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Material Self 1

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Jerrica Bianny Exclamador
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12 views3 pages

Material Self 1

Uploaded by

Jerrica Bianny Exclamador
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Material / Economic Self

We are living in a world of sale and shopping spree. We are given a wide array of
products to purchase from a simple set of spoon and fork to owning a restaurant. Almost
everywhere, including the digital space, we can find promotions of product purchase. Product
advertisements are suggestive of making us feel better or look good. Part of us wants to have
that product. What makes us want to have those products are connected with who we are.
What we want to have and already possess is related to our self.

Belk (1988) stated that “we regard our possessions as parts of our selves. We are what
we have and what we possess.” There is a direct link between self identity with what we have
and possess. Our wanting to have and possess has a connection with another aspect of the self,
the material self.

The material self, according to William James primarily is about our bodies, clothes,
immediate family, and home. We are deeply affected by these things because we have put
much investment of our self to them.

Self

Body

Clothes

Immediate Family

Home

Material Self Investment Diagram

The innermost part of our material self is our body. Intentionally, we are investing in our
body. We are directly attached to this commodity that we cannot live without. We strive hard
to make sure that this body functions well and good. Any ailment or disorder directly affects us.
We do have certain preferential attachment or intimate closeness to certain body parts
because of its value to us.

There were people who get their certain body parts insured. Celebrities, like Mariah
Carey who was reported to have placed a huge amount for the insurance of her vocal cords and
legs (Sukman 2016).
Next to our body are the clothes we use. Influenced by the “Philosophy of Dress” by
Herman Lotze, James believed that clothing is an essential part of the material self. Lotze in his
book, Microcosmus, stipulates that “any time we bring an object into the surface of our body,
we invest that object into the consciousness of our personal existence taking in its contours to
be our own and making it part of the self.” (Watson 2014) The fabric and style of the clothes we
wear bring sensations to the body to which directly affect our attitudes and behavior. Thus,
clothes are placed in the second hierarchy of material self. Clothing is a form of self-expression.
We choose and wear clothes that reflect our self (Watson 2014).

Third in the hierarchy is our immediate family. Our parents and siblings hold another
great important part of our self. What they do or become affects us. When an immediate family
member dies, part of our self dies, too. When their lives are in success, we feel their victories as
if we are the one holding the trophy. In their failures, we are put to shame or guilt. When they
are in disadvantage situation, there is an urgent urge to help like a voluntary instinct of saving
one's self from danger. We place huge investment in our immediate family when we see them
as the nearest replica of our self.

The fourth component of material self is our home. Home is where our heart is. It is the
earliest nest of our selfhood. Our experiences inside the home were recorded and marked on
particular parts and things in our home. There was an old cliché about rooms: “if only walls can
speak.” The home thus is an extension of self, because in it, we can directly connect our self.

Having investment of self to things, made us attached to those things. The more
investment of self-given to the particular thing, the more we identify ourselves to it. We also
tended to collect and possess properties. The collections in different degree of investment of
self, becomes part of the self. As James (1890) described self: “a man’s self is the sum total of
all what he CAN call his.” Possessions then become a part or an extension of the self.

We Are What We Have

Russel Belk (1988) posits that “...we regard our possessions as part of ourselves. We are
what we have and what we posses.” The identification of the self to things started in our
infancy stage when we make a distinction among self and environment and others who may
desire our possessions.

As we grow older, putting importance to material possession decreases. However,


material possession gains higher value in our lifetime if we use material possession to find
happiness, associate these things with significant events, accomplishments, and people in our
lives. There are even times, when material possession of a person that is closely identified to
the person, gains acknowledgment with high regard even if the person already passed away.
Examples of these are the chair in the dining room on which the person is always seated, the
chair will be the constant reminder of the person seated there; a well-loved and kept vehicle of
the person, which some of the bereaved family members have a difficulty to sell of let go of
because that vehicle is very much identified with the owner who passed away; the favorite
things are symbols of the owner.

The possessions that we dearly have tell something about who we are, our self-concept,
our past, and even our future.

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