The Looking Glass Self and The Golden Mean

The digital image “Looking Glass Self” was specifically created after Seth of emailed me to contribute a piece to a series he was creating entitled Playing Favorites.” It is intended to reflect my on-going passion to express myself creatively. It is, if you will, an ‘inner self portrait” encompassing the concepts of The Golden Mean (both philosophically and mathematically). The Looking Glass Self (Charles Horton Cooley), from different periods of my life. In it I am observing both my present moment reality and my childhood innocence of the past. The child embraces art with uncensored passion and unconditional approval for its beauty. The image of the woman looking at the image of herself in the mirror, pointsto the same child-like adoration but is aware of the many social filters and judgements and how they color her purest imaginings and essence. Within the image, you will see the two sets of numbers, 2, which represents my desire for a simple unadorned life as an artist along with the Golden Mean equation of 1.6180339887 – a symbol I’ve tied to reflect the journey toward my desired life. They are often hidden within my art. Below are the definitions of "The Looking Glass Self" and "The Golden Mean"

THE GOLDEN MEAN - Philosopy (compliments of Wikepedia)

This article is about the philosophical concept of moderation. For other uses, see Golden mean. In philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, the golden mean is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. To the Greek mentality, it was an attribute of beauty. Both ancients and moderns realized that "there is a close association in mathematics between beauty and truth". The poet John Keats, in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, put it this way:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

The Greeks believed there to be three concomitants of beauty: symmetry, proportion, and harmony. This triad of principles infused their life. They were very much attuned to beauty as an object of love and something that was to be imitated and reproduced in their lives, architecture, Paideia and politics. They judged life by this mentality.

The LOOKING GLASS SELF - from Wikepedia

Created by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902 (McIntyre 2006), the looking-glass self^[1] is a sociological concept that has three major components and is unique to humans (Shaffer 2005). According to Lisa McIntyre’s The Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology, in the looking-glass self a person views himself or herself through others' perceptions in society and in turn gains identity. Identity, or self, is the result of the concept in which we learn to see ourselves as others do (Yeung & Martin 2003). The looking-glass self begins at an early age and continues throughout the entirety of a person’s life as one will never stop modifying their self unless all social interactions are ceased. Some sociologists believe that the concept wanes over time because only a few studies have been conducted with a large number of subjects in natural settings.

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