VLADANJE SOBOM: NUŽNI USLOV RAZVOJA LIČNOSTI, KVALITETNE KOMUNIKACIJE I DOBRIH MEĐULJUDSKIH ODNOSA

Abstract

The topic of self-government is closely related to the issues of ethics, morality, character and virtues, which are the study subject of both philosophy and psychology. Therefore, some scientific, sociocognitive and neuropsychological research which we refer to in our paper, have been approached from a philosophical perspective. In simple terms, science shows us what i possible and how self-regulation - which includes the function of self-control - works. Philosophy explains why, for what purpose is the capacity of personal self-government important. However, the boundary between the two disciplines is not immovable and impermeable. The philosopher uses and reflects on experience and scientific knowledge, and the psychologist relies on value assumptions and address value issues, as for example: what does it mean to be or become an integrated, mature, productive person. The terms of self-government, self-control, and self-management, in essence, have the same meaning, but different connotations. The first belongs to traditional philosophical and the others to contemporary scientific discourse. We have chosen as our primary expression  "self-government" in order to highlight the continuity between the long tradition of philosophical thinking and the latest psychological scientific knowledge on this complex ability. Whether we are observing it from a philosophical or psychological standpoint, we regard self-governance as a prerequisite for all life achievements and virtues. It is not an end in itself, but a capacity that enables the development of other potentials, competencies and skills, as well as the realization of values essential for the individual and society. Self-governance is a component inherent to patience, perseverance, endurance, moderation, fairness, objectivity, decency, kindness, and so on. It is indispensable in education, in negotiations, conflict management, informed decision making, in improving oneself and one's social relations. Just how instrumental the ability to regulate oneself can be is best shown in the fact that it can also serve negative, antisocial goals, when it is, for example, ingrained in calculative, vindictive behavior, in lying, deceit, prevarication, manipulation, and the like. In this paper, however, we are going to be dealing with self-governance as the ability that determines the qualities aimed at personality development where a person is both an individualized and a social being. So we observe self-governance through the prism of virtues modeled after the ancient Greek ethics as skills of excellence in the art of living with others in a community. Community life not only implies, but it is communication. As social beings who actualize their distinctiveness and uniqueness in interpersonal relations and communication, the issue of consciousness and the level of conscious control that we exert over our behavior when interacting with others is undoubtedly one of the most important and fundamental issues of human existence. The aim of this paper is to restore the repute of the idea of self-governance or self-control, which is nowadays perceived as, to say the least, dubious. Today, when individualism and hedonism are the order of the day, this concept is viewed as unpopular, it is perceived as an offshoot of the regressive and (self) repressive moralism. Contrary to that, we perceive self-government as a means of gaining freedom and the ability of self-determination, of crafting a well-rounded and balanced personality capable of forging harmonious and socially beneficial interpersonal relations. Some people are critical of the concept of self-control due to the misconception that this concept is just another form of the phenomenon of repression. When psychoanalysis, which introduced the notion of repression, spilled over into popular culture, people started identifying self-control with the traditional, undue and neuroticizing repression over oneself. However, self-control is the ability to keep under control, not repress below the threshold of consciousness one's emotions and reactions in different life circumstances, in order to survive and realize oneself in the community and achieve the goals one deems important. Unlike repression, self-control entails awareness of internal states, feelings, thoughts, emotions. Someone with a good command of himself doesn't suppress his impulses and feelings, rather he consciously avoids succumbing to them, while someone else is going to succumb to them, disregarding possible or probable devastating consequences. Repression is an unconscious defense mechanism. Not only is person unaware of the repressed content, he/she is not aware of the very process of repression. On the other hand, self-control is based on conscious metacognitive strategies. The automatism of binary thinking, functioning according to the principle "or - or", imposes, as self-evident, the question whether developing the capacity of self-control implies lack of spontaneity and authenticity. Authenticity and spontaneity are associated with being faithful to one's emotions ("following one's feelings" or "one's heart"), which are believed to constitute the essence of individuality, whereas self-control sounds like a necessary evil, a toll that has to be paid in order to adapt to society, which implies losing one's uniqueness and singularity. Here, the perception of both spontaneity and authenticity is rather problematic, and so is the superficially imposed equals sign between them. Often we interpret as spontaneous reactions that we have learned and that have become our unconscious automatisms. Misconceptions about the notion of spontaneity originate from the faulty and romanticized assumptions about the so-called "genuine" human nature, to which society is imposing artificial, arbitrary norms and rules. Thus, the authenticity is superficially interpreted as faithfulness to one's allegedly primordial nature. The rate and immediacy of unconscious automatisms deceives us into thinking that those are our authentic feelings. However, authenticity is something you have to work on. Higher developmental levels and the freedom of self-determination, which are the core of authenticity, cannot be reached following primordially predetermined paths, the way our body grows without our conscious participation. Individual ruled by the necessity of his natural spontaneity is by no means the same as someone who is a creature of freedom, someone who decides for himself, who relies on the act of decision making. On the path of becoming an authentic person, individual must overcome a host of external and internal resistances and obstacles, which requires strengthening of its capacity to govern itself. Instincts, urges, basic emotions are part of our nature, just as it is the case with animal species, whose behavioral tendencies are inborn, inadvertent, imperative. However, even the highest and most complex psychical functions of a human being have their roots in its biological nature. This is also true of the will coupled in the self-governing, that is, in the ability to choose the harder path, not conforming to our immediate urges. Neurosciences confirm the findings of the sociocognitive theory implying that almost every minute (except in case of a vital danger) man makes choices that impact both him and his surroundings. He employs his powers of self-regulation and self-control in an attempt to substantiate the future he wants and avoid the future he doesn't want. In our everyday life, however, we are often under the impression that the neurologically rooted self-regulation ability doesn't serve us as well as we would like it to, or that it doesn't function as naturally as the instincts and emotions that it should be regulating. Many factors are blamed for impairing the capacity of self-governance and the "reserve of will", among others - those of physiological and psychological nature, and factors arising from the natural and social surroundings. But we are interested in the question that science is not equipped to raise or answer: Do we have a moral obligation and responsibility to develop our more neuro-mental structures that, among other things, allow us to govern ourselves? If we know that a human being builds his identity, becomes a person, a personality, only in intersubjective communication space; that it is the very life in a community that person enters immediately after birth, that develops his cognitive and affective capacities as well as moral dispositions, then we believe that we are obliged to learn to govern ourselves. Therefore, we have chosen as the subject and the objective of this paper to rehabilitate and revive the old, and, in our opinion, everlastingly worthy concept of self-governing.