The Double Bind of Identity

self in search of itself

If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?

〰 Thomas Merton 〰

DNA photo © Anirudh on Unsplash

Identity without Politics

I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.

〰 Emily Dickinson 〰

The other day we watched the Holberg debate on Identity Politics & Culture Wars.

Identity and politics make an odd pair, don’t you think? Identity is perhaps the most personal and private aspect of a person, while politics, per definition, is “pertaining to public affairs.”

What has turned the private business of identity into a public affair are so-called social and cultural ‘constructs’ attached to identity ~ phenomena like race, skin colour, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, profession, family status, sexual orientation, education, academic titles, wealth & property, hairstyle, fashion sense, the number of followers on social media, and on and on.

None of these have ultimately anything to do with identity. They can only become issues of identity politics through discrimination, supremacy, and unequal/ unfair distribution of rights and wealth. For this reason, identity politics is an inaccurate description of a social/ political situation which has more to do with the power structures of the Anthropocene than identity itself.

It should be called discrimination politics or supremacy politics, or something along those lines, then at least nobody needs to debate the terminology for half an hour before the debate can begin.

Identity alone is difficult and complex enough, without the socio-political baggage. This has been known for millennia. The Ancient Greeks were already on the case, and it hasn’t stopped since.

Identity is essentially about knowing oneself, and being oneself.

Why is that so difficult?

How can anyone be anything but themselves?

It is a uniquely human dilemma. No other species struggle with this apart from us.

Gabriel García Márquez explains the reason for this beautifully in his novel Love in the Time of Cholera, when he writes that “human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

When you examine the original meaning of the word identity, it is rather underwhelming. How can such an ‘ordinary’ verbiont attract so much attention throughout human history?

Surprising but true. And the contemporary alliance with politics shows that this is not going to change in a hurry. So let’s have a look at the biography of this word which manages to create a stir and hog the centre of human attention beyond boundaries of time and space.

All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.

〰 David Sedaris 〰

THUMBPRINT photo © Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

Identifying with Identity

The meaning of identity is now based on hatred,

on hatred for those who are not the same.

〰 Umberto Eco 〰

Identity [from Latin identitatem = sameness] was adopted in English around 1600 without alteration of its meanings: “sameness, oneness, state of being the same.”

The Latin noun is a descendant of the pronoun idem, meaning same, or simply it.

It or idem is a pronoun, a word used in reference to an earlier mentioned subject or object. Etymologists assume that the Old Latin noun identidem (later identitas) was a contraction of idem et idem which means literally same and same.

In other words, the verbiont identity ~ composed of pronoun + conjunction + pronoun ~ is being used regularly as a noun. This rare configuration is found only in the colloquial noun ‘hisandhers’, currently recognised as a made-up figure of speech, and therefore not (yet) in the dictionary.

Idem and identity belong to a very small word family. The only other members in English are identical (1610s), identify, and identification (both 1640s).

The word combinations identity theft, identity crisis, and identity politics emerged in the 20th century.

The sense in which we use the word identity is far less bland than the original meaning |sameness| suggests. The reason for this lies not in the term identity itself but what we make of it ~ literally.

Associations with the word identity have changed radically throughout the history of this verbiont. Contemporary dominant connotations (= suggested meanings) and insinuations (= introduced in an indirect and unpleasant way) give the impression that identity is primarily attached to sexuality, gender, and race/ ethnicity, and perhaps religion.

Another theory might propose that our identity can be proven, ultimately and without fail, through fingerprinting, DNA tests, and biomentric retinal scans.

They cannot be forged like say, identity cards, passports, or driving licences.

If you send off a sample of your spit to a DNA testing lab ~ perhaps with the intent to diagnose a potential genetic condition, and in the firm conviction of being 50% Irish, 25% Italian, 25% Slavic and 100% Catholic ~ and the results come back showing that your genes are composed of some 29% Jewish from an Ashkenazi bloodline, 7% African from maternal roots, 3 % Germanic of paternal origin with the remaining mix of Irish, Italian and Slavic ~ is that the ultimate proof of your identity?

When I was first told that I am ‘cisgender’, I had to look up what the word means.

The question, which pronouns I want to use as an ‘identification’ dropped into a foggy spongy area beyond the known territory of my inner universe.

Having explored my inner space for over half a lifetime, using a custom-built intro-space-capsule, guided by sophisticated intronautic navigation instruments, I am fairly familiar with my identity.

Having grown up as a third culture kid, that’s part of my identity. Third Culture Kids (TCK) were relatively rare in my childhood. That I felt like an outsider was only natural ~ like a child without a home ::: into this world we're thrown, like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan, as a rider on the storm.... (Thank you Jim Morrison R.I.P. and the Doors)

I identified with being an outsider. The label TCK didn’t exist yet, so my identity became 'Other'.

Did you notice what happened there?

Somewhere along life I was making up my identity.

I’ll pick it apart in a moment. Let’s have a quick look at the verb identify and its subjectification first.

Identification [from Latin identitas = sameness + facere = to make] meant originally the treatment of something as the same as another. The psychological sense of "becoming or feeling oneself one with another" was introduced in 1857.

The meaning “act or process of determining the identity of something” is from 1859.
The meaning “object or document which marks identity” is from 1947.

HUMAN IDENTITY photo © Jake Nackos

If you understood everything I said, you’d be me

〰 Miles Davis 〰

Identity & Othering

While the meaning of identity is firmly attached to sameness, our sense of identity can jump to the polar opposite.

We experience ourselves and who we think we are most intensely in areas where we are different, dissimilar, non-identical.

The search for identity ~ and inborn need to know who we are ~ is driven by identification.

Identification is literally the attempt to make oneself sameandsame. The child/individual who cannot find anyone sameandsame in their world, inevitably experiences a lack of belonging.

At first we feel otherthansame. As this feeling becomes entrenched we believe we are otherthansame. The belief dripfeeds our mind, otherthansame thoughts nurture the growth of convictions, and so otherthansame becomes our identity.

Strictly speaking, what we call 'identity' is alteredentity [alter = other + et = but + idem = same].

Whenever the primary focus of identity is defined by an identification with otherness, our sense of identity becomes a double bind. Identity in the sense of sameness and belonging is in this case irreconcilable with the experience of one’s personal reality.

The evolution of such a double-bind-identity is more or less the same in everyone, no matter whether your niche of othering is tied to gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, family, culture, health or even diet and food preferences.

The more variables you add to your personal mix, the greater your sense of othering and the more frequent the experience of being otherthansame.

Significant differences are related to political influences and social injustice which affect the personal experience of otherthansameness.

Not all alteredentities are made equal. Many are far less privileged than others. Although the experience can be surprisingly similar, independent of class and riches.

A couple of years ago we had the opportunity to witness the baffling and widely publicised suffering of the highly privileged alteredentities embodied by a ’spare’ British prince and his American actor-turned-duchess wife torn between mixed racial identities and struggling to decide which one to identify with.

Underprivileged alteredentities can turn into movements for social justice and inspire political agendas. The LBGTQ-movement, #blacklivesmatter movement, and #heforshe movement are prominent examples.

Overprivileged alteredentities can inspire individuals to make a bid for world domination, a belief in supremacy, and interpreting the ‘natural order’ of hierarchy to personal advantage.

As I am looking at this nonce word (= a neologism only used once): alteredentity, it begins to split into altered-entity under my probing linguist-lens:::

Entity [from Latin entis = thing] is defined as being or existence in contemporary English. It can also be a unit that has a distinct identity.

Id [from Latin id = it] is the translation of Sigmund Freud’s ‘Es’, “used in psychoanalytical theory to denote the unconscious instinctual force."

In combination with entity the verbiont id has become id-entity turning into an it-being ~ an ‘unconscious instinctual force’ separate from ourselves.

OTHER photo © Jorge Saavedra on Unsplash

Identity Lost & Found

Be not another if you can be yourself.

〰 Paracelsus 〰

Identity is who we are in our uniqueness. In our identity we are different from everyone else, the opposite of same.

Identically unique we yearn for being, becoming, and belonging ~ for freedom to be ourselves ~ for the equal right to become who we are ~ for belonging together in kinship, partnership, familyship, communityship.

We are identical in our needs for wellbeing, love, safety, protection, healthy nourishment, creative self-expression.

Identity is sameness.

Human identity is a paradox ~ sameness in our differences.

When we say, our identity is our uniqueness, it’s a bit like saying the only constant is change.

Identity politics is about defending equal rights with the right to be different. This has more to do with politics than identity, because politics tries to pigeonhole humans into some kind of unnatural and increasingly inhumane norms of manmade normality.

Identity is who we are without knowing. To become who we are, we have to lose our identity and re-identify. Not just once but throughout life.

We lose and find our identity in search of ourselves. That’s why we write, dance, play music, paint, cook, garden, potter, carve our stories in wood and stone.

I believe that true identity is found in creative activity springing from within.

It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself.

〰 Anne Morrow Lindbergh 〰