The masks people wear.
Discuss the merits and deficiencies of political theories and philosophical questions.
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The masks people wear.Why do so many people, if not all, hide their true personalities under masks?
The Masks of choice are: glibness, indifference, anger, apathy, arrogance....
What really causes people to mask their true personalities under these false guises?
It's as if people are afraid of who they are as loving beings. Like they are embarassed of their emotions. Their love only really surfacing when high on alcohol or drugs......The intensity of love: love for family. for children. For goodness.....it is so overwhelming people must supress these feelings with false masks of insencerity.
The only people who have no masks are babies and children. They are completely sincere......and ironically, the only time adults drop their masks is in the presence of babies and children.
Their innocence seems to be a reminder of what has been lost.Last edited by eggaforbreakfast; 17-05-2012 at 02:09. -
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Re: The masks people wear.Often, I feel like I am many different things at many different times. When I am with my friends or at the pub, I like to make jokes. When I am at home with parents, I like to be reserved. When I am on TSR I like to be contemplative or troll. The mind is a multi-faceted thing, and it seems we have a different mask for a different occasion- not to cover up something in shame but to enhance an aspect of our personality, as do masqueraders at carnivals.
There is also a philosophical problem; putting on masks and covering up aspects of our personality is ultimately a personality trait in itself. So it could be said that we are actually made up of the many masks that we don, and that they are not separate entities- as we like to imagine -that conceal our "true" selves. =)Last edited by Blutooth; 17-05-2012 at 01:55. -
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Re: The masks people wear.Oh, these kinds of discussions always seem so ... shallow. Some people spend their whole lives trying to stay closeted or pass as able-bodied - both of which are extremely painful and require a lot of effort, yet here we musing about how people mask their 'innocence' and 'emotions', it's hard to get more #unbelievable-amounts-of-privilege problems than this.
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Re: The masks people wear.The masks people create and wear are functions of the ego; if you read the work of Carl Jung, he argues that personality is a complex system of relations between individual conciousness and society which on one hand make an impression on others and on the other conceal an individuals true nature. Problems can occur when you identify too much with the mask and believe it to be the true you.
It is sad to think you go through a lot of your life and all you project is the false social mask you wear and not the real you. -
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Re: The masks people wear.I understand what you're saying, and mostly I agree - it's kind of sad.
But really, sometimes peoples' true emotions are ANNOYING. It's draining. Expressing yourself to everyone you meet would be draining, and receiving the emotional baggage of others is even more draining.
We grow up to realise that most people don't care about our dreams or our problems or our fears, so we pick and choose who to 'reveal' ourselves to. While part of me thinks we're all living under society's oppressive obligations, it essentially saves a lot of time and energy. -
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Re: The masks people wear.(Original post by Vickyy)
I understand what you're saying, and mostly I agree - it's kind of sad.
But really, sometimes peoples' true emotions are ANNOYING. It's draining. Expressing yourself to everyone you meet would be draining, and receiving the emotional baggage of others is even more draining.
We grow up to realise that most people don't care about our dreams or our problems or our fears, so we pick and choose who to 'reveal' ourselves to. While part of me thinks we're all living under society's oppressive obligations, it essentially saves a lot of time and energy.
i think the opposite is true, if people dropped the masks it would be less draining.people would be quieter. softer. more thoughtful. more in the moment without their masks on. less prone to overly showy displays of emotion.
without the false masks, people could just relax because they would no longer need to hide, impress people or live up to their reputations.Last edited by eggaforbreakfast; 19-05-2012 at 13:56. -
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Re: The masks people wear.How so?(Original post by somethingbeautiful)
People are afraid of appearing vulnerable. Can you really blame them, in the world we live in? -
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Re: The masks people wear.'Person' derives from 'persona' [Latin], which originally referred to a theatrical mask. A person is someone with masks, by necessity. Take away the masks and you no longer have a real person.(Original post by eggaforbreakfast)
Why do so many people, if not all, hide their true personalities under masks?
See, you have it the wrong way around. Babies simply are less developed persons, hence they don't have masks. -
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Re: The masks people wear.I find it interesting that you take a Platonic approach to personality... I personally manipulate my behaviour based on to whom I am speaking, and I seem to not nearly be alone in this. This means that one can behave properly in the correct company, as the wrong person is often misquoting as having said, 'we have as many personalities as we have friends'. Behaving differently in different company is an important aspect of society...(Original post by eggaforbreakfast)
Why do so many people, if not all, hide their true personalities under masks?
The Masks of choice are: glibness, indifference, anger, apathy, arrogance....
What really causes people to mask their true personalities under these false guises?
It's as if people are afraid of who they are as loving beings. Like they are embarassed of their emotions. Their love only really surfacing when high on alcohol or drugs......The intensity of love: love for family. for children. For goodness.....it is so overwhelming people must supress these feelings with false masks of insencerity.
The only people who have no masks are babies and children. They are completely sincere......and ironically, the only time adults drop their masks is in the presence of babies and children.
Their innocence seems to be a reminder of what has been lost.
Acting as if one is angry when one is not is not really acting--there is no free will. However, this means that one can affect other people as desired. It is just a rhetoric device...
I could go on, but I do not wish to. -
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Re: The masks people wear.You in fact are taking an essentialist/platonic approach when you say "I am manipulating my behavior", as this implies the constant and unchanging 'I'.(Original post by ApresAlkan)
I find it interesting that you take a Platonic approach to personality... I personally manipulate my behaviour based on to whom I am speaking, and I seem to not nearly be alone in this. This means that one can behave properly in the correct company, as the wrong person is often misquoting as having said, 'we have as many personalities as we have friends'. Behaving differently in different company is an important aspect of society...
Acting as if one is angry when one is not is not really acting--there is no free will. However, this means that one can affect other people as desired. It is just a rhetoric device...
I could go on, but I do not wish to.
I highlighted some text also as I believe you are contradicting yourself.
Personally I believe people repress parts of themselves as they perceive the situation demands, I suppose at a Freudian level this is 'normal' in any civilisation as repression is demanded for us to form group starting with the family, otoh it can be pathologic when people repress too much or even erect 'fake' personalities such as psychopaths do.
In the workplace I have seen that most successful people have been the ones who can adopt the demanded 'persona' the best. In my intuitive view the 'persona' is not always adopted unconsciously but can be adopted through a kind of piety or even cynically. The trick is to never let others know you are faking it. This is one reason I detest the Corporate world as it is riddled with what Satre calls 'bad faith'. I find it truly oppressive to the human spirit, and a kind of sadism.
I have read a bit of Wittgenstein and know he talks about 'the game' and 'forms of life', but I reject that he is a logical behaviorist and I have issues with that viewpoint although I have yet to completely formulate my criticism, but I believe it to lead to determinism and thus is untenable. My not completely formed view is that whilst language may presuppose a 'game', it does not follow that the subject is aware that it is a 'game', the subject is 'in' the form of life not looking in from without. When we consciously make 'games' on top of 'games' I think we start seeing these masks/bad faith, it's like the language from the original 'game' is used inauthentically. 'Playing a game' is not the same a participating in a 'language game' necessarily is what I am saying, it's another game in addition. The only way you can deny this is to deny inner mental states and their properties such as motivation.Last edited by snozzle; 23-05-2012 at 00:28. -
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Re: The masks people wear.You occasionally meet adults who are completely sincere. They are beautiful people.(Original post by eggaforbreakfast)
The only people who have no masks are babies and children. They are completely sincere......and ironically, the only time adults drop their masks is in the presence of babies and children.
Their innocence seems to be a reminder of what has been lost. -
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Re: The masks people wear.“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.”
J. Morrison
(close enough)
