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The Saturated Self: Dilemmas Of Identity In Contemporary Life
Today's ever-expanding communications technologies force us to relate to more people and institutions than ever before, challenging the way we view ourselves and our relationships. This powerful and provocative book draws from a wide range of disciplines—from anthropology to psychoanalysis, from film and fiction to literary theory—to explore these profound changes in our understanding of self-identity and their implications for cultural and intellectual life.
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
March 17, 2008
Are people still talking about post-modernism in graduate school? Or are we onto something else now? This book could be Post-Modernism and You. It's an introductory work explaining how the post modern world affects individual identity, or at least how that worked in the 1990's. Not sure if we're still working on this, but if we are, five stars!
January 23, 2014
One of those rare social science books that blew my mind, and I read it 22 years after it was published. Highly relevant commentary on the self in postmodern society. Take Gergen's discussions and use your brain to apply them to today. If you don't feel like the embodiment of the saturated self, I don't think you're really alive.
August 23, 2009
I have to admit - I can't get enough POMO! I know, slap me, and slap me again for using the cheesy abbreviation of the term, but it's the truth... I thought I had my fill back in the 90's, but now I have a pile of books from the library and most of them are POMO-themed, some of them I've already read and some of them are new to me...
The Saturated Self is one of the rereads. I read it around '95 and remembered only that I liked it enough to remember it without disdain. Now, having reread it I can say that the book is a great middle-ground overview of the Self living in a Postmodern world.
The book is a great Psychological dissection of certain modern constructs that influence our psyche: gotta love the picture inside of the Playboy cover of Jessica Rabbit. Underneath the picture the author asks "When one's erotic interests are aroused by the body of Toontown's Jessica Rabbit...are these interests still human?" Hmmm? That's a deep question... no sarcasm there, really, it is... and that's just one of many questions you'll find yourself wondering about inside this great book.
The writing style is also pretty general and reader friendly without being bland. Gergen avoids all the pedantic pitfalls that most POMO books fall into: mainly run-on sentences.
Highly recommended if your here wondering what you should read next on the overwritten subject of POMO - you should read this... and besides, who can resist the subtitle: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life...
The Saturated Self is one of the rereads. I read it around '95 and remembered only that I liked it enough to remember it without disdain. Now, having reread it I can say that the book is a great middle-ground overview of the Self living in a Postmodern world.
The book is a great Psychological dissection of certain modern constructs that influence our psyche: gotta love the picture inside of the Playboy cover of Jessica Rabbit. Underneath the picture the author asks "When one's erotic interests are aroused by the body of Toontown's Jessica Rabbit...are these interests still human?" Hmmm? That's a deep question... no sarcasm there, really, it is... and that's just one of many questions you'll find yourself wondering about inside this great book.
The writing style is also pretty general and reader friendly without being bland. Gergen avoids all the pedantic pitfalls that most POMO books fall into: mainly run-on sentences.
Highly recommended if your here wondering what you should read next on the overwritten subject of POMO - you should read this... and besides, who can resist the subtitle: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life...
July 1, 2024
I saw a review that said this was a useful introduction to postmodernism, which I agree with. I thought this would be a more McLuhan-esque book in terms of its analytical framework, but it ended up spending more time contextualizing postmodern philosophers which i still found useful since I don’t know if I’ve encountered something that effectively and comprehensively contextualizes the postmodern turn. Glad I found it!
October 30, 2021
30 yıl geride
April 28, 2024
És delectable Ilegir Ilibres sobre el nostre món contemporani escrits en el segle passat perquè trobo molta autocomplença en pensar condescendentment: encara no heu vist res nois, ara existeix tiktok. El llibre es va publicar el 1992 (quan pensaven que el fax tenia futur).
Gergen parla de com les tecnologies de la comunicació han alterat les nostres relacions. Estem exposats durant tot el dia a una multiplicitat de vides i perspectives. Això condueix a un "jo" saturat de les identitats d'altres. Ja no podem arribar a una identitat "autèntica" o "essencial" perquè aquesta es troba en un procés constant de construcció i deconstrucció. I perquè la distinció entre vertader o fals s'ha tornat imprecisa. Les veus externes que parlen dins nostre comporten una reiterada reflexió irònica sobre nosaltres mateixos (com jo he fet a l'inici ara que ho penso).
Gergen parla de com les tecnologies de la comunicació han alterat les nostres relacions. Estem exposats durant tot el dia a una multiplicitat de vides i perspectives. Això condueix a un "jo" saturat de les identitats d'altres. Ja no podem arribar a una identitat "autèntica" o "essencial" perquè aquesta es troba en un procés constant de construcció i deconstrucció. I perquè la distinció entre vertader o fals s'ha tornat imprecisa. Les veus externes que parlen dins nostre comporten una reiterada reflexió irònica sobre nosaltres mateixos (com jo he fet a l'inici ara que ho penso).
February 25, 2008
Cultural studies at its finest.
March 6, 2009
A really great read--surprisingly engaging and salient. My only complaint was that, like many scholarly texts, it fell apart at the end.
June 13, 2023
In a world where a randomly assembled anthology of post-modern short stories can be put together in an arbitrary order and form a coherent postmodern novel, it is both difficult and superfluous to attempt to find in this collection of postmodern essays the singularity of thought that is promised both in its thesis and the author’s repeated insistence that he is still, somehow, entirely on point. In its prescription and conclusion, however, is the most delightful convergence not of thought but the shape of thought, like the Hegelian mothership calling all its neo Marxist, postmodernist and feminist scouts home, the synthesis that arises from the call for synthesis, the step that we skipped over when we went from the discoveries of multiple antitheses straight to the rejection of the concept of theses.
Notes
From small enduring communities to vast ever-increasing arrays of relationships.
Postmodern condition: self existing in state of continuous construction and reconstruction - each reality of self gives way to reflexive questioning, irony and playful probing of another reality.
Taste afraid of strength. Genius despises the rein. Ubermensch as integrator of reason and passion, the chaos of creative energy into the order of life works.
Music from Wagner’s expression of unarticulated emotion to Stockhausen/Cage organization of sound based on systematic, technical foundation.
David McClelland’s experiments in India trying to train ‘achievement motivation’ in individuals as the driver of national economic prosperity
Technologies of social saturation infuse partial identities that populate the self and cause the multiphrenic condition, the vertigo of unlimited multiplicity.
sweeping overlapping low-tech saturations of social life: people into proximity, range of others, diversity of relationships: Railroad, Public postal service, Automobile, Telephone, Radio broadcasting, Movies, Printed books
Social saturation of high-tech: Airlines, TV: self multiplication, Electronic communication
Populating of the self means the selves we acquire can contribute to inner dialogue - invisible guests, social imagery, social ghosts - friends/family (dominant father)
Internal conflict: capacity for contradiction as essential to the practical demands of contemporary society.
Vertigo of the valued: infinite expansion of opportunity and availability
Expansion of Inadequacy: Ever widening gap between what we understand and what we ought to. Range of acquaintances/media means new array of criteria for self evaluation: work hard, cultural sophistication, political savvy, appearance, family, well traveled,
No one value recognizes the importance of another. Investing in duty blinds one to spontaneity’s value. All voices at odds with current conduct are internal critics, robbing action of its potential for fulfillment.
Thin line between rationality and rationalization based on the views of others in your culture.
Notes
From small enduring communities to vast ever-increasing arrays of relationships.
Postmodern condition: self existing in state of continuous construction and reconstruction - each reality of self gives way to reflexive questioning, irony and playful probing of another reality.
Taste afraid of strength. Genius despises the rein. Ubermensch as integrator of reason and passion, the chaos of creative energy into the order of life works.
Music from Wagner’s expression of unarticulated emotion to Stockhausen/Cage organization of sound based on systematic, technical foundation.
David McClelland’s experiments in India trying to train ‘achievement motivation’ in individuals as the driver of national economic prosperity
Technologies of social saturation infuse partial identities that populate the self and cause the multiphrenic condition, the vertigo of unlimited multiplicity.
sweeping overlapping low-tech saturations of social life: people into proximity, range of others, diversity of relationships: Railroad, Public postal service, Automobile, Telephone, Radio broadcasting, Movies, Printed books
Social saturation of high-tech: Airlines, TV: self multiplication, Electronic communication
Populating of the self means the selves we acquire can contribute to inner dialogue - invisible guests, social imagery, social ghosts - friends/family (dominant father)
Internal conflict: capacity for contradiction as essential to the practical demands of contemporary society.
Vertigo of the valued: infinite expansion of opportunity and availability
Expansion of Inadequacy: Ever widening gap between what we understand and what we ought to. Range of acquaintances/media means new array of criteria for self evaluation: work hard, cultural sophistication, political savvy, appearance, family, well traveled,
No one value recognizes the importance of another. Investing in duty blinds one to spontaneity’s value. All voices at odds with current conduct are internal critics, robbing action of its potential for fulfillment.
Thin line between rationality and rationalization based on the views of others in your culture.
June 20, 2022
Interesting to read this some 30 years after publishing to see which predictions came true, and which didn't. A lot of it really is relevant and it's fascinating to me that he made such statements before social media came about, which is pretty much the epitome of what he means when he says "technologies of social saturation." That said, I found that he lent too much credence to the exact delineations of romantic/modern/postmodern, not enough to how these categories mix and meld and coexist. Like I think according to his definitions, today it's popular to be "modernist" in the realm of science but also "postmodern" with a tinge of "romantic" in the realm of ethics & we're not really becoming more relativist or uncertain in either area, it's just that what we define as "correct" (both morally and epistemologically) changes (i.e. expands to account for more variables). I felt like his supports for declaring with such certainty that "we live in a postmodern society therefore yolo" were like, grade school reasoning tbh. ("wow I got mail from 5 different countries today, this dilutes my sense of self and I don't know who I am anymore" lmao?)
I think there is generational disconnect for me here. gergen was writing at a time when the world was on the precipice of the changes he describes, and by now we're living that reality he predicted. So the things he takes care to explain are things I take for granted now (blah blah ok boomer), and what he takes granted as reality are, to me, figments of the past. Which makes it a curious read but not necessarily something I would point at and go "YES, this."
Also his psychological assertions about language and emotions literally pained me cuz they were so bs LOL. It's true that language influences our reality but it doesn't create it and i dunno how internally unaware u have to be to conjecture that it does. He also makes a lot of sweeping statements about the psychological reality of all people that are just unsubstantiated. Like maybe you personally feel destabilized in our postmodern world sir gergen but plz point me to the study or interviews where you have observed others say the same; and even then it's famously difficult to qualify the nuances of ppl's personal experiences in a study so even if he cited things I wouldn't trust it anyway, but that's an aside. Anyway, since his personal observations don't match up with my personal observations I have decided to conclude that he is wrong :)
I think there is generational disconnect for me here. gergen was writing at a time when the world was on the precipice of the changes he describes, and by now we're living that reality he predicted. So the things he takes care to explain are things I take for granted now (blah blah ok boomer), and what he takes granted as reality are, to me, figments of the past. Which makes it a curious read but not necessarily something I would point at and go "YES, this."
Also his psychological assertions about language and emotions literally pained me cuz they were so bs LOL. It's true that language influences our reality but it doesn't create it and i dunno how internally unaware u have to be to conjecture that it does. He also makes a lot of sweeping statements about the psychological reality of all people that are just unsubstantiated. Like maybe you personally feel destabilized in our postmodern world sir gergen but plz point me to the study or interviews where you have observed others say the same; and even then it's famously difficult to qualify the nuances of ppl's personal experiences in a study so even if he cited things I wouldn't trust it anyway, but that's an aside. Anyway, since his personal observations don't match up with my personal observations I have decided to conclude that he is wrong :)
August 18, 2023
Get your annotation supplies ready! You’re going to take some notes! So many thought-provoking and perspective-changing points made throughout this book. As a social psychology lover and mft student, this was a must-read, and I am so glad that I did. This books added to my stance of the challenges postmodernist clinicians face when providing care similar to putting a bandage on a client while their house is burning and crumbling at their feet. We are extremely socially saturated, and the edition of the book I read didn’t mention the development of how social media worsens this problem (because I think this edition was published before Facebook became mainstream?). I would love to learn more about Gergen’s perspective with modern social media usage.
Some of my favorite quotes (out of the hundreds I annotated hahah)
“For good or ill, it is the individual as socially constructed that finally informs people’s patterns of action. And in the end, there is no means of moving past the constructions to locate the real.”
“Every decoding is another encoding.”
“Identities are highly complex, tension filled, contradictory, and inconsistent entities. Only the one who claims to have a simple, definite, and clear-cut identity has an identity problem.” - Sami Ma’ari
“To appreciate the possibility, two preliminary steps are useful: first to bid final adieu to the concrete entirety of self, and then to trace the reconstruction of self as a relationship.”
“The privileged reserve of objective truth”
Some of my favorite quotes (out of the hundreds I annotated hahah)
“For good or ill, it is the individual as socially constructed that finally informs people’s patterns of action. And in the end, there is no means of moving past the constructions to locate the real.”
“Every decoding is another encoding.”
“Identities are highly complex, tension filled, contradictory, and inconsistent entities. Only the one who claims to have a simple, definite, and clear-cut identity has an identity problem.” - Sami Ma’ari
“To appreciate the possibility, two preliminary steps are useful: first to bid final adieu to the concrete entirety of self, and then to trace the reconstruction of self as a relationship.”
“The privileged reserve of objective truth”
June 4, 2025
This book meanders all over the place in slightly drunken fashion, seemingly referencing every postmodern idea possible. Perhaps this meandering is intentional, part of the point: the author is conveying what it feels like to exist in a world where we are constantly bombarded with a flood of ideas, media, philosophies, technologies, and so on. In such a landscape, we struggle to hold onto the older sources of coherence that once glued together the modernist and romanticist experiences of selfhood.
One of the central ideas is that, until recently—with the development of sophisticated communication technologies—we lived in communities that were more geographically and ideologically bounded. Our interactions were largely limited to individuals within our immediate surroundings. Those who existed two or three notches beyond our local sphere remained distant and somewhat theoretical. Now, however, with the ease of global communication, we are exposed to visions of identity that differ significantly from those associated with the socio-geographical contexts in which our lives originally unfolded.
This shift has weakened the role of the family and the immediate physical community as anchors of identity. Instead, we are now able to engage with a wide range of disparate communities and, as a result, experiment with different forms of selfhood. The self becomes a more precarious, fragmented thing. Parts of our identity engage with knitting groups, Japan appreciation societies, online gaming fraternities, and so on. Because we are affiliated with so many different groups—and because our identity is distributed across these countless associations—we are rarely required to make any deep, sustained commitment to any one of them.
Our identities, in this view, are all surface and all play, constantly toggling between competing demands on our attention. This form of play might, in another frame, be empowering—akin to the positive potential explored by the psychoanalyst Winnicott. But Gergen presents it more as a prelude to the critique found in Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, which argues that we have sacrificed the deep, focused, novel-reading consciousness of the past for a shallow cognitive elasticity—one that skips restlessly across transient internet tabs.
One of the central ideas is that, until recently—with the development of sophisticated communication technologies—we lived in communities that were more geographically and ideologically bounded. Our interactions were largely limited to individuals within our immediate surroundings. Those who existed two or three notches beyond our local sphere remained distant and somewhat theoretical. Now, however, with the ease of global communication, we are exposed to visions of identity that differ significantly from those associated with the socio-geographical contexts in which our lives originally unfolded.
This shift has weakened the role of the family and the immediate physical community as anchors of identity. Instead, we are now able to engage with a wide range of disparate communities and, as a result, experiment with different forms of selfhood. The self becomes a more precarious, fragmented thing. Parts of our identity engage with knitting groups, Japan appreciation societies, online gaming fraternities, and so on. Because we are affiliated with so many different groups—and because our identity is distributed across these countless associations—we are rarely required to make any deep, sustained commitment to any one of them.
Our identities, in this view, are all surface and all play, constantly toggling between competing demands on our attention. This form of play might, in another frame, be empowering—akin to the positive potential explored by the psychoanalyst Winnicott. But Gergen presents it more as a prelude to the critique found in Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, which argues that we have sacrificed the deep, focused, novel-reading consciousness of the past for a shallow cognitive elasticity—one that skips restlessly across transient internet tabs.
April 3, 2025
Recuerdo que me cautivó cuando lo leí hace unos 8 años. Me encantó la parte en la que analiza las narrativas culturales en términos estructurales (esta expresión es de mi propia cosecha) como tragedias, comedias,... Me prestó una serie de herramientas para poder pensar sobre el yo en un mundo posmodernidad, complejo, con múltiples demandas que atender simultáneamente, etc... Estoy de acuerdo en que lo convertiría en uno de los primeros 2-3 libros que leer sobre posmodernidad si te dedicas a las ciencias sociales, por su carácter general, para todos los públicos, sencillo y práctico.
A los que habéis leído varios libros de Gergen, ¿qué otros libros destacarías de su obra? Agradecería alguna recomendación porque he leído citas de K. Gergen pero con los autores posmodernos me ha pasado varias veces que los títulos me resultan muy atractivos peri luego el texto es denso y me quedo atascado al poco de empezar.
Saludos
Sergio
A los que habéis leído varios libros de Gergen, ¿qué otros libros destacarías de su obra? Agradecería alguna recomendación porque he leído citas de K. Gergen pero con los autores posmodernos me ha pasado varias veces que los títulos me resultan muy atractivos peri luego el texto es denso y me quedo atascado al poco de empezar.
Saludos
Sergio
March 27, 2023
This book was dense and a bit challenging to read, but worth it for the insights on how social saturation has changed our lives, relationships, and sense of self.
October 27, 2023
The postmodern critique of modernism actually makes some really good points, but in-so-doing it releases a beast different from all beasts before it, terrifying and dreadful.
October 1, 2024
thick one, but love the theory, my concept of everything has dissolved!!
April 14, 2008
Liked the ideas, but the book could have been condensed into two chapters.
October 6, 2009
so far a very straightforward book about post-modern conceptions of the self
December 30, 2009
Reading this book sparked a personal intellectual revolution when I read it back in 1991. I'm still trying to work through all the implications.
May 20, 2014
Prescient
October 16, 2014
Very insightful.
February 16, 2015
Very enlightening. A recommended read for all.
December 20, 2010
Insidiously awful. Ouch.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews