance, then perhaps we need to ask the converse question: Are we never able to get it wrong, to try to be someone we’re not? Here too, I think the answer is no: as Ben Folds put it, “Everywhere I go, damn there I am.” Identity building is necessarily bounded by what we actually are: the physical, emotional, experiential, relational (and yes, also rational) selves that are the raw material out of which we can weave our narratives and shape our masks in relation to the circumstances we find ourselves navigating. Our raw material isn’t infinitely pliable, and although we have a lot of leeway to shape ourselves, we can get it wrong. It’s possible to fail to be ourselves.
But that’s hard to sustain; it takes a lot of energy to put on a show. As I observed in that long-ago reflection on the clear mask, we can’t hide forever. Just as it’s impossible to be entirely transparent, neither is it always possible or desirable3 to hide what we think or feel. I find it difficult to do, personally. For one thing, things that we hide from ourselves and others tend to come out under stress. We show it in our bodies, in our faces. But never everything, and never all at once. Certainly not in detail. All of this is complicated, moreover, by the fact that we’re not even fully transparent to ourselves.4 Partial truth is still truth, however.
Furthermore—I can’t end this without mentioning the role of relationships—our masks can be more opaque or more transparent in different contexts. We hide more in contexts with strangers in public, or at work when we’re meant to be “professional.” We hide less among friends. As I’ve observed before, there’s tremendous value in knowing and being known. Maybe we can never fully unmask ourselves. But with some people, some of the time, the illusions can recede. Or perhaps those who love us learn to see through even what our clear masks continue to obscure; occasionally others see us better than we do.
That’s why I love the symbolism of the clear mask.
I’m talking about how this happens in real life, but it’s hard not to mention that social media heightens the phenomenon, of course.
I’m still inordinately pleased with the double entendre here.
Feminists like Alison Jaggar and Audre Lorde have been insisting for decades that “outlaw” emotions are sources of important information about oppression in lived experience, for instance.
There’s an old tradition in philosophy that holds that our selves are the things we can know best. And there’s Plato’s injunction to “know thyself.” But recent work in psychology and philosophy shows that we’re actually much worse at knowing ourselves than we think. For instance, Tamar Gendler has an excellent article about what she calls “aliefs,” which are mental states that guide our behavior, not always with our explicit knowledge or understanding.