What does it mean to have an “identity”? Seems like a lot of people nowadays are copping a lot of different identities. Is there any worth to personally identifying with a given concept?
One Doper, in a thread about coming out as lesbian, says to identify with anything is too limiting.
Another Doper, in a completely unrelated thread about cults, says a weak identity could leave one vulnerable to manipulation.
So while identities are possible traps for the self, they might also serve to protect it. Maybe the best way would be to build up a strong identity and keep it adaptable as needed? Use it as an instrument for effecting one’s will in life, but keep it as one’s servant, not one’s master. And SmartAleq, the Kinsey scale
0—1—2—3—4—5—6 (where 0 is absolute hetero, 6 is absolute homo, and 3 is bisexual)
shows how most people have some potential bisexuality in them, so I’m cool with that, even though I’ve never actually been bisexual. It can make a fun party game: Who would you cross the sexuality boundary for? Let your inner bisexual out to play. My answer: Johnny Depp. Flexing my imaginary bisexuality is playing with my identity, keeping it flexible, but strengthening it, not weakening it. Like hatha yoga for one’s sense of self.
For me, there’s who I am to myself and then there’s a carefully constructed simulacrum that I present to others as “who I am”. The latter is not a lie or misrepresentation at all — it’s a serious attempt to communicate. We communicate with symbols, make use of known categories, reduce complex mental constructs to abbreviated icons that represent them in order to get on with the sentence and the paragraph. The “me” that I present to the world is designed to evoke in folks heads, via things I have reason to believe they are decently familiar with, a close (if oversimplified) approximation of the “me” that I have in my own head.
I think some people rebel against the notion of “lables” because they want to be thought of as unique or special-- it’s ego. Then, those same people want to be accepted by society as “normal”, even though they chose to set themselves apart.
Perhaps people are spendint too much time worrying about their lable and not enough time living. Lables tend to sort themselves out, anyway, and really, they’re not for YOU to determine, but for OTHERS.
I see no need to go around the world proclaiming “I am a__________”. Let people meet me and discover who I am without placing myself into a category. I am Lissa, that’s all.
Or, alternatively, not as “normal” but as “special (in a good way)”. If you’re a Sarah McLachlan fan, perhaps you’re familiar with the song “Building a Mystery”, from Surfacing? Ooh, that’s cool and different and could add to my cutting-edge trendiness, I’ll add that to “who I am”! Ooh, look at me, everybody, I am so not just ordinary! Ooh, do not attempt to ‘label’ me, I am so beyond any category that you can just put me in, oh no, you must pay personal attention to me if you’re going to comprehend me. Not that you can, I’ll always say ‘No, that’s not it’ and ‘No, that’s still not it’, so you’ll have to keep studying me in further detail…
I’m not really sure I agree with you II Gyan II. On the one hand I think it is important to know and understand one’s self so there is stability and self-labeling would have some value there.
On the other hand, being pigeonholed into a category is unfair and personally restricting. For example: If I tell someone I am a straight male their expectations of me will fall into a certain line of behaviors and preferences. If I go on to tell them I enjoy cooking and knitting, I can sew very well and know the difference between gabardine and seersucker, I dislike most sports (except football) and I try to go tanning at least once a week, they get kinda confused (and subsequently think I am confused as well). This leads to the development of sub-categories and sub-sub-categories and the next thing you know I become (against my will I assure you) a “metro sexual”. I could digress into many other sub-classifications that only marginally describe me but in the end I’m just “N8”.
Which brings me to my point. Online, if I don’t tell you any personal preferences, then you don’t know male from female, gay from straight, black from white etc. Thus, without any hindrance of labels, it is still possible to have meaningful conversation and an interactive relationship. Granted, I do realize that after a few minutes of conversation certain aspects can be ascertained, I can usually tell the difference between masculine or feminine tendencies by reading the tone behind the words, but even this is unreliable. So, if we can interact, determine the common denominators and proceed from there without the predisposition of labels then where is the value in them? To save time perhaps, but how much time is saved using a system that is prone to inaccuracy? And then, if a system that works in a virtual world proves more productive and efficient, why couldn’t that system work in the actual world?
And, that is not even considering the inherent bias of social labels that lead to discrimination and prejudice before social interaction can even get started. Poor unbiased social interaction, we never got the chance to know ye.
In my opinion, labels are necessary to a point. I mean, we don’t have time to rattle off every single nuance of our personality. You need to narrow it down for practical purposes. That’s not to say that a “liberal” can’t also be a lot of things that aren’t normally considered liberal or that a “lesbian” can’t also appreciate the beauty of a nekkid man. I try not to get too hung up on labels, or my circle of friends, acquaintances and family members would consist of “me.”
On a most fundamental level, humans are **social **animals. It’s in our nature to be part of a group (or part of several groups). I am a member of this tribe; I speak this language; etc. As much as we all want to be inidviduals, it simply isn’t in our nature to stand completely apart. Hence the tension between the indivdual and the group. We want what we want, but we also need to be part of a group. I don’t think there is an answer of how to resolve that tension.
In fairness to Wesley Clark, it was his cult quote I lifted for my OP and forgot the attribution. Sorry 'bout that, Wes.
John Mace, I agree with your analysis of the situation, and as for a possible solution, I said in the toaster oven thread, “I only want the non-authoritarian sort of group that fosters the well-being of the individual to make her own decisions.” I’ve had the good fortune to be part of such groups, which is why I believe this is already a reality, not just a dream. In Reclaiming, we say to each other, “You are your own authority.” Identifying with a group doesn’t have to limit you, if you’re with a group that fosters individual growth.
Well to put it into a computer perspective. Without unique IDs we wouldn’t be able to talk to each other over the internet. My computer has an ID called an IP Address which helps your computer navigate a series of other identifiers in order to reach me and talk to me. Other things that make up the identity of my computer are the operating system (Windows XP), the web browser (Firefox) the processor (Pentium 4) and all of the hardware and software installed in it.
So your identity as a person is first identified by where you are in time and space. Your identity gives you a location which is measured in comparison to all of the other things that exist. So at the core of it, identities are signifiers that distinguish you from other matter and energy in the universe. This is taken down to the microcosmic level where social functions come into play. In our society we have a habit of oversimplifying things. We have such a desire to belong that we shape our criteria for belonging into very simple and easy to use archetypes, as most of us being Americans have no familial tribe to which we belong from which we may derive an identity. So we create metaphysical tribes based upon descriptions of activities we like to engage in. Examples of these are Goth, Raver, Hippy, Yuppie, Liberal, Feminist, etc… When we strip these down what it comes down to is that we are the sum of our experiences. It is our feelings and our knowledge that defines who we more truly are, that determine our place in the universe. In a society as complex as ours we have a large set of commonly held archetypes with which to identify ourselves, but none of them are truly accurate.
For instance, I am a Native American. Not only because I am descended from one of the native American tribes (Which I am) but because I was born here, my parents were born here, their parents were born here, and my lineage comes from many places in Europe. If I go to Europe, I would be an American, not a European. Now, it is very western to draw distinctions and compartmentalize the ideas of my genetic lineage. I once spoke to a Shaman about the idea of percentage of native American heritage I have, and he told me that this is a purely European construct. Human beings don’t seperate into percentages.
So, while identities are quite useful, we don’t maintain the same identities at all times and places, and so we oftentimes delude ourselves into believing we still maintain an old identity that is no longer an accurate description of who we are. You are not today, who you were yesterday, but the change is organic and happens over time. So we need an identity, but it’s important not to cling to false identities.
This topic reminds me of the song, “It’s Saturday,” by King Missile.
We create and assign identities because it’s a way to deal with the world. If everything were approached as a novel object, with no attempt to categorize, it would make life very, very difficult. The danger lies, as others in this thread have said, in mistaking an identity for the whole of your being.
I have a hard time with this sort of question because I’m not sure what people are pointing at when they distinguish “label” from “adjective”. A lot of the ‘labels are bad’ rhetoric comes across to me as making the argument, “I’m someone who but I don’t want to be referred to by a word that means ‘someone who ’.”
And I’m not sure I understand the whole identification-with process at all.
People change. Knowledge changes. If other people are acutely observant and analytical, then there is no problem. However, many people aren’t. Think of felons trying to get a job after serving their time.
