Essay on Identity

Essay on Identity

“I yam what I yam.”  -- Popeye the Sailor

The words “identity crisis” entered my life shortly after Erikson launched the term into the culture in 1968.  That was the middle of my high school career, and I never learned an actual definition for the term—I just heard that an “identity crisis,” whatever it was, could be expected in young people like myself.  Mostly the term was used as slang—when someone showed any emotional or behavioral stress, someone else was likely to ask, “What are you doing—having an identity crisis?”  It is only just now, in research for this essay, that I’ve learned anything about what Erikson actually meant. 

It’s really been only recently—over the past couple of years—that I’ve started thinking in an explicit way about identity.  It started by observing some effects of identity in online discussion groups.  Online discussions take place as a series of typically short written messages, with conversations stretching over days or weeks.  A person posts a message, all participants can read it when they wish, and one or more may choose to reply.  People reply to the replies, and a sort of discussion happens.  What I noticed is that despite much earnest effort put into presenting rationales for beliefs and opinions, those who start with opposing opinions rarely change them.  Despite this, further messages that assert controversial points can be counted on to elicit counter-assertions, often from the same person who had laboriously made a similar case the last time the matter came up, and often directed at the same person who had disagreed with him on the previous occasion.  In case there is any doubt, of course I was one of the people in which I observed this behavior.  Reflecting on this repeated pattern, I started wondering  “Why are people generally impervious to each other’s logic on these issues?” 

Meanwhile, I happened to hear a documentary segment on NPR that seemed to bear on this matter.  The story involved a journalist who took on a project to investigate the “Vincent Foster Phenomena.”  His subject encompassed both the events surrounding Foster’s death, and the ‘subculture’ of conspiracy believers for whom sharing information and theories about this and other incidents had become a major avocation.  What interested me most was the reporter’s ultimate decision about the results of his investigation.  His evaluation of the evidence convinced him that there was indeed something “fishy” about the Vincent Foster “suicide.”  While he didn’t have definite evidence of what actually happened, he had good reason to believe that Vincent Foster did not commit suicide in the park where he was found.  But he further decided that “it didn’t matter.”  And he frankly admitted that he decided to think “it didn’t matter” because he was a mainstream reporter, not a “conspiracy believer.”   In other words, the reporter made a major decision on what was “news” based on a personal identity issue.

This example shows the enormous role identity plays in regulating social life.  In this specific instance a reporter had what would seem, objectively, to be a major story and a major moral issue: open questions suggesting the possible murder of the President’s Counsel.  But he consciously decided “it didn’t matter” because he believed he could not continue to be a ‘mainstream reporter’ if he pursued it.  And he was probably correct in so thinking: his peer group had already reached a consensus that this matter was “closed,” and further that it should remain so.  Had he attempted to push the story forward, he would have encountered social and career sanctions.   He would have been forced into a new identity, perhaps “maverick reporter,” an identity with tenuous support and privileges compared to his current status.  Individual identity is socially conditioned; to a large extent others have power to decide if our identity will be considered valid.  This gives social groups tremendous power to enforce conformity by considering certain beliefs and behavior symbolic of group affiliation.  If such affiliation is important to an individual’s identity, he is extremely unlikely to dissent from the group-mandated positions.  Thus the behavior of large groups is controlled by the group consensus on symbolic issues.

I think this social control aspect of personal/group identity has extremely important implications.  There certainly was no examination of such dynamics in the Political Science field in which I earned my BA degree, although in my undergraduate days the discipline was largely preoccupied with conspicuously unsuccessful attempts to understand the genesis and exercise of  “community power.”  There is much to know about how some issues take on symbolic importance while others do not, and how the “group line” on such issues is established.

This discussion of individual/group identity sheds some light on my question of why online discussions follow the pattern I described earlier.  People are defending issue positions because they are symbolic of group affiliation and self-identity.  They often continue to defend them even in the face of logic and evidence, since to change them would necessitate a change in self-identity, and people are highly averse to such changes.  Typically, people who are overmatched in debate stop participating in the discussions; seldom is a major shift in position seen online.   People would much rather fight than switch, and flight is likewise preferable.

I found a very interesting discussion of many identity issues in the paper “On Becoming a Person” by John Barresi of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia (copy enclosed).  Out of a great many concepts and issues presented, there are two that I found particularly illuminating. 

One of the crucial areas of “personology” studies identified by Barresi is the “Narrative Creation of Persons” that begins in the adolescent years.  At this time people begin to consciously create “stories” of their own life, which constitute self-identity.  I thought Barresi made a very important point in passing when he noted that verbal language skills might play a crucial role in this process.  It seems obvious that construction of a narrative story is going to be hampered if one has problems expressing oneself with words.  This problem, alas, appears to be on the upswing with adolescents.  I recall a striking anecdote I heard, regarding a small group of young men observed ‘hanging out’ at a mall.  An especially attractive female passed by, and the young men were highly stimulated.  They all wanted to express their feelings verbally.  However, all that came out was the descriptive “awesome!”  They struggled and stuttered, seeking to find words adequate to describe their energized elevated state and the wondrous vision that had prompted it.  But “ah-ah-ah-awesome” remained the only utterance that escaped.  Any further speech powers had deserted them.  (This naturally must be a result of too much TV watching and video game playing).

Of course, one anecdote describing inarticulate teenagers does not define a trend.  Undoubtedly many teenagers are beautifully articulate.  But to the extent that such verbal disability exists, I think it’s a problem for the individuals and others.  If one cannot easily and flexibly create a narrative of self, one is all the more dependent on ready-made narratives offered by others.  Such a person is vulnerable to manipulation.  They can become ‘stuck’ in identity patterns that are working poorly for them, since they lack facility in creating ‘adjustments’ to their self-narrative.  Experiencing continued unsatisfactory life outcomes, and lacking the ability to adapt and change, they may become extremely frustrated and angry, and prone to destructive acts.

The whole matter of the influence of others on our self-narratives is a second point of Barresi’s that I found illuminating and provocative.  The social aspects of identity have manifold implications, but an especially valuable insight to me was the fact that personal identity, to be effective and successful, must be congruent with identity models and roles offered in the culture.  Otherwise, one does not receive cultural validation of one’s identity, and the friendship and cooperation of others is withheld. Barresi points out that the culture offers different identities to various classes of people.  I have always resented statements about the ‘privileged’ status of white males, but this discussion finally made clear to me at least one mechanism by which such privileging (or conversely, oppression) is accomplished.  Individuals, acting in accordance with social norms internalized into their self-identities, offer friendship, trust, cooperation, aid, encouragement, consolation, love, and all other interpersonal and social benefits.  Or, in other cases, they withhold such benefits and behave adversely.  Those favored are distinguished by being regarded as ‘respectable;’ those rejected are in effect and sometimes explicitly denied personhood.   Thus, insult and disrespect are a denial of the very humanity of the target.

Ironically, the investigation of identity issues leads me to two paradoxical attitudes.  On the one hand, I am gaining an appreciation of a personal and interpersonal process of vast significance.  The influence of identity narratives is enormous, and it is amazing to me that understanding of these issues is so poorly developed in the general culture.  On the other hand, with the realization that personal identity is largely extrinsic, largely plastic, and largely contingent, its power becomes to me highly questionable.  The ferocity with which most people defend their personal and cultural identity seems unwarranted.  It appears clear that if we ask “What should our identity be,” the answer will have to come, as Barresi observes, from outside the sphere of identity analysis.

Some 30 years after Erikson gave the world the concept of the identity crisis, the term is commonly used in a superficial way to mean ‘being in a state in which basic questions of function or goal are open.’  Companies, television shows,  and even whole countries are spoken of as undergoing ‘identity crises.’  Few indeed seem to have any idea what is at stake in the initial adolescent identity crisis—the often protracted period that begins when a person first becomes capable of creating a narrative elaborating an abstract concept of the self persisting through time.  The term ‘crisis’ is misleading in that most people think of a crisis as a relatively brief period in which emergency action must be taken to avert disaster.  The identity crisis can go on for years.  It ends with commitment—hopefully a strong conscious choice, sometimes a mere acceptance of the seemingly inevitable.  One way or another most of us eventually conclude, like Popeye, that who we are is settled and definite.  In a world full of others who desire to dictate changes to our self-narrative for their own benefit, we learn to defend our identities, filtering out messages from all but trusted sources.  But in fact we are what we become, and we always have the potential to make new choices.

Valparaiso, Indiana

August, 1999