I just don't know if it's that easy for most people? Identity is such a powerful force. I'm fascinated with its role in perpetuating widespread conceptions of people in professions like coal mining and ranching, including self-conceptions. It would probably be healthier for everyone if identity could become more like waves in an ocean but it's hard to see it happening.
Great analogy! I agree it is no easy task for the individual (including me) and from an institutional standpoint it makes managing services/systems/people easier if people had broad classifications around them.
Then again, from a philosophical standpoint, I wonder if identity isn't a destination or a point of enlightenment but an ongoing negotiation/wrestling with the self that never truly resolves. At some level, having an investment into who you are at a particular moment in time is probably healthy but these ideas tend to overwhelm and dictate other parts of life.
I agree, I'd love to read a culturally driven ethnographic account of people working as coal miners or in similar professions. There is added dimension there because of their relationship to the land and environment they work in. Fascinating stuff.
But I think about it a lot as there's a town here in Montana that was built around coal mining and coal-fired power and its resistance to change has a significant identity aspect (refusing to entertain the idea of switching to wind power production, for example, which in that location would be possible due to its ownership of transmission lines).
I suspect your description of identity as an ongoing negotiation with the self is heading in the right direction. "Who am I?" and "Who am I in this wider world/existence?" are questions that are always with us. Is it instinct to define ourselves as either part of something or in opposition to it? Hard to know. I suppose it all goes back to age-old questions of understanding ourselves as interconnected beings very much alike and needing to navigate existence together, and yet honoring the uniqueness of each individual.
I think what I'm getting from this is that we can choose not to make our identity a cage for ourselves?
Oh wow that was an excellent read. Thanks for sharing. Really gripping. It nails home the point that identity is a source of meaning and purpose for many. It instils a community of practice and cultural reverence for what matters. In many ways, it is a 'welcome prison' that imbues a sense of security. And when that security is gone the painful consequences resonate throughout the community.
I've only travelled to the US once (LA) but it sounds like a place brimming with stories at the grassroots and community level. I'd love to capture some of these stories some day when things settle - pandemic wise.
I agree that the curious nature of identity formation is that it involves a curation of life into "what matters" and "what doesn't". I see the process as part of a spectrum where certain identities are based more around being in opposition and others around being in communion.
I guess at the end of the day, as you succinctly put it, we need to "honour the uniqueness of each individual". Growing up in Singapore (over 30 years ago), I often found that ones identity was very much stuck in a fixed mould of values/ideas which remains ingrained as part of your worldview till adulthood. I found that limiting to my own development. But that was then and with social media etc I guess the process of identity formation is becoming more fluid.
I imagine it's different within each culture, too (which would be a fascinating sociological study itself!). I know in the U.S. there's a lot of discussion about and condemnation of "identity politics" but I think the framing tends to be a narrow view of how people view themselves in the world, and the world's relation to who they think themselves to be.
Your description of Singapore reminds me a bit of when I lived in Austria over 20 years ago, and how different and more constricted identity was (though I didn't have that word then) -- "fixed mould of values/ideas" feels like an apt description -- and thinking that if I'd grown up in it, it would have been hard to break out of.
It's also interesting to relate this to the concept of schismogenesis, which I just read a bunch about in "The Dawn of Everything" -- essentially, the idea that cultures often come up with practices and values and traditions specifically to differentiate themselves from neighboring cultures. It's kind of a fascinating thought I'd love to read more about.
I just don't know if it's that easy for most people? Identity is such a powerful force. I'm fascinated with its role in perpetuating widespread conceptions of people in professions like coal mining and ranching, including self-conceptions. It would probably be healthier for everyone if identity could become more like waves in an ocean but it's hard to see it happening.
Great analogy! I agree it is no easy task for the individual (including me) and from an institutional standpoint it makes managing services/systems/people easier if people had broad classifications around them.
Then again, from a philosophical standpoint, I wonder if identity isn't a destination or a point of enlightenment but an ongoing negotiation/wrestling with the self that never truly resolves. At some level, having an investment into who you are at a particular moment in time is probably healthy but these ideas tend to overwhelm and dictate other parts of life.
I agree, I'd love to read a culturally driven ethnographic account of people working as coal miners or in similar professions. There is added dimension there because of their relationship to the land and environment they work in. Fascinating stuff.
It would be great to read more of that! The main piece I've read on it was about steel mills and work as identity in the U.S.: https://www.sapiens.org/culture/postindustrial-world-chicago-steel/
But I think about it a lot as there's a town here in Montana that was built around coal mining and coal-fired power and its resistance to change has a significant identity aspect (refusing to entertain the idea of switching to wind power production, for example, which in that location would be possible due to its ownership of transmission lines).
I suspect your description of identity as an ongoing negotiation with the self is heading in the right direction. "Who am I?" and "Who am I in this wider world/existence?" are questions that are always with us. Is it instinct to define ourselves as either part of something or in opposition to it? Hard to know. I suppose it all goes back to age-old questions of understanding ourselves as interconnected beings very much alike and needing to navigate existence together, and yet honoring the uniqueness of each individual.
I think what I'm getting from this is that we can choose not to make our identity a cage for ourselves?
Oh wow that was an excellent read. Thanks for sharing. Really gripping. It nails home the point that identity is a source of meaning and purpose for many. It instils a community of practice and cultural reverence for what matters. In many ways, it is a 'welcome prison' that imbues a sense of security. And when that security is gone the painful consequences resonate throughout the community.
I've only travelled to the US once (LA) but it sounds like a place brimming with stories at the grassroots and community level. I'd love to capture some of these stories some day when things settle - pandemic wise.
I agree that the curious nature of identity formation is that it involves a curation of life into "what matters" and "what doesn't". I see the process as part of a spectrum where certain identities are based more around being in opposition and others around being in communion.
I guess at the end of the day, as you succinctly put it, we need to "honour the uniqueness of each individual". Growing up in Singapore (over 30 years ago), I often found that ones identity was very much stuck in a fixed mould of values/ideas which remains ingrained as part of your worldview till adulthood. I found that limiting to my own development. But that was then and with social media etc I guess the process of identity formation is becoming more fluid.
I imagine it's different within each culture, too (which would be a fascinating sociological study itself!). I know in the U.S. there's a lot of discussion about and condemnation of "identity politics" but I think the framing tends to be a narrow view of how people view themselves in the world, and the world's relation to who they think themselves to be.
Your description of Singapore reminds me a bit of when I lived in Austria over 20 years ago, and how different and more constricted identity was (though I didn't have that word then) -- "fixed mould of values/ideas" feels like an apt description -- and thinking that if I'd grown up in it, it would have been hard to break out of.
It's also interesting to relate this to the concept of schismogenesis, which I just read a bunch about in "The Dawn of Everything" -- essentially, the idea that cultures often come up with practices and values and traditions specifically to differentiate themselves from neighboring cultures. It's kind of a fascinating thought I'd love to read more about.