Illich/ABC, V, The Self

This chapter explores the Western concept of the self arguing that it is as much an alphabetic construct as word and memory, thought and history, lie and narration. Narration and the self have become as inseparable as the epos and its singer in oral times: The writer spins the story as part of his self.

No language can get by without a first person singular, which in some languages is demonstrative—for example, the Hebrew ani that acts like a finger turned backwards—and in other languages sets the speaker off from the rest. But, unlike the “I,” most epochs got along without a self. Where there is no alphabet, there can neither be a memory conceived as a storehouse nor the “I” as its appointed watchman. With the alphabet both text and self became possible, but only slowly, and they became the social construct on which we found all our perceptions as literate people.