The sentries argued heatedly about what this could mean: Reinforcements from the sea? Troops that had been hidden in the area? Ghosts? No explanation made sense.
Under his leadership Carthage's army, though smaller than those of the Romans, had constantly outmaneuvered them. On one occasion, though, Hannibal's scouts made a horrible blunder, leading his troops into a marshy terrain with the sea at their back. The Roman army blocked the mountain passes that led inland, and its general, Fabius, was ecstatic at last he had Hannibal trapped. Posting his best sentries on the passes, he worked on a plan to destroy Hannibal's forces. But in the middle of the night, the sentries looked down to see a mysterious sight: A huge procession of lights was heading up the mountain. Thousands and thousands of lights. If this was Hannibal's army, it had suddenly grown a hundredfold.
During the Second Punic War (219-202 B.C.), the great Carthaginian general Hannibal was wreaking havoc in his march on Rome. Hannibal was known for his cleverness and duplicity.
If your social position prevents you from completely wrapping your actions in mystery, you must at least learn to make yourself less obvious. Every now and then, act in a way that does not mesh with other people's perception of you. This way you keep those around you on the defensive, eliciting the kind of attention that makes you powerful. Done right, the creation of enigma can also draw the kind of attention that strikes terror into your enemy.
Mysterious people put others in a kind of inferior position that of trying to figure them out. To degrees that they can control, they also elicit the fear surrounding anything uncertain or unknown. All great leaders know that an aura of mystery draws attention to them and creates an intimidating presence. Mao Tse-tung, for example, cleverly cultivated an enigmatic image; he had no worries about seeming inconsistent or contradicting himself the very contradictoriness of his actions and words meant that he always had the upper hand. No one, not even his own wife, ever felt they understood him, and he therefore seemed larger than life. This also meant that the public paid constant attention to him, ever anxious to witness his next move.
An air of mystery can make the mediocre appear intelligent and profound. It made Mata Hari, a woman of average appearance and intelligence, seem like a goddess, and her dancing divinely inspired. An air of mystery about an artist makes his or her artwork immediately more intriguing, a trick Marcel Duchamp played to great effect. It is all very easy to do say little about your work, tease and titillate with alluring, even contradictory comments, then stand back and let others try to make sense of it all.
All this attention allowed Lustig to lure suckers in with ease. They would beg for his confidence and his company. Everyone wanted to be seen with this mysterious aristocrat. And in the presence of this distracting enigma, they wouldn't even notice that they were being robbed blind.
Sociological Perspective of the Self
Sociology
study of the role of society in shaping behavior.
The sociological perspective of the self looks into self as a social construction, which means that who you are as a person all through your lifetime is developed under the influence of people, meaning, the self is shaped through interaction with other people in a society. Through socialization, we develop our personalities and potentialities with the influence of our culture and society.
Socialization takes place through the interaction with various agents of socialization, like peer groups and families, plus both formal and informal social institutions, like schools and clubs.
While we were born with a genetic makeup and biological traits, who we are as human beings, however, develops through social interaction. Sociology is the study of the role of society in shaping behavior. It focuses on how different aspects of society contribute to an individual’s relationship with his world. It tends to look outward (social institutions, cultural norms, interactions with others) to understand human behavior. This part of the module will be focused on the self as perceived by sociologists. We will look into the role of society in how we were shaped as to who we are today.
The Self as a Social Construction
Now let us start to explore the “self” as a social construction. Social construction means that individuals develop a sense of self-based on how they think other people see and judge them. They see themselves and construct a sense of identity, by interpreting what they think they see reflected about themselves in others' opinions and reactions. They incorporate these ideas into their sense of self. The classical sociological perspective of the self holds that the self is a relatively stable set of perceptions of who we are or our identity in relation to ourselves, others, and the social world. Our self is socially constructed in the sense that it is shaped through our interaction with other people. The sociological theories of the self try to explain how social processes such as socialization influence the development of the self.
Socialization is the process of learning one’s culture and how to live within it. In other words, it is the process whereby an individual learns to adjust to a group and behave in a way that is approved by the group. Through socialization, we develop our personalities and potentialities with the influence of our culture and society. As with socialization in general, we are not passive participants in this process but rather, have a powerful influence over how this process develops and its circumstances. The person can also be an agent of socialization. The self is constructed based on social roles through socialization agents (family, school, community, etc.). How people understand their sense of selves is closely tied to how they understand the world around them or their relationship with others.
The Self and the Social Agencies
Our development is largely influenced by the membership to crucial social groups that shape various aspects of our self; from our beliefs system, values orientation, and manifest behavior. Indeed, we are born into a family and toward the end of our lives, we evaluate our self in the context of our contribution to society, the quality of our social relationships, and how we have helped touch the lives of people we have directly encountered.
At the beginning of life, we are surrounded by our family. It is the most pervading, influential social that group that impacts ourselves in the entire course of development. The conceptions we hold about our world, the values we uphold in making choices and decisions, and our habits and persistent behavior have been formed in the context of our respective families.
Next to family, schools form a significant part of our social self. Our world perspectives go bigger as we get exposed to more people and a formal set of standards; but this time, we are expected to meet certain criteria of achievement and oftentimes, in collaborative learning conditions. We harness the knowledge that we get from our mentors and apply the socialization skills we got from our families in developing relationships with our school peers. The information we glean from books, lectures of our mentors, insights from our classmates is assimilated and imbibed consequently in the inner recesses of our self.
Aside from one’s family and school, our communities also shape our social self to a large extent. From an anthropological and sociological perspective, our cultural beliefs and practices are influenced by what our communities and societies dictate. Values such as faith in God, respect for the elderly, task persistence & dedication, and love for our country are often the products of communal settings we belong to and societal expectations imposed on us.
Mead and the Social Self
George Herbert Mead: The"I" Self and "Me" Self Theory
George Herbert Mead is an American Sociologist, and he is considered as the Father of American pragmatism, and one of the pioneers in the field of social psychology because of his contributions to the development of the person relating to various social factors. Mead is a well-known sociologist for his theory of the social self. It is based on the perspective that the self emerges from social interactions, such as observing and interacting with others, responding to others’ opinions about oneself, and internalizing them together with one’s feelings about oneself. For Mead, our self is not there at birth, but it is developed over time from social experiences and activities.
The social aspect of self is an important distinction because other sociologists and psychologists of Mead's time felt that the self was based on biological factors and inherited traits. According to Mead, the self is not there from birth, but it is developed over time from social experiences and activities.
Two Sides of the Self: The “I” and the “Me” Self
According to his theory, the self has two sides or phases: 'me' and 'I.' The 'me' is considered the socialized aspect of the individual. The 'me' represents learned behaviors, attitudes, and expectations of others and of society. This is sometimes referred to as the generalized other. The 'me' is considered a phase of the self that is in the past. The 'me' has been developed by the knowledge of society and social interactions that the individual has gained.
The 'I', can be considered the present and future phase of the self. The 'I' represents the individual's identity based on response to the 'me.' The 'I' says, 'Okay. Society says I should behave and socially interact one way, and I think I should act the same (or perhaps different),' and that notion becomes self.
The 'me' and the 'I' have a didactic relationship, like a system of checks and balances. The 'me' exercises societal control over one's self. The 'me' is what prevents someone from breaking the rules or boundaries of societal expectations. The 'I' allows the individual to still express creativity and individualism and understand when to possibly bend and stretch the rules that govern social interactions
Therefore,
The “Me” are the characteristics, behavior, and or actions done by a person that follows the “generalized others” that person interacts with. The “Me” is the attitudes, and behavior of the person with reference to their social environment
The “I” is the reaction of the individual to the attitude of others, as well as the manifestation of the individuality of the person. The “I” is one’s response to the established attitude and behavior that a person assumes in reference to their social interactions.
Caring for your Social Self
"Our selves are not created in isolation; we are not born with perceptions of ourselves as shy, interested in jazz, or charitable to others. Rather, these beliefs are determined by our observations of and interactions with others".
With the idea of Mead with regards to the establishment of the sense of self, socialization is a lifetime endeavor, and the people one interacts with will change throughout a person’s life. As such, considering the social environment one belongs to, along with the changes in the person’s development be it at school, home, or work, as well as the interactions, and experiences the person acquires from those people and situations, it helps define a more concrete identity and sense of self.
Cooley and the Looking Glass Self Theory
Cooley and the Looking-Glass Self Theory
Charles Horton Cooley and Looking Glass Self
When it comes to understanding ourselves, social interaction plays a more important role than many of us realize. According to sociologist Charles Horton Cooley, individuals develop their concept of self by observing how they are perceived by others, a concept Cooley coined as the “looking-glass self.” This process, particularly when applied to the digital age, raises questions about the nature of identity, socialization, and the changing landscape of self. The looking-glass self describes the process wherein individuals base their sense of self on how they believe others view them. Using social interaction as a type of “mirror,” people use the judgments they receive from others to measure their own worth, values, and behavior.
Cooley’s theory is notable because it suggests that self-concept is built not in solitude, but rather within social settings. In this way, society and individuals are not separate, but rather two complementary aspects of the same phenomenon. As one of the pioneer contributors to sociological perspectives, he asserted that people’s self-understanding is constructed, in part, by their perception of how others view them—a process termed “the looking glass self.” For Cooley, we gradually figure out who we are as we grow up. You figure out what you look like by looking in a mirror. However, you figure out who you are through social interactions.
The people you interact with become your “mirrors.” You see what they think of you when you interact with them, and it changes the way you think of yourself. According to Society in Focus, the process of discovering the looking-glass self occurs in three steps:
An individual in a social situation imagines how they appear to others.
That individual imagines others’ judgment of that appearance.
The individual develops feelings about and responds to those perceived judgments.
The process of the looking-glass self is further complicated by the context of each interaction and the nature of the people involved. Not all feedback carries the same weight, for instance. People may take the responses from those whom they trust more seriously than those of strangers. Signals may be misinterpreted. People also usually take their own value systems into consideration when thinking through any changes to their behavior or views of self.
Ultimately, the process of the looking-glass self is one of alignment. People constantly seek to create consistency between their internal and external worlds and, therefore, continue to perceive, adjust, and strive for equilibrium throughout their lives.
Summary
In summary, the looking-glass self describes the process wherein individuals base their sense of self on how they believe others view them.
Using social interaction as a type of “mirror,” people use the judgments they receive from others to measure their own worth, values, and behavior.
Cooley’s theory is notable because it suggests that self-concept is built not in solitude, but rather within social settings. In this way, society and individuals are not separate, but rather two complementary aspects of the same phenomenon.
The process of the looking-glass self is further complicated by the context of each interaction and the nature of the people involved.
Not all feedback carries the same weight, for instance. People may take the responses from those whom they trust more seriously than those of strangers.
Signals may be misinterpreted. People also usually take their own value systems into consideration when thinking through any changes to their behavior or views of self. Ultimately, the process of the looking-glass self is one of alignment.
People constantly seek to create consistency between their internal and external worlds and, therefore, continue to perceive, adjust, and strive for equilibrium throughout their lives.
The Self Embedded in Culture
The Self Embedded in Culture
Culture influences what will affect you emotionally, as well as how you express yourself, such as showing your feelings in public or keeping it private. Anthropologists believe that culture is the full range of learned behavior patterns, as
Sir Edward B. Taylor,
founder of cultural anthropology, defined. Culture as 'a complex whole that includes knowledge, beliefs, morals, law, customs, arts, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a human as a member of society. Likewise, characteristics of culture include culture is shared, symbolic, natural, learned, integrated, encompassing and maladaptive, and adaptive
Culture is everything that makes up the way a group of people lives. It includes their beliefs, values, and traditions. The experiences we go through in life are facilitated by the culture we live in because culture provides the environment which allows all these experiences to take place.
There are two components of culture that are essential in understanding how the self is being influenced by it:
Material culture consists of human technology - all the things that people make and use. These are the physical manifestations of culture. The goods and products we buy and the products we use are also included here.
Non-material culture includes intangible human creations like beliefs, values, norms, morals, rules, language, and organizations. This also helps shape our perspective of the society of ourselves, and even of the material world.
Culture helps us define how we see ourselves and how we relate to others. Remember that we differ in many ways: language diversity, cultural diversity, gender diversity, religious diversity, and economic diversity. All these aspects of diversity work together to form our sense of self. Always remember that it is important for you to respect others' cultures and acknowledge and understand that individuals may not develop a sense of self in the same manner. A family’s cultural values shape the development of the child’s self-concept.
Culture shapes how we each see ourselves and others. For instance, some cultures prefer children to be quiet and respectful when around adults. This does not mean that a quiet child lacks self-confidence. Young children learn from stories told to them that often emphasize a family’s values and affect how a child develops his self-concept. Every family influences a child’s self-concept within their cultural context. Young children may describe themselves based on their family’s values, beliefs, and morals
Now, take a moment to reflect on the influence your culture has had on your sense of self. To find yourself and truly know who you are, knowing your roots is just the foundation. Remember, culture influences us in more ways than we may know. So, take a moment and reflect on who you are, where you come from, and what you believe in. Self-reflection is the first step of self-discovery.
Both artists and con artists understand the vital link between being mysterious and attracting interest. Count Victor Lustig, the aristocrat of swindlers, played the game to perfection. He was always doing things that were different, or seemed to make no sense. He would show up at the best hotels in a limo driven by a Japanese chauffeur; no one had ever seen a Japanese chauffeur before, so this seemed exotic and strange. Lustig would dress in the most expensive clothing, but always with something a medal, a flower, an armband out of place, at least in conventional terms. This was seen not as tasteless but as odd and intriguing. In hotels he would be seen receiving telegrams at all hours, one after the other, brought to him by his Japanese chauffeur telegrams he would tear up with utter nonchalance. (In fact they were fakes, completely blank.) He would sit alone in the dining room, reading a large and impressive-looking book, smiling at people yet remaining aloof. Within a few days, of course, the entire hotel would be abuzz with interest in this strange man.
3,624,807 22,117 (13,743 mi) 2022 1.451 1,451,689,993.
Do not imagine that to create an air of mystery you have to be grand and awe-inspiring. Mystery that is woven into your day-to-day demeanor, and is subtle, has that much more power to fascinate and attract attention. Remember: Most people are upfront, can be read like an open book, take little care to control their words or image, and are hopelessly predictable. By simply holding back, keeping silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing inconsistent, and acting odd in the subtlest of ways, you will emanate an aura of mystery. The people around you will then magnify that aura by constantly trying to interpret you.
That is the power of the mysterious: It invites layers of interpretation, excites our imagination, seduces us into believing that it conceals something marvelous. The world has become so familiar and its inhabitants so predictable that what wraps itself in mystery will almost always draw the limelight to it and make us watch it.
Keys To Power
In the past, the world was filled with the terrifying and unknowable diseases, disasters, capricious despots, the mystery of death itself. What we could not understand we reimagined as myths and spirits. Over the centuries, though, we have managed, through science and reason, to illuminate the darkness; what was mysterious and forbidding has grown familiar and comfortable. Yet this light has a price: in a world that is ever more banal, that has had its mystery and myth squeezed out of it, we secretly crave enigmas, people or things that cannot be instantly interpreted, seized, and consumed.
Zelle had higher ambitions. She had no dance experience and had never performed in the theater, but as a young girl she had traveled with her family and had witnessed local dances in Java and Sumatra. Zelle clearly understood that what was important in her act was not the dance itself, or even her face or figure, but her ability to create an air of mystery about herself. The mystery she created lay not just in her dancing, or her costumes, or the stories she would tell, or her endless lies about her origins; it lay in an atmosphere enveloping everything she did. There was nothing you could say for sure about her she was always changing, always surprising her audience with new costumes, new dances, new stories. This air of mystery left the public always wanting to know more, always wondering about her next move. Mata Hari was no more beautiful than many of the other young girls who came to Paris, and she was not a particularly good dancer. What separated her from the mass, what attracted and held the public's attention and made her famous and wealthy, was her mystery. People are enthralled by mystery; because it invites constant interpretation, they never tire of it. The mysterious cannot be grasped. And what cannot be seized and consumed creates power.
Interpretation
When Margaretha Zelle arrived in Paris, in 1904, she had half a franc in her pocket. She was one of the thousands of beautiful young girls who flocked to Paris every year, taking work as artists' models, nightclub dancers, or vaudeville performers at the Folies Bergere. After a few years they would inevitably be replaced by younger girls, and would often end up on the streets, turning to prostitution, or else returning to the town they came from, older and chastened.
It still made for a physical contest on a lovely evening at the Rec which, unlike certain other English stadiums, has not suddenly been reinvented as the Thatchers Thunderdome or the Avon Arena over the summer. The presence of the watching England head coach, Steve Borthwick, added to the sense of occasion and the home side made a suitably fast start. Good work from the forwards, with Miles Reid prominent on his 100th game for Bath, forced a useful advantage after just five minutes and the backs worked Cokanasiga over for the season’s opening try.
Saints could also have done without Smith, last season’s league top-scorer, missing a straightforward early penalty and were suitably relieved when Russell was also unable to nail a decent opportunity at the other end. Soon enough, though, they were level at 7-7 after George Furbank cut a lovely line to put his new Australian teammate Kemeny over for a fine score.
It was the signal for the tempo of the game to increase. Bath’s Will Butt might not be his side’s best-known centre but he looks in excellent early-season shape and was central to their second try, splitting the visiting cover to allow Spencer to put the galloping Hill over.
Suatu hari, saya dan teman-teman memutuskan untuk mendaki Gunung Ciremai dengan penuh semangat, meskipun ini pengalaman pertama kami. Di awal perjalanan, semuanya terasa mudah, kami bercanda dan memotret pemandangan indah. Tapi setelah beberapa jam, kami mulai kelelahan. Budi, salah satu teman kami, tiba-tiba panik karena lupa membawa nasi bungkus, dan ranselnya hanya berisi cemilan, membuat kami tertawa terbahak-bahak. Ketika kami merasa semakin lelah, Rani berteriak dengan semangat bahwa puncak sudah dekat, tapi ternyata itu hanya bukit kecil, bukan puncak gunung. Kami tertawa lagi, walaupun kaki semakin lemas. Akhirnya, setelah perjalanan panjang dan penuh kejutan, kami berhasil mencapai puncak Gunung Ciremai. Di sana, kami duduk bersama menikmati pemandangan sambil makan cemilan seadanya, dan meskipun tanpa nasi bungkus Budi, pengalaman mendaki ini menjadi cerita lucu dan tak terlupakan bagi kami semua.
Pada suatu hari yang cerah, saya dan keluarga pergi berlibur ke pantai untuk menghabiskan akhir pekan. Kami berangkat pagi-pagi sekali, mengendarai mobil dengan penuh semangat menuju pantai yang terletak di luar kota. Setibanya di sana, kami disambut oleh suara ombak yang bergulung-gulung, langit biru tanpa awan, dan pasir putih yang halus di bawah kaki. Saya segera berlari ke tepi air, merasakan dinginnya air laut yang menyentuh jemari kaki saya. Adik saya sibuk membangun istana pasir, sementara ayah dan ibu duduk di bawah payung, menikmati pemandangan sambil membaca buku. Tidak lama kemudian, kami semua bermain di air, melompat bersama ombak dan tertawa lepas saat ombak besar datang menghampiri. Setelah lelah bermain, kami duduk di atas tikar sambil menikmati bekal yang dibawa dari rumah, nasi bungkus dengan ikan bakar yang lezat. Angin pantai yang sejuk membuat kami merasa damai dan tenang, seolah semua kekhawatiran hilang bersama suara ombak. Hari itu terasa begitu menyenangkan, dan ketika matahari mulai tenggelam di ufuk barat, kami berjalan menyusuri pantai, meninggalkan jejak kaki di pasir basah, sebelum akhirnya pulang dengan hati yang bahagia dan penuh kenangan indah.
world, Andes Andes 7,000 (4,300 mi) 80% Chile Chile entire results 3% use.
Keir Starmer has been prime minister for less than three months, yet Labour begins its annual conference this weekend already weighed down by incumbency. Rows over gifts from wealthy donors and tickets to football games as well as squabbling about his chief of staff’s pay are feeding into public disquiet. These come when the burden of government in difficult economic circumstances and in an age of low public trust would have shortened any political honeymoon period. But Downing Street also set out with the explicit objective of dampening expectations of how soon change might come. That mission has been accomplished with a needless surplus of gloom.
Sir Keir’s urgent task in Liverpool is to recalibrate the mood with a sense of optimism and purpose. He needs to give the country reasons to be glad of a Labour government in ways that go beyond relief at no longer being ruled by Tories. New governments often come to power blaming the last. Sir Keir has given the nation an unvarnished account of the dismal legacy he has inherited. That bleak audit covers a record of political and financial maladministration.
Conservative ministers, driven by ideological fanaticism and self-serving cynicism, squandered energy and resources on ill-conceived, unworkable policies, while starving public services of vital resources. Sir Keir has a difficult job because the country is in a terrible state. Putting things right will take time. But that morose message has been soured by a performance of fiscal discipline, delivered without a hint of uplifting accompaniment.
The prime minister says things will get worse before they get better. The chancellor, citing “black holes” in the budget, withdraws winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners and pledges more pain to come. Rachel Reeves’ argument is that government departments would outspend budgets by £22bn more than previously disclosed and that cuts were needed to compensate. This is a self-imposed restriction that stems from ill-advised fiscal rules. The force of that constraint, and the zeal with which it is applied as austerity across Whitehall, is also a matter of political choice.
Downing Street strategists argue that adherence to Tory spending limits was a non-negotiable condition of persuading the public that Labour could be trusted on the economy. Maybe so, maybe not. There is no way to test the counterfactual scenario, where Ms Reeves fought the election with a wider range of tax-raising options still open. However, the decision to lean into unpopularity so hard, so fast and without a countervailing narrative of hope looks like poor strategic judgment.
Labour’s election manifesto contained plenty of reasons to expect a substantial departure from a grim status quo. A marked progressive shift was promised in the areas of workers’ rights, a robust commitment to net zero, improved relations with the rest of Europe and, perhaps most significantly, readiness to embrace a more interventionist model of economic management, including public ownership of utilities.
The Starmerite script contains rather too much fiscal conservatism, but the hope is that there is a social democratic framework at its core. It expresses the opposite of the Tory conviction that government’s main function is to facilitate market supremacy and then get out of the way. Many of the activists and MPs gathering in Liverpool feel unsure which of the two strands – cringing continuity or bold departure – will dominate. Sir Keir’s task is to answer in terms that give hope of meaningful change to come.
