Introduction

Symbols And Deception, And The Social Murder of Identity
by Vahik Ovanessian, Ph.D.

This book is about the fascinating phenomenon of misperception of reality and how this leads to loss of identity. Our habit of understanding the world via generic meanings associated with the symbolic appearance of everything around us subtly seduces our sense of judgement into oblivion, separating us from ourselves; we lose our identities. But this is not natural to human ways of life. Economic, political, social, and cultural systems and processes in society are what set this intriguing process in motion—a process that profoundly affects our personal lives, as well as our institutions and the larger society we confront every day. Freedom and genuine, humanistic democracy is the simple condition that will desymbolize social interactions and processes. And there would be no need to misperceive reality. The book is written for the general intellectual public; yet, it is also a theoretical work. It is written in a nonesoteric and nontechnical language; it avoids the "academic privatization" of knowledge. The book blends psychology, economics, politics, philosophy, and sociology into a unified approach for making sense of our lives. The ultimacy of human dignity and happiness is what guides the analysis and method of the book.

I was watching the winter Olympic games a few years ago. The events became more exciting each day. The supreme athleticism and competitiveness of the participants seemed to surpass achievement. I became absorbed in the games and found myself rooting for certain athletes or certain countries. Invoking my citizenship of this universe, however, I had to contend with my partiality toward certain countries, because it was clearly at odds with my convictions about the brotherhood or sisterhood of all the people on this earth. Something more interesting, however, intrigued me. Only fractions of a second defined the winners and losers. Athletes who finished one hundredth of a second faster in a slalom competition received the medals and were hailed as heroes, while others who finished microseconds later were shown sympathy as losers. What if, instead of having three medal designations of gold, silver, and bronze, we had ten medal designations of gold, platinum, titanium, silver, bronze, nickel and so on. Then the athlete who finished fourth would be a winner instead of a loser. This thing gets even more absurd, as sometimes only the gold medalist is considered a winner, and the rest all join the ranks of the vanquished.

The medals, which are symbols of triumph and excellence, cloud our sense of reality; they interfere with our ability to understand what the symbols supposedly represent. The reality is that all four or five or ten athletes who finished within a few tenths of second of one another have demonstrated supreme athleticism, energy, determination, and beauty. All of them are absolutely worthy of praise. More importantly, all of them should be judged in our eyes similarly. If we feel sorry for the fourth place finisher, we have lost all sense of reality. Designations based on absurdly small increments of time mean nothing; they are nonsense. More importantly, they distort our sense of judgment and our sense of reality. Such nonsensical designations create imaginary social content or reality. Millions of people, for example, see the gold medalist, or the country he or she represents, as a winner, while the fourth position is viewed as representing defeat, failure, or something to be ashamed of.

Our life experience and social existence is replete with reality distortions such as this. This book discusses the fascinating phenomenon of misperception of reality, and how symbols seduce us toward this conceptual intrigue. The book also explores how people lose their identities through social, political, economic and cultural processes, and how this is aided by the misperception of reality and the use of symbols.

Chapter one, in an excursionary manner, provides examples of how various political, economic, and sociocultural phenomena are perceived as something other than what they truly are. Social phenomena are misperceived by degenerating into symbols. Familiar symbols such as money, price, time, etc., are explored as to how they distort our comprehensional abilities.

Chapter two discusses some of the processes through which we lose our identities thanks to the economic, political, social, and cultural environments in society. Misperceptions of reality-partially produced by our symbolic world-are inseparably involved in these processes. A brief discussion of symbolic interactionism is also included.

Chapter three discusses some of the social and personal manifestations of the process of loss of identity and the dynamics of objectification. Social phenomena are pervasively and deeply colored by this process. The manifestations of objectification and loss of identity are explored in various areas such as science, mental illness, love, etc.

Chapter four discusses how the objectification of humans and the deceptive power of symbols turn people into unloving, uncaring, and sometimes fanatically hostile people who can turn against fellow human beings.

Chapter five suggests it is true, humanistic democracy that allows people to be themselves, to develop "self"-revealing identities. Democracy will also desymbolize life, and there will be no need to misperceive reality.

© Vahik Ovanessian, Ph.D.

About the Author

Studied sociology, but my love is psychology. Hence, my work tends to be social- psychological. I think true knowledge about society and social interactions can be gained only if it can be explored and described within the context of everyday life. Why ignore what is abundantly around us and engage in abstract discussions? For years, in my university years, I sat thru social science courses and did not understand. Now, I feel it was because we were not discussing the realities of life. As some people have noted, things are not what they appear to be; this further makes "seeing" the reality a bit difficult. The symbolic nature of what surround us present an appearance that are not quite what they seem to be. My book tries to decipher the symbolic world and get to the reality that is there to see. I think all social sciences should be humanistic. That is, in order to truly understand society and ourselves, things need to be perceived and analyzed with the ultimacy of human freedom and dignity in mind. My second book is going to describe how the learned absence of such a perspective prevents us from understanding society and ourselves.