Self-Consciousness Raising

What is the self? Do we all have one? Is it best treated with Botox or with books? Is it grounded in genetic concrete or manufactured by cultural circumstances? How can you tell the ersatz from the genuine article--and who's the best judge? Is having a self the same as having an identity, or are the two sequential, a successful excavation of one's "inner essence" leading to association, political and otherwise, with a group of like-minded essences?

The questions may sound as if they're lifted from a ditzy and dated issue of Psychology Today, but they are in fact subjects of heated debate in cutting-edge intellectual circles. Few historians (other than some queer ones) participate in such debates; most would claim that they're above such trendy foolishness, though the real reason may be that historians are a stodgy bunch--they're conservators, after all, and of The Past no less, that currently scorned, "irrelevant" territory.

But now along comes a young historian named Daniel Hurewitz. With his first full-length book, Bohemian Los Angeles (a guidebook preceded), he jumps feet first into the recondite realm of essences and identities, and does so with the aplomb of a philosopher manqué. Hurewitz's impressive debut marks--to the extent one can ever predict such things--the arrival of a future scholar of the front rank. The imaginative boldness of Bohemian Los Angeles will inevitably draw counterfire. As I participate in that rebuttal, I hope the reader will keep in mind that I do so from an overall vantage point of admiration.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.