A Question of Identity...

[mahf]

So much of the important stuff of life has to do with identity. We claim identities for ourselves, we hide them, admit to them, question which ones are real and which ones don't matter. We spend our lives negotiating with society to achieve certain identities, and much of our social interaction is spent confirming and reconfirming identities to

Comments

[terryostrich]

You're right. People are funny that way. We put so much weight into "what" we are, we get it confused with "who" we are. If I'm not a mother, wife, teacher, student,etc,then who am I? It's in our nature to continuously try to categorize our lives. Somehow, it makes it seem like everything is more in "control", and less like the inevitable chaos that we all fear. I think that's why change is so hard on us. We want things to be stable and in order. We want to hold on to these superficial definitions of who we are. For instance, we go through divorce, and of course the loss is devastating, but what is more devastating is that we put so much of our identity/status/title into that relationship that we seem to have lost ourselves along the way. Same with losing a job, or any other loss for that matter. As far as education goes, I think this labeling behavior is definitely one of our weaknesses as a culture. You are "smart/sucessful" if you receive a diploma, score well on the SAT, receive A's, get accepted into college (which is largely

[lesliev]

Sounds like you want http://www.montessori.org. But as for the issue of whether degrees really are a good way for employers to choose employees, yes and no. I don't have a degree - and am I a good employee? Yes I am. I am studying a BSc, and do any of the subjects have any relevance to my work? No, not much. But a degree is used as a first selector to narrow down the many many people clamouring for a job, and it selects people who are obedient, dedicated to a cause over many years simply for the sake of authority, and willing to learn even irrelevant things. A degree means that you can play by the rules and colour in the lines and will not cause too much trouble

[mahf]

What I'm saying is that its funny that we settle for easy, aggregate, "official" methods of identification rather than doing dirty work of figuring out for ourselves whether the person is going to be a good scientist, good editor, good advertising exec, etc

Response

[lesliev]

Lesliev has a point. Apparently you have not grasped it. What you have in mind is some liberal idea as to how things should be. Things are the way they are because that is how they have evolved. Societies demands dictate these things and human nature plays a part as well. There are some 6 billion people on this earth, no? They already did the master/apprentice thing, and since then things have evolved. In a few situations the master/apprentice relationship still exists, but for the most part that would be a very inefficient way to go about training all the workers to meet society's demands. The diplomas and degrees followed by GPA and such are simply ways to narrow down perspective employees. Nobody in their right mind is going to go in search of an employee by getting to know them and their work and then hiring them that way. That would take a very long time. First they look at degree followed by GPA. GPA so high, good hired. Tells them you were dedicated enough to complete degree with decent GPA so you will mostly

Re: Response

[lesliev]

I think that I did grasp his point as I do grasp yours. I am aware that these things are the way they are because they "evolved" as you say. They work very, very well for their purpose, which I would argue is efficiency. We want the most, best workers in the least time and energy and we want to be able to know that they are the most and best workers with as much certainty for as little cost as possible. Of course, there is the balance on the other side of not violating what we perceive to be human rights, and things of that nature. I don't mean to suggest that efficiency is the *only* goal, but I do mean to say that it is a large part what has caused this system to "evolve