Self Creation: A Utopia of the Self

Jadwiga MIZIŃSKA

Zakład Filozofii Kultury, Instytut Filozofii, Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii, Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, pl. Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland , Poland

Abstract

Utopia is traditionally conceived in terms of a collective subject, such as a state, a society or a nation. However, the modern consumer neoliberalism, which apparently renounces both ideology and utopia, proposing the attitudes of realism and pragmatism, has nevertheless engendered a particular form of utopia, namely, creativism, which is to be a prerequisite of individual self-creation. Self-creation manifests a belief in the limitless possibilities of modelling, or even creating, the self. The motivation behind self-creation is identity acquisition. Simultaneously, there functions an ‘identity market,’ offering various identity models as well as specialist services enabling fast identity acquisition. The utopia of individual self-creation bears marks of an ideology. Under the guise of enhancing autonomous choices, it ultimately leads to identity unification, since it encourages the shaping of a ‘market’ type of personality and the view of human beings as commodities to be sold, at a possibly highest price, on the omnipresent market of goods and services.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Keywords:

self-creation, creativism, market, identity, utopia, ideology