#27 | How to think about the stories we tell about ourselves with Professor Simon Critchley

In this episode I am sitting down with Professor Simon Critchley: 

He is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research.

Simon and I discuss the role of story and narrative in making sense of our biographies. 

We explore how the stories we tell about ourselves often rely on stability and coherence. The reason is to convey authenticity. And perhaps in some ways to fit a mold others recognize and value. 

In practice, though, we often don’t live in a very consistent or coherent way. As Simon and I discuss, insisting on the constancy and continuity of the self is a bit of a fiction.

Against the narrative version of the self, living out a coherent story, Simon pits the “episodic self”. On this account, we live out our biographies in fits and bursts, stops and starts; in episodes, which don’t necessarily add up to a coherent whole. 

Rather than seeing this fragmentation as a problem, as a kind of identity crisis, leaving people to wonder who they “really” are, Simon celebrates the “freedom *from* identity”. 

He argues that our attachment to “authenticity” is restraining, and that there is freedom in trying out new episodes, new versions of the self, all the time. 

There are many sides to us, and we constantly evolve - especially if we are open to getting outside our heads and looking at what’s going on in the world. Here, we connect back to episode #24 on this podcast with Christian Madsbjerg in which we discuss how to see with neutral eyes (I can really recommend this conversation; please do check out the episode if you have a chance).

In the end of our conversation, the version of the self that we land on is that of the curious observer; less obsessed with their own narrative and presentation of self, and more open to new impulses and people. 

I found this conversation insightful and really refreshing - and hope you do, too.