In a Hegelian sense there is never a personal identity without the life-world and nature, and the search for an inner person must be considered anthropocentric. Withoug Hegel's desire for the whole Adorno of the genuine Frankfurt School reproached the struggle for identity for being a violation of the human life-style and for the domination of theory over praxis. Adorno's self was constituted through negation, as a fragment, and along these lines the post-modern philosophy from Foucault to Derrida regards identity as a dead principle. A phenomenological description of the problems seems suitable for de-constructing the origin and constitution of the search for the inner person. A mask conceals the face and is not a part of the person.
Masks seem to alienate people.
We are urged to throw off our masks so as to come closer to identity. But the mask, too, has another side. To that extent the mask reaffirms the right of identity and is its fitting expression in certain social situations. The phenomenon of role is also ambiguous. The role must of course be performed by a person but its outline is prescribed by an external source.