What is this “you do you” thing?
What does it mean for you to do you?
If it’s a sign of our pervasive narcissism, as some believe, it expresses one of the original meanings of narcissism…
that is, using one’s body as a sexual object. Before narcissism referred to
self-love and to self-esteem it had a more sexual connotation.
To be more precise, British sexologist Havelock Ellis used
the term narcissism to refer to people who masturbated excessively.
By now, it feels quaint. In our sexually enlightened age we
are loath to say that anyone masturbates excessively. When was the last time
you heard anyone say that it was possible to have too much sexual pleasure? Or
that we should cast judgment on the different ways to obtain said
pleasure?
Call it a sign of pervasive narcissism, if you like, but it
is also a sign of cultural decadence.
This raises the question of whether you do you because no
one else wants to do you or because you do not want to do anyone but you.
One ought to mention that doing you is really not the same
as being you. Doing involves an action; being does not.
So, I disagree with Colson Whitehead’s notion that “you do
you” is equivalent to: “Be yourself!”
In his words:
Wherever
you hail from, you’ll recognize “You do you” and “Do you” as contemporary
versions of that life-affirming chestnut “Just be yourself.” It’s the gift of
encouragement from one person to another, what we tell children on the first
day of kindergarten, how we reassure buddies as they primp for a blind date or
rehearse asking for a raise. You do you, as if we could be anyone else.
Depending on your essential qualities, this song of oneself is cause for joy or
tragedy.
This feels slightly confused to me. Of course, you can adopt
any one of a number of personae in our everyday life. We act differently when
we are professionals, parents or lovers.
True, “just be yourself" is encouraging, but it tells someone
to relax and not try so hard to assert a persona that seems false and put on. "You do you" aims at your moral being, in the sense that it is excusing your moral dereliction. "Just be yourself" recommends that you relax. It does not say what you should or should not do.
Of course, a shark or a tornado is defined by
certain actions. It seems an inevitable part of the natural order that animals
act like the animals that they are.
When we encounter a horse or a pig, of course we do not
encourage it to be itself. An animal does not have the choice… unless it can
talk and exercise free will.
Those who are trying to define what it means to do you
suggest that it correlates with notions like:
Haters gonna hate.
Lovers gonna love.
The ignorant gonna ignore.
But what does it mean?
Let’s try to define it.
As it is now being used, the locution suggests that have no
real free will in choosing what to do or not to do. This means that you have no
real responsibility for choosing to do one thing or another.
If you are a lover you will love. You cannot help yourself.
You should not be held responsible for your actions, because your being makes
them inevitable… beyond your control.
It is strange to think that love and hate are intrinsic to
who you are, however.
To the extent that the phrase defines modern narcissism, it
offers a convenient rationalization for amorality.
To clarify the issue, Whitehead recalls the fable of the
scorpion and the frog.
In his words:
You
will recall the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog. The Scorpion needs a ride
across the river. The waters are rising on account of climate change, or
perhaps he has been priced out of his burrow, who knows? The exact reason is
lost in the fog of pre-modernity. The Frog is afraid that the Scorpion will
sting him, but his would-be passenger reassures him that they would both die
if that happened. That would be crazy. Sure enough, halfway across, the
Scorpion stings the Frog. Just before they drown, the Scorpion says, “Aren’t
you going to ask why I did that?” And the Frog croaks, “You do you.”
One accepts that the early version of the fable does not include
the line: “You do you.”
What is the moral of the story?
One might suggest that it’s a lesson in narcissistic amorality,
but it also shows that it’s foolish to trust a scorpion.
In that case, it means: know thy enemy.
Whitehead notwithstanding, Obama’s new deal with Iran, such
as it is, sounds like the frog’s deal with the scorpion. Can Iran be trusted, even
if it knows that its attempt to destroy its carrier, the USA will lead to its
own destruction?
More saliently, can Iran be trusted, even if it knows that
any attack on Israel will produce uncountable casualties?
When Bret Stephens wrote about the concept, he was referring to
President Obama’s seeming incapacity to look presidential, to manifest the
dignity of his office.
Obama, he suggested, is more concerned with looking cool and
insouciant than in looking dignified and in commanding respect. Thus, it has happened that has looked clownish when occasions have required seriousness.
Stephens explained:
What
it’s about is showing just how totally relatable and adorably authentic and
marvelously self-aware is this president of ours. “Can I live?” the president
says when caught shooting imaginary hoops in his study by a young visitor. “You
do you,” the visitor gamely replies before walking off.
Yes,
you do you, Barry: It’s what your political career has always been about, from
your myth-memoir “Dreams From My Father” to your well-nurtured cult of
personality to the coterie of flatterers with whom you have surrounded yourself
in office to the supine and occasionally complicit news media that have seen
you through six years of crisis, failure and scandal.
“You do
you” is the ultimate self-referential slogan for the ultimate self-referential
presidency. It’s the “be yourself” piety of our age turned into a political
license by Mr. Obama to do as he pleases. It’s what drives his political
choices: the immigration amnesty; arbitrary rewrites of the Affordable Care
Act; the Environmental Protection Agency’s coal rules; the $128
billion in
settlements the administration extorted from six banks convicted of no
wrongdoing.
Stephens is defining a personality-type, a persona, a mask
that one might put on. Obama is not doing Obama. He is not acting like the
president. He is pretending to be above it all, to be too good for the office,
to be too good to do the job.
It’s a defensive posture, used to cover up the fact that he
has no idea what he is doing.
We might, in our narcissistic age, an age where we believe
that our mirror image, our persona is who we truly are, confuse a mask for face…
because acting with presidential dignity is having face… but still we ought to
know better.
I tried to tell my wife that there is no "I" in Mother, but there are 2 "I's" in Narcissist.
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