Jacques Derrida Visits Cicely
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But there is more going on in these storylines. Both deny a concept that
Melon associates with Deconstruction but is really more a product of post
structuralist and post-modern theories: the idea of the “decentered” self The
traditional view of the self, the one at the basis of most psychological and
educational theories, is that each of us is rendered unique by the existence of an
inner, “core” self that is stable, has characteristics unique to the individual, and
is capable of development. This core is the source of individual meaning and
agency. It is what m ^ e s us who we are and motivates us to do what we do. The
concept of the decentered self denies the existence of this inner core. Rather, it
asserts that the human personality is comprised of a multiplicity of selves
constructed from cultural discourses or formed in response to our treatment by
various social institutions. Thus human utterances are not expressions of an
inner, core self but rather are expressions of discourse. We can utter only what
available discourses enable us to say, so utterances become expressions of an
ideology, not an individual consciousness. To the humanist accustomed to
thinking in terms of individual agency, the implications are unsettling:
individuals are not the source of meaning and initiative, so they lack autonomy
in thought and behavior. Put bluntly, these are the theorists that have proclaimed
the death of the author—and the individual.
“Altered Egos” resists the notion of the de-centered self Chris’s
feelings that he is one half of a divided self indicate that wfren he lost his sense
of uniqueness, he also lost his center, his core. The same goes for Joel: his
experience of a “personality meltdown” suggests he feels that his center has
dissolved into an undifferentiated mass. He also lost his center. When the
characters’ sense of difference is restored, so is their center, and they once again
feel they are themselves. Thus this episode reaffirms the existence of an
essential self centered deep down in the “that crazy intersection of sense, and
impulses and passion that we call the human heart.” In its discussion of authorial
intent, “The Graduate” makes essentially the same point. Recognizing Thayer’s
authorial intent as the source of the poem’s meaning also affirms the existence
of an essential core self with something unique to say. All three storylines at
once affirm the Romantic view of the individual and resist not only the notion of
the decentered self but also the erasure of individual differences by mass
marketing and media manipulation strategies that view human beings, as did
eighteenth-century thinkers, as essentially the same.
Larger Issues
But there are larger issues being negotiated here. Both episodes assert
the ability of difference to signify an objective reality outside ideology, one that
can ser