Sprocket 3: Identity
Identity is a famous slippery philosophical concept, with their being as many different definition for an individual as their are philosophers. The problem here comes down to that the feeling I have that there I something of Me which ‘owns’ m life, something, some soul which possesses it, is very difficult actually pin down what this something is. I mean here is it merely the fact that I am a bag off gristle, bones and blood (a Bod0? Or That somehow I have a sequence of perceptions ? or else that I am a sequence of memories / Or a relation with another/ Te trouble with all these definitions that they appear on the face of it simple. All or any of them might be said to be a part of an identity, and yet every one to them appears to lead beyond the self and so do not configer on it any really special status. Or often, one set of definition will appear to draw upon another level, and cite it, and yet then be unable to configure that level as an identity. For example I might that being a new as to be a point in perception. That is I am a unique perspective. A unique series of perceptions amongst the absolutely invented set of perceiving that would otherwise be possible.
A perfectly reasonable definition and yet I This individuality needs to of course be based in something. That is I immediately wonders exactly what this point of perspective is. What makes it different The answer of course tin the eye, and the body. I am different then in the act of being a perceiving eye’s is then the body as it exists at time and a place that actually makes me different, that demands that I have a perspective. But this in turn does not answer the problem. It merely replaces it with another. Tat is how does the fact that I have a body at a point give me that feeling of being special of being me. After all al elements in this equation, a body, a perspective and a set of perceptions are fundamentally a personal. There is nothing innately individual about them, and yet I appear to claim there ought to e. That is they ought simple when conjoined to define a self: But the problem always is how/
That is the apparent easy answer merely begs the entire question; Or perhaps better it translates the problem into a new but rather more complex relationship. This fact Nietzsche to cm that ht codification of simple experience as mine in the phrase I Think (all these thoughts are mine) was a daring and very problematic assertion; one that assumes that this action is thought, and that there needs to be an I (or it) to do the thinking; a thought that is singular, and that is inclusive. The I think the flounders because treats a feeling of identity, making hat ought to be proclaim actually appear normal and natural.
Given this difficulty it is no wonder that the word Identity, forms as perfect ‘sprocket’ ; that in a word that not only says something on many different registers, and at many different levels, but also arranges sentences where elements from one relativity, one series of thought are rather natural conjoined to another. Identity is then the word we se to describe how thoughts of nationhood become caught up with a personal anxiety (who am I, I am British); and with having a pass port (this tells the state who I am) or a face book account (that everyone ought to know of a me). This a sprockets works then be lifting elements from the one sphere of being a me and placing them into another rather differing sphere; it thereby makes the odd seem natural and real. In the rest of this essay I number of these spheres will be identity, and then the nature of this cross stitching with which forces these world one into the other will be assessed; These different spheres might be very loosely identified as the personal, the biological , the economic and the national. Such elements might in earlier times have been held together in faith. In a sense god’s existence is to be the ultimate synthetic of these elements. If God is then the problem of identity vanishes (as God forces all these elements o work on in the other0. The probe is that is one faith in god’s power is reduced or modified than the problem of being oneself comes to the fore.
The personal itself has two rather clear levels. Firstly, there is that level of one feel tenderest about That is a that unity of perception, memory and feeling that constitute a live. Such a sequence of feelings has of course mainly different levels: It therefore includes the feeling of indulgence r hate I have for that younger self I once was; Or it includes my ambition, my hope for a future; or my immediately property, and the things that define the way an “I “occupies this life; or again the feelings I have about my abilities and y prospects. As such, such an identity is a veritable hot house of squirting ideas and thoughts. However a Heidegger reminded us these ideas are held together be one tragic. What defines a being ultimately is less a relationship with a God and more a relationship with death. Know I am and that I function as a thing because thatching has a continuity of experience e(or memories) arranged within a specific time span. I am therefore caught up in giving the one life. A life which will lend, and end which then haunts the most diverse of my experience, and forces them all tender the same basic rubric: they last as long a s a life lass: They are then that which filling this life here: A life that thereby becomes mine by proxy.
Secondly there are those thought we want others to have about yourself. A stamp we want to impose upon another mind, such that they can do little other than think of us in a certain way. Identity is therefore the me that you carry, the Me I hoe to make in a you. IS such of course it is perilous, I cannot every control easily that 'thou 'think on me. You might loath me in all the smiles and nods. This identity is then poised very precariously. This is surely the attraction of social games and network sites on the internet. Such sites either give one the ability to conjure up a new reflection of themselves in the minds of others (now understood as their followers or friends i.e.readers). Or else allow and individual to conjure up a new identity for themselves, and then attempt to relate to others in the virtual actions of that identity.
Moreover as these two forms of personal identity are very strongly conjoined, this precariousness matter. My own personal identity (that is what I feel bout a me, how I hold that rag bag of beings together) is clearly tied to the idea of how others me. In my thoughts of their thought I Reflect myself back in a thousand shards of being. What others think, therefore really matter to a Me (to the founding of the me). It is not something that I can simply whitewash or ignore or misplace. Indeed the pitching of these reflections – that is that point I start to build my own personal identity in the supposed reflection of another, s the most tricky thing in being a human. It is very easy o pitch this thought in utterly h wrong place One can then very easily attempt to build the me too early (and assume hat other are nicer about one that they are) or too late (and be too humble) or lurch about not knowing what to think. Advertising and many ‘modern’ make over images will over course feed upon such this problem…A problem which God and religion was a superb answer to. God was the pitching of the me in the ultimate Other: The name for that which s able to be at once in others and yet founding and function across a me; the true inhibiter of all worlds. The one being who would ensure that the ‘sprocket’ of identity was naturally unified and made real. The problem with the modern situation is that this basic belief, this basic synthetic of the sprocket of identity is no longer as convincing as it was: Hence fashion very easily becoming the new God (that the new way we want other as others) to understand us ( as of course are advertising and ideas of image)
The biological me has three main heads. First and foremost there is the immediate conjunction of this me with the idea of personal identity. To have a body is therefore somehow in inhabit a thing which I need to feel an ownership of, and which I can use to express a something about myself to the world. I body build or become fat, I don to care for or about my appearance, a tattoo myself into oblivion, all in the name of sell expression. The body becomes then in its living response in I silent witnessing and reflections of my acts the perfect stooge upon which \ can white a being. Is difference to (and is and my reflective partner) becomes then yet another texture (albeit a very important one) to be a more upon. Secondly the body is of course the bag that contains my life within it. It actions and itself health are then peculiarly caught up with what I am. To be a body, is therefore always o rely on a possible silent traitor. That is to rely on something that ultimately will betray your (and its life). . One therefore has a body as a unique point of worry or concern. A thing I alone and worried absolutely about (my health my life or not. I is then that thing we all pry into and dissect (living or dead) or force feed drugs or modify in the hope that it will reposed to make our lives easier.
Thirdly and very recently, a body is of course thought to be the custodian of what we really are. That is it is in the body that then genes or any other form of biological inheritance are housed. It is then for some modern minds, very much the housing grounds for identity. This idea (or more sentiemnt0s very much a religious one. One looks to the body, and to whatever information where might be said to be held within it (random configuration of DNA) to say something meaningful about yourself and our being, in the same way that god used to make a world meaningful.; with God is we willed was necessarily valuable; likewise twitch the gene is it is recorded their it must matter it must be important. The recording itself therefore confutes the value (as God ‘s wall also gave a value). It becomes enough therefore to give identity meaning if that identity I somehow eternal written in chemical sands DNA).The body or better tiny fairly random fragment, are given a clearly mystical power to allow for identity and to make it really matter.
Economic identity is very much the creation of capitalism. Once one has the idea that everyone really ought to act as if they were a consumer, who needed to make a series of rational spending decisions, then the idea of identity was fundamentally to the way we govern society (or understand its governing). Exactly how a government act or what or who it thinks matters depends then upon its definition and assumptions about the economic identities of its populations The fact then that those individual mode not behave in a way that can be easily predicted (even en mass) is one of the deep economic problem of our time. A problem that makes prices fluctuate randomly, and undermines or destroys all possibilities for long term planning. So that our (ht is the pople’s0 failure to have an identify, an economic series of rational principle as such, becomes a real political headache. It is perhaps because of this that economists and their politicians invent clichés: they talk of mondeo men or Ab1’s or even ‘difficult times’ in the hope at they are somehow describing the ‘real world’ of identity: that is they are describing something that member or the population might recognise and relate to. , some principle or series of principles that would then describe a part of their action. This recognition by the public of the definition the economists use will then mater. For this recognition will itself of course change the behaviour pf the public who then realize ho they ought to behave (they respond to these difficult times or they realize they are an AB) and so become more ‘rational’ (that is more predictable). Capitalism is the system that at first foistures its citizens a necessarily individuality (in the form of a finite budget) and then cannot easily handle the outcomes f that individuality. It then needs to resort to other methods (including advertising and excessive profits) to force that individuality to behave!
On the level of society and the nation identity matters in three distinct manners. Firstly there is the so called crime of identity fraud. The effect of a system that demands that everyone fixes their identity within a series of number (births, deaths, finance pin number etc) is that these numbers could be owned by the wrong person. The system therefore pen itself up o a fraud, and therefore worries at the possible for such frauds (and looms o ways founded in bilgy or personal experience) to ground numerical identity within absolute qualities ‘fact’. That is the economic identity of a number is reflected into (or conjoined) with the other reforms of identity, in the hope that it can be grounded. The effect ought of course of this move is that the state starts to pry into elements of our individual identity that were before always been beyond the states concern. Secondly, building on this last point, the modern nation for numerous reasons is far more worried about who actually lives within its (very artificial) borders, and wants to use identity as a way to police this worry. Identity, my identity itself is then take as something that ill or will not justify my presence (or my ability to travel). And yet in policing this identity, n forcing it to become public, and forcing individuals to confess in a series of bureaucratic tasks (pass port applications, Id cards etc), the state of course interferes with identity. It tries to impress its own power upon it. It attempts to ensure that it matter in a new way to its people; or at last it has a new power over them. In do doing it of course alienates as much as it polices and risks always creating new criminals. Thirdly there is that traditional link up between personal identity and the nation. A link up distinct from the bureaucratic, and expressed in a spectrum that starts with patriotism and ends in racism. This spectrum itself rather ‘interested’ in the new ways a state policies or wants to splice its people. It sees them a reflect of its own power, and so would want to conjoin with these otherwise purely bureaucratic process (the issue of who is or it not given a passport, who is ‘’allowed to stay’ or not is therefore a very hot political potato. All the more so as in the world where the west has forced ‘economic freedom (for good or ill) on all other nation. The effect of this freedom really ought to be to free up labour ( genuine free market cannot work without it), The result is then that the system we have imposed economically runs directly counter to the political system (or individual nation states) we world also like to force upon other peoples. The result is then potential chaos, as individual leave their ‘own (and very false) countries and go where the wealth is. The appal to national identity and to the bureaucratic paraphernalia is then an answer to this problem : it answer the paradox of our own action, b simply deny it, or asserting national rights in the face of actually economic policy. It is therefore a reaction founded upon unreason, and one the ‘radical; nationalists’ no doubt feed upon.
The role then of the word identity is to be at all these very different levels all at once. Is functions then in not allowing one to speak in many different ways an to many different audiences, it also opens up creativity where one spheres is crashed into another and forcefully conjoined t it. The two look one into h other ,and become a police or a thought. Biology is then caught up in national dimity (as both DNA and ‘blood’); or again personal choice becomes caught in economics though advertising (as does the worry we have of how others think about us). On gives then many sliding identity, many points one was one and then “puff, bang!” one is the other. A movement that of course allows great productivity and much passion, and yet which clouds o man judgements, and makes the world so much more complex. To hold own an identity is therefore to be face to face with an alchemy, whose effects are unstable or problematic. An alchemy that is very much a modern problem, and one we look like being no near to solving.
