The Tenuously Constructed Scaffolding

My attention has lately been drawn to humans’ fragility. It began some time ago in a counseling class. We were thinking about how hard it can be for clients to be open to change, and the wise professor noted that people are not free to simply pull out some piece of their worldview and subject it to scrutiny. Our ways of living and understanding are often, in his words, a “tenuously constructed scaffolding.” It would be foolish for a person to gamble with something he relies upon to hold his world together. It would be insanity!

So it began by thinking about people who are in therapy, and how they might be wise not to open themselves to all sorts of “fixing.” The professor hadn’t limited his observation, however, to some class of troubled people. Over time I have come to think of us all as relying on tenuously constructed scaffoldings to make sense of our lives. We are all held together with duct tape. The events of our lives are here with us, as one struggle led to a patch here, another to a support there. Our hopes and dreams can be found in this structure too, and may be no more sound than the fixes. A need to be strong forces us to have a blind spot here. A love of nature is behind a defense mechanism there.

But perhaps all this is obvious, at least since Freud. Of course our selves are made of our histories. What is new in this for me is that I believe I have held an image of humans as basically hardy. Everyone has struggles which pull them to the sidelines from time to time. Many of us suffer from neuroses and obsessions. But these acknowledgments all rely on a view of people as basically functional and whole, with problems understood as exceptions. It feels very different to begin with the assumption that there is no integrated, hardy whole—that each of us is an awkward attempt to make life work.

Of course there are those who have solved this problem in elegant ways. Many lives may indeed be perfectly full, balanced, and aligned. My suggestion is that this is better understood as a rare achievment than as our natural state.

I have been teaching at the same school for three years now, and it’s amazing to me how my impressions of the other teachers have changed. When I met them so many seemed very close to perfect. They were confident and professional. They were masters of their work and liked by all who met them. I can’t say I lost respect for these people, but I found they were a lot more like me than those initial impressions suggested. Among them many are worried about whether they fulfill their duties to their students. Many feel the need to be liked, or to be found attractive. Several have been through ugly divorces and other tragedies. Some may be alcoholics. All, it begins to appear, have things about themselves they are ashamed of. So how did they carry themselves so confidently? Even stranger: have some of them seen me with the same naive eyes?

I fear I am only echoing a sentimental (and very Christian) reflection: We’re all the same. We’re all weak. We all need. I sure hope I’m saying more than that. My new way of thinking about people has been more than to be humble or to feel solidarity with them. It feels like more of an intellectual change. Still, I can’t deny the connection to that more emotional insight.

This new view has done for me something like what might be expected of a determinist position. I find myself less anxious to blame people for their various offenses. I am more likely to hear a rude remark or the story of some aggressive act and think, “He has some reason for doing that. It serves some purpose—protects some wound.” I am not prepared to forgive all wrongs, but I am less inclined to assign simple blame.

As suggested above, I also think this view provides an admiring and appropriate way to regard well-adapted persons. To think of such persons as having managed to pull their lives together and create whole and fruitful selves seems better than the alternative—to imagine that they have merely failed to suffer from any mental disorder. I think this reflects where “an orderly life” comes from. One has to build that order, rather than merely avoid the onset of chaos.

Where I think this insight my be most practically useful is in the message: You’re not the only one held together with duct tape. I think most teenagers and many adults (as my experience with my co-workers suggests) might benefit from a bit of reflection on this. We hide the tenuousness of our scaffoldings behind polished, happy exteriors, and this system leads each of us to believe that we alone are in danger of collapse.

Two other questions have arisen in my recent efforts here. One is the problem of defining collapse. If my image is of a worldview (and I have also tried to escape reliance on this single word by using “ways of living” and “ways of making sense”) which is in danger of collapse, it would seem important to say what we mean by it. Do we all live in danger of going so mad we can no longer function? This seems too much to believe. But the idea that we are on the edge of some kind of disaster seems fitting. My hope is that I can identify specific “patches” and “crutches” in myself and consider what losing them would mean. I have a clear feeling about people desperately needing this or that defense mechanism, but it doesn’t seem to clarify what “need” means here.

The last issue I want to raise at this time is that investigations along these lines should provide some tentative answers about how people can go about: 1) replacing dysfunctional pieces of their scaffoldings; and 2) overhauling the whole self-system to work toward the sort of integrated, hardy self we have imagined to be natural.

mark wrote:

i’m willing to embrace your concept of the half-person or psyche. however, what if a person where to accept that they are the duct-taped wreck, and stopped looking for a way to become whole? i suspect that this person would appear to have the enlightenment that you call a rare achievment. i don’t think that completedness (or mental well-being) is so much a reconfiguation of the self as it is an acceptance through recognition of the self.
further, i would suggest that the coworkers in your example, who search externally for more, are on the wrong path. if they were to search internally, while they might never become wise yogis or a well-rounded person, would probably achieve they best that they can. this is the most anyone can hope for.
so, i don’t think an overhaul is required. i think a simple understanding of who we are is enough to make us sane.

Hegel wrote, in describing Heraclitus’ world view, that: “every particular only is, in so far as it implicitly contains its opposite in its Concept.”
we are whole now, there will be a day when we collapse. we exist in an equilibrium, fighting off the threat of both. that’s the best answer i can give you.

Thanks, Trix, for your thoughtful reply.

I agree that coming to understand and accept who you are is an essential part of-- let me just say it’s highly desirable for human beings.

Still, I’m reluctant to agree that acceptance of who one is would constitute the admittedly vague construct I’ve suggested of being whole, integrated, and healthy. One might accept (as your comments seem to acknowledge) aspects of oneself we would tend to agree are dysfunctional: “I’m the kind of person who can’t get along with a partner.” “I can’t hold a job.” “I can’t stop hitting my kids.” To come to terms with these exceptionalities is a useful step in feeling better and indeed in working toward a more desirable, functional way of life. To say that accepting them constitutes success would seem to require that we believe “success” is entirely subjective, and consists only of a lack of personal distaste for who one is. Is that a position on which you’d like to elaborate?

hey mark,

the short answer is no, i don’t believe in total subjectivity (a professor of mine lectured that terms such as subjective and objective have become mere terms of mud-sligging; i happen to agree, although i’m not accusing you of using the term in such manner, i’m simply stating that under pretty much any circumstance i wouldn’t claim something is subjective/objective).

but i digress.

the examples in this arguement lead me to believe there is an assumption made that i happen to disagree strongly with. that is, a person’s actions are completly external to an individual, they are not internal attachments to one’s essence/self.

that is to say, a person’s self cannot be called gay because the body engages in intercourse with the same sex, or the self cannot belong to an ethnicity because the body is of a certain colour or even be a certain reiligion because the body performs rites of that sect. that is not to say that sexual orientation, race and religion do not exist. they do. but they are not consequences solely of a person’s actions. while such actions can affect the true self, these affections require the person to interpert them somehow (subconsciously, consciously, etc). thus, there is some divorce between the performance or result of an action and the self.

i think that this follows logically from an empirical concept of the self. rationalists would have a different take that i don’t care to entertain.

so, returning to your examples, no man can possibly say ‘i beat my kids’ ‘i can’t get along with chicks’ or ‘i can’t get a job’ and believe he has found his ‘true’ self, or any self at that.

the process of understanding yourself intrinsictly, difficult as you pointed out, is not a negoitable one – it must be intrinsict, not external. understanding the peices of duct tape that you introduced are a main part of this, but what they hold or how they hold might be more important.

this will result in people being different, but again, this is an empirical-based arguement. there is no way two or more people can have the same experience and interpert it percisely the same way. again, a rational-based arguement would differ.

i’ve answered your question, but not the thread’s question, i’m afraid. let me know if this fits for you, or any thoughts.

As I re-read your post this morning, Trix, I find that indeed I do not understand.

Most of all this:

Do you believe we all have a “healthy” “true self”? That everyone has a self which is healthy, waiting to be discovered?

I am highly suspicious of claims about there being a single, integrated self within any of us. My claims here suggest that a whole self is not waiting to be discovered, but a thing which is rarely achieved.

Please explain.

hi mark,

i like to think that the misunderstanding come from the fact that i’m probably approaching this topic from a radically different perspective than you are, but my shitty writting skills can also be the cause.

i do not think anyone has a self already contained in them. no one acheives this, no one can strive for it. to believe this is to hold a profoundly rational view, i.e. you believe we have a soul. you wrote that this is

. the very possibilty of its achievement baffles me; what, some people have souls but others don’t? is this calvanism?
because no one starts from a whole then, it is up to us to make determine it when we are complete. this determination is soley our decision. but, i think there is a strong arguement to be made that such ‘completeness’ is required to follow certain constraints (i.e. biology, culture, upbringing, etc).

I can’t see where our positions diverge, Trix.

I certainly don’t believe there’s some point at which people get a soul, that seems a rather radical restatement of my position. We seem to agree that there is no transcendent self, and that there is no fixed ideal of perfection toward which we all strive. We also seem to agree that while there is no single perfect state to which we all aim to grow, we can nonetheless say that some people have got their act together more than others, that often we can tell better from worse.

Perhaps you could clarify this:

You admit the existence of such things as wisdom and well-roundedness, bu then seem to say there’s no reason to ask for more than basic sanity. And this basic sanity, you seem to say, requires nothing but knowing yourself. This would appear to mean even knowing a mixed-up, dysfunctional self, but then later you say there is no such thing as knowing a dysfunctional self.

What am I missing?

hi mark,

right. i do. i don’t think that this means that everyone has to have them, though. what’s your position?

first, to know the self means you are not mixed-up or dysfunctional, not knowing yourself does this. however, who you are, and the knowledge of this, will not conform to the same standards. i suppose my posts have been a very long attempt at avoiding your first question, that yes, the self is a subjective entity. the true self, or authentic self, is not because it is the pure realization of the self.

i think your original post, and question, might diverge here. do you think there are certain, objective, universal aspects to the self?
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I’m sorry but I don’t want to go on to your question without getting some more satisfying resolution of mine.

I don’t see the sense in your claim that to know oneself is to be well-adjusted. I think people can be aware of aspects of themselves they and others find highly dysfunctional, and this awareness does not make the dysfunctionality disappear. It seems to me you must either believe that:

  1. “awareness is a cure”-- that we can only act in self-destructive or ineffective ways when we are ignorant of the problems with them, and that once we notice them our habits and awkward supports immediately fall away. Or

  2. “‘self-knowledge’ means ‘self-actualization’”-- Here I don’t see any benefit in blurring the distinction between awareness and well-adjustedness.

I feel like I have a wealth of personal hangups from which to choose as examples, but am loathe to expose most of them. Let’s try this one:
While in therapy a couple of years ago, I became aware of a connection between two traumas in my life: my failure at college in 1983, and my failure at teaching school in 1993. While I felt my later successes at college and as a teacher had made up for these struggles-- had liberated me from them-- I found I was still fighting these battles in my life, that it was inordinately important for me not to fail, and that any perceived danger of failure got blown out of proportion, leading me to unhealthy levels of tension or worry.

It was important to become aware of this aspect of myself (my self). To arrive at the rather succinct and apparently whole interpretation I have just give took a long time and a lot of reflection. Awareness is important and can be difficult to achieve. Being aware of this inner conflict, however, did not dispel it. It gave me something to say to myself, “Hey, remember how I discovered I’m too worried about failure? Take it easy.” (In effect, “It’s a matter of policy here to worry less.”) But that was only a plan for getting over this mess, not the end of it.

For me, it seems there is a stage or an experience of first becoming aware that something undesirable is going on. You can follow these up by attending to that problem and trying to work out the nature of it: when does it come up and (more abstractly) what are its roots? When some satisfactory answers are gained at this stage, you can make plans for how to feel better. My “plan” to tell myself not to worry is not much of a plan at all. One might work on such an issue in a great many ways, and might do a lot more to identify the problem in one’s life and define what sort of result would constitute success. Let’s say then, that I stopped with awareness, and didn’t go on to make a plan to become better adjusted. Alternately, you might say that awareness-over-time is my plan, that knowing it’s there and having expressed a desire to get beyond it, I am set to work intuitively, subconscioiusly, and/or spontaneously on it.

So I have a strong sense that awareness (which is to me what “self-knowledge” suggests) is not a final stage in the integration and adjustment of the self.

J Krishnamurti The First and Last Freedom pp 72-3

i feel like i’m failing you miserably, mark.

this might be a contradcition in my thought, but i do think that awearness of the self is enough to constitute self-adjustment. no offence, but i wouldn’t have labelled your realization an awaerness, so much as a step towards it. the awearness bit would come when you could answer ‘why?’ to the reasons that caused you to view the events as a failure, to then make you hang onto the failure, and perhaps what brought on the failure in the first place. ultimatly, what you’ll get is an awearness of your personal responsibility, experiences and prejudices/outlooks. pure objectiveness certainly cannot be achieved, as the wise yogi seems to represent, but i really do believe this state is enought.

marshall, some comments would have been much appreciated. seems a little to close to stoicism for my tastes…

Trix, you are my best critic; and for that, i am most appreciative. perhaps i should have said, “a house (or person) divided against itself can not stand.” My point was, in the example that Mark gave below, when you focus on not failing, you necessarily exclude other desires. Your existence becomes fragmented.

really? i got from the quote that existence only is fragmented, that the creation of any point/end/desire/failure is a construct. trying to establish a whole is not possible because a whole is not; i would then take this to argue that all we have is the observation of this constant internal change, and to then construct a point from this. perhaps more existentailism then stoicism, because i don’t think it concentrated on the need part (stoicism probably would have). not a bad arguement, although i would have liked the inclusion of the fact that an individual might have re-occuring, seemingly permanent, factors that should always be recongized and considered in constructing of one’s self.

oh, marshall, go on! the more i talk to you the more i’m absolutly convinced that you need to enter the doctoral program at my university (we offer a joint ancient philosophy and philosophy degree). you would fit in perfectly. also have lots of places that sell beer on campus.

In the tenuously constructed scaffolding that is my life, Beer and Philosophy naturally go together.