The Performance of Self

How identity became something we show, not something we find

Ruins of Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

On the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, pilgrims were greeted with the inscription Γνῶθι σεαυτόν (gnōthi seauton), “Know Thyself.”

In the 5^th century BC, Aeschylus echoed this maxim in Prometheus Bound. Oceanus visits the chained Prometheus and, hoping to spare him further torment, advises him: “K…