Stephen Coleman Case Study

Asian, woman, teen. These are the three characteristics that predominantly standout to others when encountering me for the first time. Subconsciously they assess me, searching within their brain for information from prior experiences with people like me. Although this type of prejudice is inevitable, it is nonetheless painful. When others treat you differently for the characteristics they see on the outside, it is as if they are saying that those characteristics are what defines you, and the unnerving part is that you start to believe it too.

In the case of Elaine Coleman, her situation was somewhat the opposite. She lived a life that was not tarnished by the opinions or views of others. The decisions she made in her life were not affected by others, and she was defined only in terms of how she viewed herself. However, the paucity of judgement from others caused her existence to dissipate, and she became a wisp of distant memory in the minds of those around her.

Which

is better then, to become an individual formulated by the various views of society, or an individual solely made of your own consciousness and beliefs, but forgotten?
I raise this question because comparing Elaine and Carrie as we did in class is detached from the life we live everyday. Yes, there are school shooters and serial killers that exemplify the type of action that Carrie took, but the likelihood of all of us becoming school shooters is very minimal (hopefully).
The truth is, there is no point in comparing the two situations because they both occur in our lives regardless of who we are.
In my life, I have experienced both of these phenomenons.

It is important to note however that it occurs in varying degrees, some experience one stronger than the other, some experience both strongly, and vise versa. I experienced both quite strongly. Moving from Japan to America at the age of seven, I was just on the verge of understanding my place in the Japanese society when I was cast into the American society and had to start all over. Being Japanese, not understanding english, and not understanding the American culture took a toll on how I perceived myself, and I began to rely on other people to determine my place in society. Long story short, a mask for my identity was created by others around me and forced upon my face, a mask that determined how I should act, what I should eat, what I should say, and how I should dress. Being in placed in a new society with little understanding of myself made me more susceptible to outside influence and concerned about how I was being viewed by my

peers.
While I wore that mask however, inside, I was fading. Immersing myself in the American society in which I was thrown into, speaking english, learning the culture, learning how to dress, etc, took away my conscious attention from a very significant and important aspect of my identity, being Japanese. It was not that the American society was tarnishing my opinion on the Japanese values I held. Without friends who took interest in that side of who I was, without much time at home to continue the Japanese traditions, without the constant use of Japanese in communication, writing, and reading, it simply began to fade away, just like Elaine. It became a shadow, something I glanced over amidst the hustle of everyday life. In later years I managed to gain back the Japanese values I had lost, but it took time, effort, and extreme consciousness.
What I believe, from my personal experiences and the experiences of others around me, is that we are the product of a happy medium between both phenomenons, and that our “self”lies in the middle of that spectrum as well. This claim therefore suggests that the “self” is ever-changing, because the median between the two phenomenons are never constant. Who we were a second ago is different than who we are at the moment, because we gain new experiences every moment while some aspects of ourselves fade away. In the experience I had, the type of societal expectation that was placed on me affected the way I acted, but these societal expectations were constantly evolving. Similarly, the aspect of myself that faded away were determined by my ignorance towards these aspects of myself, the things I found unnecessary in the life I lived at the moment. While society and outside forces affect the decisions we make everyday, we have certain liberties in choosing what to let go and what we maintain as a part of ourself. Although I agree with philosophers who state that every decision we make in our lives is not free because we are constantly affected by outside forces, I feel that we have a certain choice in determining the degree as to how the experiences we've had will impact us. For example, say I do not want my side of the dorm to be dirty because it will cause my roommate to think I am an unclean person. The reason I am keeping my side clean is clearly affected by the views of my roommate, but my desire to be viewed as a clean and wellkept individual is the reason why I let my roommate’s opinion affect the way I act. Situations like such occur consistently in our daily lives, and it is important to note that we do have a choice in the type of outside factors we allow to influence who we are.
The self is a complicated matter to discuss, and in no way am I close to reaching an understanding of the self. Based on the readings in class as well as my personal experience however, this is the best idea of the “self” that I can formulate. Perhaps this is only because I have a strong desire to feel as though i am capable of controlling my own life and the decisions I make, but there is no correct way to define the “self”, and a part of our existence is to find the explanation which best suits the self that we desire.