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The Protean Self by R. J. Lifton, Basic Books, pp 262, $25

Robert Jay Lifton has written some fine books that have examined trauma
and the evil people can inflict on each other. The Protean Self is learned,
personal, packed with references to poetry, painting and politics, but somehow
rather disappointing.

Lifton argues that our sense of self is changing in response to social
and technological changes, and named his book after the Greek sea god Proteus,
who was able to alter his shape at will. We, too, are in flux and in fragments,
aware in the post-Freudian world of the many bits of ourselves that go to
make up the whole, or not so whole.

One difficulty with the book is that Lifton sometimes seems to suggest
that a key difference between our advanced civilisation and that of Rene
Descartes, David Hume and others is that they wrestled with the problems
of philosophy in a fax-free, modem-free world. There were many problems
of which they were unaware – the trilocation of time, for example. Descartes
knew what time it was. He was not obsessed by the fact that when he was
having lunch in Paris, it was dinner time in Tokyo – a major mind, and appetite,
warp for your intercontinental pundit, who also remembers that the last
time he had dinner in Tokyo he was remembering a power breakfast he once
had in Los Angeles.

I am being frivolous, but that is what Lifton’s slightly smug tone elicits.
He argues that Sigmund Freud broke us down into ego, id and superego, but
did little to encourage change or integration. Freud was resigned, reckoning,
more or less, that all was for the worst in the worst of all possible worlds.
Hardly a bizarre conclusion, given the state of Germany in the 1930s.

Lifton does offer some interesting chapters. There are potted case histories
of high achievers, and an account of discussions with Chinese men and women
who lived through Mao Tse-tung’s various revolutions and explained to Lifton
how they had to change to survive. But he seems too optimistic about his
main thesis.

Travel and communications have been revolutionised. We are the first
people who can go from London to New York and back in 24 hours. But does
that alter our psychology that much? Especially when airports look the
same all over the world? Does the speed of travel make it easier for us
to adapt to profound social changes? In many ways, the developed world is
becoming much the same, from Athens to Santiago. The self may travel more
miles these days but perhaps it crosses fewer canyons.

The area the book explores is fascinating, but Lifton is too ready to
pat us on the back for being so fluid, so self-aware, so good at coping
with our many selves and so damned modern in our global village. Many chapters
talk of achievers and those with ‘high goals’. The self for many people
may be more stubborn, rooted and primitively clinging. We can see more of
the world than ever, but there is plenty of evidence (anecdotal, as is Lifton’s)
that suggests it is awareness of other cultures that makes people resist
change.

David Cohen founded Psychology News and is a film maker.