Who are you? That question, it turns out, is well-nigh impossible to answer. We can imagine that there exists some “true you”, some core of personality that is the “real” you, the essence of your being. But that’s an imaginary concept. Aristotle pointed out 2400 years ago that behavior defines character. It’s not accurate to say that, for example, a given person is honest. The only statements of fact that we can make are statements about what we can observe, not what we imagine. We can state that Fred has never told a lie, or that he has been disingenous very few times, or that he has told the truth on most occasions. That is, we can accurately talk about actual events, but personality traits are inferences, not facts. “Stupid is as stupid does.” We cannot rationally declare that somebody is internally stupid; we can only declare that they have committed stupid acts.
Our behavior is not fixed; we vary our behavior according to circumstances. To do so, we concoct multiple personalities to suit multiple social situations. Consider, for example, a male in a strict hierarchy. That person concocts three personalities. To his superiors, he is a loyal and subservient subordinate. He grovels when necessary, displays all the outward signs of respect. To his subordinates, he is a completely different person: demanding, forceful, and imperious. He mews to his superiors and barks to his subordinates. Lastly, there is his persona when among equals. This is a more natural persona, the least artificial of his concoctions. Even then, however, we cannot say that this is his true persona. His persona with his lover is entirely different; his persona as a father is yet another matter. We change personas throughout the day. One of the standards of comedy is to show a person presenting one persona who is suddenly thrown into a completely different social situation and must instantly change personas.
Actors are professional persona-changers. Their skill is to concoct a persona appropriate to the story being told, and then present that persona compellingly. A great actor can concoct a wide range of powerful personas. Johnny Depp provides a good example. We all know him for his hilarious portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow. Yet he also portrayed a completely different character in Edward Scissorhands; the inept filmmaker Ed Wood, an accountant in the thriller Nick of Time, an FBI agent in Donnie Brasco, the gangster John Dillinger in Public Enemies, and Sweeney Todd in the movie of the same name. Although many of Depp’s best roles have been as comical weirdos, he has also successfully played much darker roles successfully. Which of these is the “real” Johnny Depp?
A trap lurks among all these personas: that we might believe that any of them represent the “real me”. The “real me” is a Pleistocene hunter-gatherer. Everything else is artifice.
January 27th, 2020
