Thursday 23 October 2008

A little matter of identity

There is a common tendency these days to reduce all sorts of utterances to the level of being "about identity". It's really unhelpful in the sense of limiting communication (and being anti-therapeutic).

Picture what's happening in the following:

"I'm feeling sad these days, because I have too much to do."

"Sad?! Woohooo! That's your identity!"

"I'm feeling desolate because my brother died. I really don't know who to turn to!"

"Desolate!! Woohoooo! That's your identity!"

"I feel yearning, like I miss certain aspects of the country I was born in. Sometimes the loss of home and country really gets to me."

"Yearning?! Woohoooo! You're a racist!"

Such is the addiction to identity that we have, that we can barely hear what the other person is saying.

And then we have the followers of this or that ideology. Let us take the "Nietzscheans", for instance.

The writer himself said: "Here are some notions that are specifically MY truths -- they may or may not apply to you. I am, as it happens, a bit of a misogynist, with a certain amount of contempt for women."

His listeners go: "Misogynist?! Woohooo! That is both your and my identity!!!"

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Cultural barriers to objectivity