Customer Reviews

The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation

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This is the most coherent, wise and well-founded book I have read on the topic of how we react to the stresses of postmodernity, which mainly involve historical dislocations (which are traumatic), the mass media revolution, and the threat of extinction. We can react to these by becoming flexible, or protean, which has the potential to create life-affirming species, or communal, consciousness. We can also close down and express some degree of dogmatic or fundamentalist (antiprotean) beliefs. In the process of describing the psychology behind this, which is backed up with interesting interview information, Lifton gives us the most cogent psychological explanation of the kind of fundamentalism that leads to terrorism that I have ever seen. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Nothing characterizes the modern age so much as change. Whereas individual of the past could orient their lives within the framework of absolutes recognized by their cultures, we are cut adrift in an ever-changing sea. Yet, we survive and thrive. How? Dr. Robert Jay Lifton explains in this book. He describes "proteanism", the individual's ability to re-create himself as exterior conditions demand it, just as the ancient Greek god Proteus could shapeshift as needed. For anyone grappling with constructing a meaningful life within the rapid changes of the modern world, this might be the best book ever written.

Originally published in 1993, Robert Jay Lifton's The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation explains the emergence of a new mode of fluid individual self, protean self, in the fragmented contemporary world. As Lifton articulates, three historical forces, "historical dislocation, the mass media revolution, and the threat of extinction," released proteanism, which makes it possible for humans to reconstitute themselves according to the rapidly changing environment. Proteanism, in short, is a survival technique in the fragmented and chaotic world in which we are living. However, as Lifton clarifies, there is another way for individuals to respond to ever-changing and confusing environment, which he calls "fundamentalism and fundamentalist self." He writes: "More than imposing restraints on the self, fundamentalism mounts - in the service of an agenda of its own - an all-out attack on various manifestations of proteanism." I found Lifton's discussions of proteanism extremely insightful and enlightening. I highly recommend this book to anybody who is interested in understanding our contemporary world and ourselves in it.