Relationships have history. The relationship we have with our environment has a history, a memory. The relationship we have with others has a history, and the relationship we have with ourselves also has a history. Our history determines how we interact with all these facets of life.
As very complex beings we learn, and continue to learn throughout our life, how we interact with our environment in the most efficient way possible. Efficient might mean taking shortcuts however.
Our brain does most of this automatically. We are not aware, unless we need to address something unexpected or something of importance. Most of the time we interact with the world through shortcuts. If we are wiping our hands we pick up a towel and use it. We might not be aware of the towel unless it is different (bright pink with green dots.) Otherwise, the utility of the towel suffices. We do not need to go deeper than that. The brain is very efficient at parsing the reality that we need, and nothing more. This is efficient and sensible with wiping our hands, but limited when we try and understand our world. Martin Heidegger the german philosopher in Being and Time (1927) called this form of shortcut "ready to hand." Such an awareness of an object that is limited to its utility. We forget the structure of an object and focus on its utility, it function gains prominence in our mind and all else is diminished. Taking this idea further, we can (and do) apply this utility to people around us. We forget the humanity behind a person and get angry when their utility is not realized (they wanted to do something other than fulfill our desires or needs.) And we do this with our own behavior as well. Most of the time we function as complex robots. We undertake repetitive task unconscious, as a matter of habit. Driving to work, driving back home, it is all done with minimal conscious thought. This is Pierre Bourdieu's concept of habitus, action that is relegated away from consciousness. And there other other facets of life where we hold a subconscious reality of networks. Especially as we become older and have more experience living, we build these habitus events to such an extent that we live our lives in an unconscious trance, what Heidegger calls "the nothing". Older adults get very good at this until something unexpected happens. Then what we thought was a simple task like driving, becomes an extremely complex and confusing task.
The reduction of competence among frail older adults is a perfect example of examining how these concepts determine our lives without us being aware of them. The easiest way to perceive this relationship with the world is that these layers of habitus build up into a source of capital. Capital refers to an investment--that we or others make--that we have access to. In most cases, capital resides independent of us. Bourdieu (1977) identified and separated such accumulated experiences into four basic capitals: individual’s economic capital (material wealth), social capital (social networking our friends and contacts) and cultural capital (knowledge, skills, education, and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society), later he included symbolic capital (honor, prestige or recognition). To this list we also included body capital (Antoninetti & Garrett 2012) which is the expectation, by you and others, that your body will function as expected within a familiar environment. And there are other types of capital. Civilization is an investment, a civic capital that we can access. Economist talk about "human" capital. The investment in yourself which is normally defined by formal educational. While biologists talk about biological capital (Kemp & Moore 1979). Geography has “place capital” (structures that enhance the utility of a place, eg roads, walkability, street lightning). The interaction between individuals and their environment takes place in a nebulous dimension. And you can further break the type of capital into different dimensions. But the gist is that relationships have history and build habits.
All philosophers extoll us that despite these unconscious constraints, we are however free. We are free to decide and self-determination. From Martin Heidegger to Paul Sartre there is this belief that being human means that we have some control. But why would we suffer this "anguish" of existence when we can ignore it and live in an unconscious mode? Why is Dasein--being in the present-- so important for Heidegger? Being a contrary, why not live in "they-selves" if the "our-selves" is so painful? If I was designing a new way of existing, would I elect to be aware of "being" and why?
Further readings:
Antoninetti, M., & Garrett, M. (2012). Body capital and the geography of aging. Area, 44(3), 364-370.
Bourdieu, P. (2011). The forms of capital.(1986). Cultural theory: An anthology, 81-93.
© USA Copyrighted 2015 Mario D. Garrett
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