On identity
What is "identity"?
We all have things that we identify ourselves as and hope we
project. Sometimes more successfully than others. Sometimes people will accept
them readily; sometimes they won't. And the reasons will sometimes be
straightforward and sometimes complicated. Other times we project things that
we have no control over. We might even reject them but we can't change them.
For instance, I am yt. I'm yt whether I like it or not. It's
my "identity" even if I don't want it. It's not "bigotry"
to say so. It's readily apparent what I am.
I also identify as Cornish. But actually, you could dispute
this. I wasn't born in Cornwall. When I was a child, other boys would tease
each other for being "foreign". They didn't tease me because I had a
Cornish accent but if they had, I would have been hurt. So people rejecting
your identity can be painful.
What does it even mean? To be Cornish. Nothing. It means
what you make it mean, I suppose. For some, it's birth. For others, it's your
father and your father's father and whatever. But it's interesting to me that I
found out I have Cornish ancestors (they moved away). But they are in the E
haplogroup. So not Celts originally.
I also identify as English. It's part of me in ways that I
couldn't really explain. It's not a matter of patriotism. I'm not
"proud" of it. Why would I be? I have nothing to do with any big
achievement or whatever and like most leftists, I'm not "proud" of my
country's imperial past or current wealth. Still, there's meaning in it.
Some might identify me as Australian. After all, this is an
immigrant nation. Most Aussies are either immigrants or children of immigrants.
My own children, who are definitely Australian, are the children of an
immigrant father, and in Miggins' case, two immigrants. I'm a citizen and I
call Australia home, even if sometimes a bit regretfully. But I wouldn't
identify as Australian, even when the cricket is on. Is it offensive to me if
people *do* identify me as an Aussie? No, of course not.
I am not here seeking to make some argument about
identifying as Chinese. That would be patently absurd for me and you would
possibly consider me in search of a marble or two. I certainly am not trying to
claim that matters of gender are anything like that. Like a lot of human life,
they're complicated and can't be dismissed with airy waves of the hand.
I was thinking about this when a person said that "you
can't have an opinion about identity". Well, of course you can. You can
clearly have a view on whether I count as Cornish. Or Aussie. Or English even.
Usually, what we actually disagree on is what identity *means*. What does being
yt mean? What does being a man mean? What elements of that identity must you
have to belong to it and which elements adhere to you if you have the identity?
Fundamentally, this person was making a claim that identity
is something you generate from within yourself, that is inherent in you and
should be recognised. This isn't really coherent with our experience of the
world.
Many of the ways we are recognised have nothing to do with
how we present ourselves or how we feel about it. For instance, I don't
necessarily do anything "yt". I just have yt skin. I might do some of
the things yt people typically do and certainly I had advantages that some POC
might not have. Things might have been apportioned to me because of it. Now
that is generated from within myself in the sense I'm aiming at. My genes built
my yt skin. But they didn't build being an Australian. They didn't build being
a kind man. They didn't build being a leftist. They didn't build being a
father. These are things I identify as and hope others recognise but of course
people may see them in different ways. Some people might never have experienced
any kindness from me. Some people might think I'm too liberal to be a
"real" leftist. My ex might see "father" as something
entirely different from what I do.
The last is something I think is crucial. Not only are identities not always things that we can readily recognise. They are also things that people understand in different ways. And change with time.
posted by Dr Zen @ 8:16 am
10 Comments:
I don't identify as anything, unless I'm asked or it otherwise comes up. And of course it comes up every moment, indirectly, since I'm yt and cismale and tall and was born middle-class and am therefore ridiculously privileged. I try to be aware of that privilege as much as I can. I never hope it gets me anything. But it does, and I'm used to it and don't always notice.
Anyway. I hope you are well. I think of you now and then. Though we are both kind men we had little enough of that for each other. Some sort of chemistry that needs no analysis. But I hope you are well and happy. I am, more or less. - Don T
I don't think you have generosity in your heart but I'm glad you're happy.
Privilege is meaningless for either of us. You don't get to choose anything to do with it and neither do I.
I understand why you say so. And I wrote a long reply. But I don't know that you would read it. You have never demonstrated an interest in understanding people with whom you have a disagreement or misunderstanding. Let me just say you will not find anyone who says I am ungenerous, and that the episode in question worked out very well for everyone. It was an irrational moment of fear that led me to that ridiculous FB page in the first place.
That is not what I meant. It wasn't a surprise though. It's strange isn't it that you think insulting me is a way to create bonds. But that's exactly what I say about you. No generosity of spirit. Just the willingness to be agreed with and to explain away disagreement as a fault in others.
Well, you're wrong. I try to understand people. I suppose I've always had to, given that I'm not like them. But you've always assumed they are like you or wrong.
And, my dude, I read what people say to me. If I didn't intend to I'd say so. This is exactly what I'm saying. You've known me for more than two decades and you didn't bother knowing that. No generosity in your heart.
“I don't think you have generosity in your heart.” My response? “I understand why you say so.” I was wrong, but surely it was generous to try and understand. When I said, “You have never demonstrated an interest in understanding people,” I spoke from long experience, which is admittedly limited to the interactions between us or that I’ve seen with others in our tiny shared world. But it was not an insult. I share such observations so a person can understand how they are perceived by others and why they get the responses they do. I’ve spent a lot of energy in the past few years to understand Aspergers and how it’s affected how I communicate, and what you see as an insult may just be a behavior I’ve seen in others and that was, in fact, very helpful to me. A willingness to learn to communicate and take the risks is a virtue. You have identified as an aspie yourself and I have sometimes thought we failed to be friends mainly because we were on the same frequency but out of phase.
I did not take your opening sentence as an insult but as an inaccurate negative observation (they’re not the same). What I commonly observed back in the day was that responses to your “negative observations” were then taken by you as insults. And the one was not harsher than the other. Do you ever think on that? I’d like however to forget about who went first or engage in a battle of semantics, if that’s what I’m doing. It’s just a matter of understanding what you give and what you take.
About the reading. What I’ve seen to my long replies in the past is a focus on one part you disagree with and no reference to the rest. Obviously you pass through it. I just felt there was material you might have known was okay but you would not then say so. That’s how it looked. But here I didn’t want to load the conversation down with info you didn’t ask for. And now I’m glad I didn’t, since it was about an episode you said you weren’t referring to anyway.
So, now, I am curious. Since your first contribution here was to say you don’t think I have generosity in my heart, and I surmised incorrectly why you say so, why do you say so?
"Privilege is meaningless for either of us. You don't get to choose anything to do with it and neither do I."
At first I disagreed with this strongly. But I sat with it and came to understand, I think, what you meant. There's no "making up" for our privilege that isn't better done simply by consistently being kind and generous. Otherwise, we are in a way continuing the cycle.
What "cycle"? This is my problem with your (and most liberals') politics. It's a mile wide and an inch deep. You aren't creating or constructing your "privilege". Other people have or are. You cannot affect that whatever you do with it. Being kind or generous doesn't change it one iota. It just allows you to feel better about it and by extension yourself.
As for your long comment, yes, I respond to what I feel needs a response and that's never going to be anything. I don't really care for long monologues because it's something I really dislike about Australians and their communication style.
Have you "learned to communicate"? I don't see much sign of it but if that's your view of yourself then cool. For me, the problem is not willingness to communicate but that people don't have any desire to do anything other than trade tokens. That's confusing for people with autism because it represents a game that we don't entirely feel comfortable with. YMMV but if it does, maybe reconsider diagnosing yourself as autistic, hey?
Finally, whether someone has generosity in their heart is something I feel rather than analyse. Maybe you spend a lot of time with people who *say* they are things and it's part of how you show good nature that you *accept* their assertion. I accept people's assertion on the surface but I still know what I feel. It's like when you meet someone who hangs out with your artistic friends and says it's because he's arty farty but you *know* it's because he thinks it's a pathway to pussy. You don't say so, you try not to think so, but you know.
So there's no particular reason. I just feel it. I wasn't surprised about your landlording. It was something I'd never do. Not something I'd do in a weak moment. Something entirely outside my character. I'd never have unfriended you either. I'd just have ignored you if I wanted to but it would never be important enough to me to *want* you to be hurt. It was to you and that's why you don't have generosity in your heart.
I unfriended for what at the time felt like self-protection, and in fact did that with about two dozen other people at the same time. Yours I wrestled with the most. All the same, that was then. Today would be different.
My landlording group participation was momentary, fear-based, irrational and had no consequences. Everyone involved has turned out well and we are all on good terms (so well as we can be, their mother and I being long apart and she remarried). You didn't ask for this info, but.
While my girlfriend was flabbergasted that ungenerous could be said of me, as I said you and I only know each other through a narrow context. The impression I've gathered over time of you is probably very wrong.
I have reconsidered all my various diagnoses, some professional, some merely informed: ADHD, spectrum, bipolar I. I believe I can do pretty well by working to be conscious of myself and to take the world with more care and thought. In fact, my girlfriend will beat it if I do not do the work. :-D Of course, I'm supposed to do it for myself, but you might guess how well that goes.
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