“Our identities have no bodies…we obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlighetened self-interest and commonweal, our governance will emerge”
-John Perry Barlow Our identity is no more real then our soul, our feelings or our beliefs. It’s tangibility can be glanced at through choice of clothes, profession or even music tastes, but that is only how we identify ourselves. In a lot of cases our own identity it beyond our choosing, such as when it comes down to “a physical feature of the body…a genealogy or a cultural preference” people are then placed into groups with others that share the same “trait.”
I am frequently asked what religion I believe in, when I state that I don’t believe in any they often go on to ask what my parents believe in, when I inform them that they too don’t believe in anything there are some people who become exasperated and say ‘but what about your grandparents…what are you by blood??!!’
They are no longer interested in who I am as an individual- they are trying to classify me. Judging and choosing and picking people to be friends with, hire for a job or teach is far more sensible if you can group them. As Simon During states in the reading, “identity is won at the price of reducing individuality.”
Although is seems that identity is a futile matter to work on, as we are already grouped, it is still largely based on our perception of reality. “Individuals don’t have a single identity, they have identities,” which means that once we are stripped of our color and cultural heritage we still have plenty to be judged on.
When a Christian Italian man is in the company of other Christian Italian men, they do not sit around thinking to themselves ‘we are so Christian and Italian and manly’, they judge each-other on the other aspects of their “identities.” These other aspects tend to come from how they “internalise…images of themselves” and ultimatly how they want their image to be externalized and are a type of “hybridity” of identities.
This raises the issue of “identity politics” a political attempt to justify all identities and put them on an equal playing field. However, it’s greatest downfall is that is “erase[s] internal differences.” When these men start to disagree about treatment of women in third world countries- that fact that they are all Italian and Christian does little to help them.
Identity politics is the result of fierce division in an attempt to justify identity. Women don’t need different things in life to men, just as Muslims don’t need different things to Jewish people. This type of politics is fighting for the rights of people that all deserve the same rights and should be fighting together for unity- rather then to have each of their needs met separately but under a different name.
A Utopia aside, identities are how we communicate with society, amongst society, amongst ourselves and within ourselves. Just as information is easier to take in when it is presented in table form, life is easier to comprehend when everything is grouped- it leaves less room for chaos.
Bibliography
During, Simon. “Debating Identity” In Cultural studies: A Critical Introduction, Routledge: London, 2005, 145-152.
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