Thinking About: Identity, please! 

I’m not usually one for ‘talking’ about so-called hot-button topics, but I’ve been watching and thinking about the seemingly constant flood of stories around Identity and thought I’d throw in my 10 cents into the maelstrom. A couple of things struck me about the whole thing. Looking at the issue from 20,000 feet – as a cultural issue – it certainly appears to be very much to be purely (or mostly) a Western problem. Looking at this further, although identity politics pops up in stories across the ‘West’ it seems to me to be primarily am American issue. This, of course, may simply be because the media focus on American stories rather than it actually being a US issue but still, I think the epicentre is located in North America. Drilling down further, the crisis in identity seems to be located in urban rather than rural areas (I’d like to see a chart – if such a thing was possible – relating identity angst to population density) and it seems primarily located in the ‘young’ - the under 40’s. So, if all of that is true (which is debatable as these are my impressions taken primarily from media reports rather than any kind of scientific study), the question is: Why here, why those groups and why now? Now I’m pretty confident that identity issues have always existed. What seems to be happening presently is that Identity (in multiple ways) is front & centre in our culture – again taking into account the seeming group focus outlined above. Is it just that, especially with social media allowing such things to be debated between millions of people and previously isolated individuals finally discovering that they are, in fact, not alone in their own particular identity crisis? I think that there’s *some* truth to that, but I don’t think it’s the whole truth. But I do think that a finger can be pointed at social media for lighting the fuse of the present mess we’re wading through. But that fuse had to be attached to something already existing, otherwise – no BOOM, right? So, what was the explosive/accelerant ready to pop? 

That, I think is the deeper and much more interesting question. The present Identity Crisis is, I believe, an epiphenomenon of Modernity or maybe even post-Modernity. But before going all ‘post-modern’ I think we need to go FAR back in our collective history. Being apes we are creatures both of the small group and the group hierarchy. The reason ostracism – expelling someone from the group – works so well and hurts SO much is that being expelled in that way in millennia past was effectively a death sentence. Without fellow apes to look out for you and watch your back (as you watched theirs) you were MUCH more likely to get picked off by a passing predator or getting into existential trouble in other ways. Fitting into the group was vital for existence, which meant knowing who you are and where you fit in. Identity was survival. Now what happens when you take that identity and group cohesion away – which is exactly what modern life (most exemplified by the US ‘hustle’ culture) seems to be intent on doing? 

In reasonably recent times people were born into extended multi-generational families often with rich cultural histories. People not only knew their parents and grandparents, but they often felt connected in a real way to their ancestors – both real and mythical – going back far into history. History was another thing that people were embedded in from an early age. They might not know the history of other countries, but they generally knew the history of their own and most especially the history of their own region, their own culture and their own family. They had, in other words, roots and often very deep ones too. But, as many people know, such a close identification with the past and with a groups culture can be suffocating. Countless stories exist of young people especially breaking away from the chains of tradition to make a new and successful life for themselves in the city. But the sting in the tale is that such a break is not without cost. We’re still that ape who needs to know where they fit into things. A free-floating life seems great in theory but without knowing where you came from its difficult to know where you are. 

Today many people live such a free-floating life. They no longer know who their neighbour is. Part of that reason is that they’re on a short-term lease because they move about so much. They have no loyalty to their company (or their teammates) because they’re on a zero-hours contract or are ‘subbing’ for someone else. They have no roots in their city because they’ve only lived there for 2 years, and this is their 4th city since leaving school. They’ve lost touch with school/college/University friends over the years or periodically keep ‘in touch’ with Facebook. Their family is scattered and often hundreds of miles away and family get-togethers are getting both smaller and less frequent. Is it any wonder, therefore, that people aren’t really sure who they are, especially when their identity seems to or needs to change from month to month or situation to situation. Being an identity chameleon eventually results in no longer being able to change back to your ‘factory setting’ or even remembering what it was. But deep down, at base, in our very bones, we NEED to know who we are. The result of not knowing is increasing anxiety – something we see around us more and more each day. 

OK, now for what I’m not saying... I’m certainly not saying that the present Identity Crisis isn’t real. It’s real and, for far too many, very real – indeed existentially real. I’m also not saying that we should ‘go back’ to a more traditional, often over idealised, social structure. That’s not the solution. But what we can do is realise that there’s a real problem here rather than just a media circus to distract us from the other problems we face. Second, we need to realise what the causes of the Crisis are and not just blame Facebook as usual (even though it and other social media aren’t really helping the situation). We need to face the fact that we are social apes living in a very unsocial non-ape like cultural environment and it’s REALLY messing us up. That would be a good start.