| The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to develop a framework based on the work on Henri Bergson and others, which could be used to examine social institutions in terms of their potential to analytically "write" the Self and subsequently "overwrite" the self; and (2) to demonstrate the utility of the framework by applying it to the training materials and experiences developed by the "Social" agency "Parents as Teachers."; The notions of writing and overwriting emerge from the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859--1941), as he addressed the institutional practices of the social in relation to the individual. Bergson conceived of an individual's life as duration, which he understood as a continual process of "becoming," as the past is inserted into the present. Bergson was critical of analytic thought, to which he contended humans are habituated, as they "spatially conceptualize" the fluid qualities of the person. Bergson introduced his method of intuition, which rejected the overlaying of ready-made concepts onto an individual, and suggested, instead, that for the real individual to be known, one must enter into the duration of the person. Resonant with the notion of anamnesis as understood by Jean Francois Lyotard, Bergson suggests that intuitive/subjective knowledge emanates from the play between memory and experience. Utilizing the heuristic of both the two selves and the two memories, Bergson deepens his explanation of the contrast between subjective/anamnetic knowledge and knowledge obtained through analysis. Bergson asserted that as an individual develops the habit of analytic thought, the opportunity for intuitive thought is limited, thereby diminishing the freedom of an individual to "create the self by self."; This framework, when applied to the social institution, Parents as Teachers, demonstrates the potential of an institution to both "write" and "overwrite" the individual. Thus, as the individual is socially constructed, they are simultaneously denied the freedom to "create the self by self."... |
