identity and ideology
I had a very interesting conversation with my trumpet-playing friend Tom last night. He made the assertion that we are what we do; our identities are defined by our actions. I'm not sure if I agree with that. It might be arguing semantics, but I would say that my actions are indicative of my identity, but they do not formulate my identity.
Identity is such a strange, difficult issue, but it's one that's very important to me. I find myself saying things like, "I'm a Christian, but not one of THOSE kinds of Christians" and "I enjoy some parts of geek culture, but I don't think of myself as being a geek." I am a vegetarian. I am a musician. I am someone who would rather go out than stay home. Is this my identity?
In her essay, "Women and Religion," Patricia Martin Doyle defines identity as, "that partly conscious and partly unconscious inner sense of personal continuity, sameness, and uniqueness that is confirmed daily in one's actions and in the mutual affirmations of others. It is the affirmative sense of 'This is who I am,' of 'This is the real me,' which a person possesses when feeling most real, energetic, and confident. It reaches into one's past and into the future as a perception that one's self is both given and chosen. Given, for there is the sense of an unshakable basis to the self that is mutually recognizable by oneself and others as inherently one's own. Chosen, for there is the sense that the person actively wills to be the person that is given."
When do I feel most real, energetic, and confident? I can think of a few situations. It sometimes happens when I'm listening to or playing music. It happens when I'm particularly struck with the awesomeness of creation, which usually means that I'm experiencing a particularly beautiful natural environment or that I've just fully comprehended a particularly beautiful mathematical principle. Finally, it happens when I'm in church or in some other spiritual environment. But Doyle doesn't say that those things are my identity, she says that the feeling of self-perception is my identity. Hmmm.
There is more to identity, however, than personal identity. There is also communal identity. Very commonly in our world, groups of people gather together to separate themselves from the rest of the world, forming a group identity distinct from their social surroundings and (usually) coming up with a catchy name for themselves in the process. Vegans, Hasidim, Geeks, Goths - these are all identities.
But are they all defined by their actions? I don't think they are. I think identity is the result of belief, not action. The vegan identity is not defined by what they will and won't eat, but rather by the beliefs they share that drive them to make the dietary choices they make. The Hasidic identity is not formed by the laws and customs they keep, but rather by the commonly held beliefs and values that make them strive so diligently to keep those laws.
Perhaps the same thing is true for personal identity. Perhaps when I ask, "what do I believe?" I am doing nothing less than asking, "who am I?" Perhaps identity and ideology are indistinguishable. Perhaps the reason that so many adolescents go through an identity crises is because they are questioning their beliefs and the beliefs of their community.
I'm not the first person to think this. Erik Erikson says, "ideology is an unconscious tendency underlying religious and scientific as well as political thought: the tendency at a given time to make facts amenable to ideas, and ideas to facts, in order to create a world image convincing enough to support the collective and individual sense of identity."
Now, personally, I would argue that ideology need not be an unconscious tendency but instead can be consciously manageable, but perhaps that is because I'm living in ultra-pluralistic, post-modern New York and Erikson is writing about generally homogeneous societies. Side note: maybe that's why America has very little sense of national identity - because we are a multi-cultural nation containing incredible numbers of conflicting ideologies.
Elsewhere, Erikson says, "we can ascribe to ideology the function of offering youth (1) a simplified perspective of the future which encompasses all foreseeable time and thus counteracts individual 'time confusion'; (2) some strongly felt correspondence between the inner world of ideals and evils and the social world with its goals and dangers; (3) an opportunity for exhibiting some uniformity of appearance and behavior counteracting individual identity-consciousness; (4) inducement to a collective experimentation with roles and techniques which help overcome a sense of inhibition and personal guilt; (5) introduction into the ethos of the prevailing technology and thus into sanctioned and regulated competition; (6) a graphic-historical world image a framework for the young individual's budding identity; (7) a rationale for a sexual way of life compatible with a convincing system of principles."
Items two and six resonate with me mostly strongly as being reflective of my own search. Hm, interesting.
In conclusion, I have two indisputable facts:
1) Formulating and understanding my identity has been a vastly important and elusive goal for me for a long time.
2) I constantly struggle and tinker with beliefs I hold, yearning to believe that my worldview is mature, consistent, and true.
I now believe the first sentence to be a restatement of the second. Here, then, is my second goal for this journal: to chronicle my struggle to build a worldview so that at some point in the future, I can look back, reread, and know who I am.
Identity is such a strange, difficult issue, but it's one that's very important to me. I find myself saying things like, "I'm a Christian, but not one of THOSE kinds of Christians" and "I enjoy some parts of geek culture, but I don't think of myself as being a geek." I am a vegetarian. I am a musician. I am someone who would rather go out than stay home. Is this my identity?
In her essay, "Women and Religion," Patricia Martin Doyle defines identity as, "that partly conscious and partly unconscious inner sense of personal continuity, sameness, and uniqueness that is confirmed daily in one's actions and in the mutual affirmations of others. It is the affirmative sense of 'This is who I am,' of 'This is the real me,' which a person possesses when feeling most real, energetic, and confident. It reaches into one's past and into the future as a perception that one's self is both given and chosen. Given, for there is the sense of an unshakable basis to the self that is mutually recognizable by oneself and others as inherently one's own. Chosen, for there is the sense that the person actively wills to be the person that is given."
When do I feel most real, energetic, and confident? I can think of a few situations. It sometimes happens when I'm listening to or playing music. It happens when I'm particularly struck with the awesomeness of creation, which usually means that I'm experiencing a particularly beautiful natural environment or that I've just fully comprehended a particularly beautiful mathematical principle. Finally, it happens when I'm in church or in some other spiritual environment. But Doyle doesn't say that those things are my identity, she says that the feeling of self-perception is my identity. Hmmm.
There is more to identity, however, than personal identity. There is also communal identity. Very commonly in our world, groups of people gather together to separate themselves from the rest of the world, forming a group identity distinct from their social surroundings and (usually) coming up with a catchy name for themselves in the process. Vegans, Hasidim, Geeks, Goths - these are all identities.
But are they all defined by their actions? I don't think they are. I think identity is the result of belief, not action. The vegan identity is not defined by what they will and won't eat, but rather by the beliefs they share that drive them to make the dietary choices they make. The Hasidic identity is not formed by the laws and customs they keep, but rather by the commonly held beliefs and values that make them strive so diligently to keep those laws.
Perhaps the same thing is true for personal identity. Perhaps when I ask, "what do I believe?" I am doing nothing less than asking, "who am I?" Perhaps identity and ideology are indistinguishable. Perhaps the reason that so many adolescents go through an identity crises is because they are questioning their beliefs and the beliefs of their community.
I'm not the first person to think this. Erik Erikson says, "ideology is an unconscious tendency underlying religious and scientific as well as political thought: the tendency at a given time to make facts amenable to ideas, and ideas to facts, in order to create a world image convincing enough to support the collective and individual sense of identity."
Now, personally, I would argue that ideology need not be an unconscious tendency but instead can be consciously manageable, but perhaps that is because I'm living in ultra-pluralistic, post-modern New York and Erikson is writing about generally homogeneous societies. Side note: maybe that's why America has very little sense of national identity - because we are a multi-cultural nation containing incredible numbers of conflicting ideologies.
Elsewhere, Erikson says, "we can ascribe to ideology the function of offering youth (1) a simplified perspective of the future which encompasses all foreseeable time and thus counteracts individual 'time confusion'; (2) some strongly felt correspondence between the inner world of ideals and evils and the social world with its goals and dangers; (3) an opportunity for exhibiting some uniformity of appearance and behavior counteracting individual identity-consciousness; (4) inducement to a collective experimentation with roles and techniques which help overcome a sense of inhibition and personal guilt; (5) introduction into the ethos of the prevailing technology and thus into sanctioned and regulated competition; (6) a graphic-historical world image a framework for the young individual's budding identity; (7) a rationale for a sexual way of life compatible with a convincing system of principles."
Items two and six resonate with me mostly strongly as being reflective of my own search. Hm, interesting.
In conclusion, I have two indisputable facts:
1) Formulating and understanding my identity has been a vastly important and elusive goal for me for a long time.
2) I constantly struggle and tinker with beliefs I hold, yearning to believe that my worldview is mature, consistent, and true.
I now believe the first sentence to be a restatement of the second. Here, then, is my second goal for this journal: to chronicle my struggle to build a worldview so that at some point in the future, I can look back, reread, and know who I am.