I'm just leftovers. Wait, what?

            Our discussion of Butler’s “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution” engendered, for me, a general confusion about the way that I ground my identity. Without grounding, the question of what is “real” within our identity reasserts itself at the forefront. Effectively what has happened is the loss of terms that we thought could help us secure a story of the self, and without these words, we lose what little grasp we had on ourselves as “self.”

              Admittedly, the presentation of the performance identity theory has weighty argumentative clout. But if what I am is either a.) what You make me, or b.) what I make myself for You, then what aspect of myself is left for simply Me? Performances require actors, but the actors are forgotten agents of the stage, and we are likewise ignored in our performances within the social theater. Performative identity takes away the agency of the character, but don’t we see agency as a particularly indelible aspect of identity when we contemplate the question “Who am I?” 

             I get that the relational capacity in which we are viewed has more impact on our behavior than we could ever possibly expound. I get that They are equally as indelible to identity as I believe agency to be, and that the performance of identity likely only ends with death. But is there a “me” in there somewhere that is just and only me? We briefly discussed that phenomenology swats away at this kind question, a question of noumena, a question of who I am as myself, because of the impracticality of exploring these kinds of questions without perceptual influence. But what if there’s another way? Maybe a phenomenal exploration can lead us to a noumena-leaning phenomena. Distinction-queer. Difference-maker confused. I could go on, but let me explain.

              There is a way in which I view myself as a person. That way is influenced by certain social factors from the get-go, but that way is essentially mine in that my view engages with my (socially-bounded) agency. In so many words, I have the tools with which to see and conceptualize myself, but my dirty-mean-creepy patriarchal uncle gave them to me. (These are my tools, there are many others like it but these tools are mine.). They are mine because of the unique way in which I received them. (Notice now that I’ve limited my essence as an agent to the narrative history of experiences I’ve had. I’m not sure I like that.)

              There is also a way in which the social-stage views me as a person. They also have a collective set of tools, determined mostly by the predominant understanding of how these tools work. They use their tools in, broadly, the same method because of social dominance.

              Both of these viewpoints, my own and the social, are adulterated by perspective. This adulteration is additive for both perspectives (imagine it like the telephone game, or like the progression in dueling carls).  Where this two viewpoints or categorizations of Me overlap, I approximate the closest thing I can get to a ‘me’ essence as described by the parameters of a conformed society (Society, man.). But where they differ, well, that’s where the magic happens.

              Inconsistency between the two conceptions describes the areas in which the actor deviates from their performative character, and that is what is left for Me. Society, (Society, man.), is the most likely to hold and maintain a pure conception of the requirements of the performer via conformation. So why is my view different, why does it differ? You rebel you. You’ve just identified your identity-critical factors. These factors are identity-critical because they are unique to you in the way you arrived, and hopefully eventually became aware of (I think this part is the most fundamental in personal identity), these differences. Your view differs because your conclusion did not follow from strict conformation with the methods of the whole. Your agency was directly involved in the application of the tools you were given, your agency distorted the tools via your perception of them, and your agency was engaged in the recognition of differences. Identity thus becomes a cycle of evaluation. Your personal viewpoint of yourself is suppressed by the social conception of your identity when you cease to engage your agency in acts of discernment. You most closely approximate yourself as yourself when your performance of the character-identity demonstrates blatant reflection upon how well that character is explanatory of you, or how much you think your identity approximates that of the character. 

              But still, identity is a verb. It remains an activity of the individual, and activity implies interaction, action and reaction. Agency always ends with us back upon the stage.  What’s left for the actors is the remnants of the performance that are left out from the mold of the character that the audience took away. Still, it seems pretty unfair that the answer to the question “Who am I?”, on this conception, is leftovers.