Identities Part 1: Fundamental Questions

This is the first of a five-part series on identity.  It is useful to examine identities throughout history and up to our modern day by asking one or more of three fundamental questions.  Who is my God (spiritual dimension), who is my neighbor (social) and/or who am I (psychologic dimension).

Historically up to the Enlightenment, a person’s identity was based upon the answers to the first two questions:  who my God is and who my neighbor is.  Duties and obligations then flowed from the answers to those two questions.  After the Enlightenment in the West, the question was pared down to predominantly who my neighbor is.  As opposed to prior times where frequently my neighbor was defined as people in my tribe, the West now sees neighbors as anyone who embraces a set of cultural standards.  These standards might be liberty, equality, and fraternity such as in France or constitutionalism, equality, democratic accountability, and rule of law as in America.

Currently, neither of these two historical questions are being asked rather the question is now who I am.  As opposed to the orientation of what duties and obligations I had towards others, now this psychologic turn in identity asks what duties and obligations others have towards me that I can expect and even demand.  Our focus on rights language helps to fuel this 180-degree reversal.  

Five questions can help us assess how valid or fruitful an identity is.

1.     How much is it based on truth?  An identity based on lies will not withstand the test of time and will likely result in harms to everyone (e.g., Nazi Germany or communist Soviet Union).

2.     How unifying is it?  Bringing people together around a shared vision with common goals will result in an increase in the common good.  Hard lines of division like those based on biologic characteristics or a multiplication of identities such as in gender options (58 according to Facebook) will result in more division.

3.     How competitive is it?  This can be gauged by how easy an identity will intentionally harm a basic good.  Harming basic goods brings about a decrease in human flourishing.

4.     How meaningful is it?  Man needs meaning to survive.  Meaning is one of the five hallmarks of human flourishing according to Marty Seligman.  Meaning is defined as “belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self.”  

5.     How permanent is it?  A lack of permanence in one’s identity can lead to a scattered and disintegrated life, and to identity crises.  

References

Flourish by Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman

Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama

The Impact of Psychological Man—and How to Respond by Carl Trueman

Live Not by Lies by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

E-mail for comments and questions at: Rootsofflourishing@gmail.com