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Ideologies of Experience is a vastly ambitious book, as suggested by its title and demonstrated in the diversity of topics covered in the chapters. The text interrogates certain intellectual and social trends that are preoccupied with trauma and assume an equation of truth with a moment of failing in knowledge, which may be experienced but is beyond articulation. The disintegration of the self that seemingly follows may be traced to many sources, one of which may be the aftermath of post-structuralism or what is today sometimes rather carelessly categorized as postmodernism (see Dews, 1987). The development of a real and theoretical attention to the critical purpose of what is labeled the self is Matthew Bowker’s main concern. Bowker grounds this notion of the self within a number of psychoanalytic approaches, drawing out its importance in tracing the fundamental felt sense of existence that serves as the root of higher functions. However, the self also refers to more nuanced actions, feelings, and judgments; these allow one to sustain oneself against the infliction of trauma, as well as the human capacity for choice, judgment, and freedom. He follows his line of inquiry through a spectrum of chapters, from reflections on John Dewey’s philosophy of education to Albert Camus’ play, Malentendu. Interesting chapters on the Japanese phenomenon of hikikormori and the exposition of the “state of nature” in political theory are also visited from the perspective of overturning apparent truisms about experience and the self.
Essential to Bowker’s exposition is Winnicott’s notion of the true/false self and the generative conditions of its mirroring and intersubjective co-constitution, leading to a mature, autonomous self. This sense of self is too maligned in current discourses, according to Bowker. Through readings and discussion with others regarding Winnicott, however, I sense that Bowker may utilize a rather less complex importation of the former’s ideas. This topic is fur