The Undefining - Who Are You?

May 27, 2007 05:06

I pushed very hard on definitions recently, in What's the point in discussing a word's definition. However, there's more to the term "definition" than just words.

Definition is not simply a bridge between vocabulary and concept space. There is, after all, the additional question of identity, of who you are. And what defines you. What does it mean to be defined, really? Simply put, it means that at a certain point, something is no longer you.

But what was the position I posed in my writings on compassion? What is compassion? As I describe it, compassion is the creation of equality, of sameness. By becoming more and more inclusive of some particular thing, you create higher and higher degrees of equality, and this equality is what you want to achieve in love. But there's a different, and now I think better, way of describing compassion.

Compassion is the opposite of definition. It's the unmaking of identity as a solitary unit. If a definition is a boundary, then compassion is its fuzziness and permeability, allowing the free exchange of existence between spaces. With compassion, identity becomes a strange and undefinable concept that skirts the borders of perception. Who are you? No one and everyone. There is no atomic human being; there are merely amalgams of possibility.

Take this in the other direction to show the power of the idea. Discompassion, then, is an extremity of definition. The word I prefer to use in this case is Discrimination. This is what you have when you look at something and reject it. This is what outcasting is, on both sides. The in-group defines itself as above the outcast, and the exile defines himself as removed from it. Lines are drawn, and backs are turned.

Now, the reason I started writing this post was as a more general grounding from which to answer John's assertion that marriage is a kind of formalization of the exclusive intimacy that is derived from the need for people to couple.

I once asked the_sinistral why people marry. He explained it to me in a bit of a story, but the crux of it was the desire that something good last forever. This made sense, and I understood it, and I find it terribly damning of the human race.

Let me explain why.

What is marriage, actually? We know it's a contract, but what is a contract? A contract is a definition. It's a set of rules governing conduct and consequence. Well, this goes nowhere we haven't seen. So, let's look at it in different terms.

Marriage is an act of identity creation. That's why you change your last name, however the tradition is in your culture. (I rather approve of the Icelandic one, which doesn't require a surname change.) But how is it creating the identity?

In one sense, it's absorption. In our traditional American culture, the patriarchy absorbs the wife into the family. But more generally speaking, it's a white picket fence. If you live inside the fence, you're married. Outside the fence, you're not. And thus my question: why is it that everyone outside the fence needs to be excluded?

Why do people cling to this notion that, if they draw up the appropriate documents, everything will be fine and dandy and happily ever after? Why does a relationship need to be a kind of property, something that's mine, but as importantly, something that's not yours?

compassion, love, identity

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