So, identity. What is identity? It's a label, I suppose. A badge that we wear. It tells us who and what we are, and who and what we are not. It comes as a source of security in a perilous world, a fixed point in a universe where the sands are ever-shifting. It is a reference point to which we can return in times of uncertainty. It describes what we like and dislike, approve of and disapprove; what we think and how we think, what we believe and stand for. In extreme cases, it may remove the need to think for ourselves altogether: just refer to the ready-made booklet of personal identity. Take on an ideology, even better.
With our identity recognised, we can sleep certain and secure in our bed at night. Which is all absolutely fine, apart from one little thing...….
Identity is an illusion.
There may be a time in our earlier years when exploring our identity is a significant, possibly necessary, step. The moment arrives, however, when, particularly for anyone aspiring to a life beyond the pig trough, identity has to be analysed, understood, then softened, unpicked, dissolved. We have to open up - in Buddhist terms, see the impermanent as just that -, and resist the temptation to load this fantasy fabrication with too much value, too much weight. We exit the castle to enter into direct communication with the rest of the universe.
Dissolving identity, by the way, is not the same as 'dissolving the ego'. The word 'ego' is one of those infinitely problematic ones. But to the extent that it denotes a sense of self, it needs to be firm yet flexible; confident, strong. Paradoxically, it requires a strong ego to be able to safely dissolve personal identity. You need a good sense of who you are in a natural, spontaneous way before you can throw away the badges.
There is a point where even the identities which were long considered helpful and 'positive' have to go. Spiritual identity, for example. Being 'a Buddhist' was a good step (at least I think so) for quite a while, but eventually became an impediment. No such reference point needed any more.
There are people who seem extremely keen to stick an identity label on me. It is as if, without the badge, they find it difficult to know how to relate to another person at all (try - living direct, without veils). In recent times, I have been asked a number of times whether I am 'right wing'. It seems that believing in free speech and minimal government interference acts as an attractor to the 'right wing' label. No, I am not right-wing! I am not any wing. I haven't got wings at all, at least not in this dimension. I am who I am, full stop. Get over it.....
Identity, belief, ideology: three notions with much in common. All substitutes for real living. Jettison belief in order to communicate directly with Other. Chuck all ideology in the bin, and live instead from grace.
Part Two
I have in front of me a publication so slim that it barely qualifies to be called a booklet. It was produced in 1978, and is authored by my former Buddhist teacher. It is titled 'The True Individual'.
My former teacher always insisted that whatever he said could be connected back to the core, the root principles of Buddhism. In this he may or may not have been correct. Yes or no, I invariably found his most interesting, indeed 'enlightening', words to be those emanating from the more maverick side of his being.
The spiritual aspirant he likened to this true individual. This, in turn, was contrasted with the person who was merely a member of 'a group', or 'the group'. The distinguishing factor of the true individual was the emergence and cultivation of self-awareness, by means of which he or she broke free of the unconscious conditioning which bound them to the herd mentality of the group. Like the Tarot Fool, the true individual wandered free of the mass mind; the Buddha was the truest of true individuals.
To complicate matters slightly, my teacher also posited the existence of the 'positive group' (a normal group was assumed to be largely negative in nature, being unconscious and full of people who were easily manipulated as a result). The positive group existed to further the aims of developing individuals, a kind of launchpad and support system. Traditionally, a wider community of people supporting a monastic bunch of Buddhist full-timers might fit this mould. Personally, I find it all a bit questionable, but there we go.
He also elucidated upon 'love mode', which characterised the actions of individuals; and 'power mode', which was the more typical dynamic among group members. Then some smart ass began hypothesising about using 'power at the service of love', at which point the whole thing started to fall apart.
At another point during this period of Buddhist maverick teachings, my former teacher likened the Buddha - or a highly self-aware individual - to a ghost and a madman. Good images. The Buddha, the fully realised Fool, is slippery, elusive, ungraspable. There is no fixed identity to grab hold of and 'understand' (thereby imagining control over the situation). And in their unorthodox unpredictability, their transcendence of identities, they appear mad to those who are label-obsessed, those transfixed by the values of the group.
Part Three
Identitarian politics sucks. It's as simple as that. It continually reinforces folks' group allegiances, then pits them against one another in an eternal war of badges. Muslims against Christians, women against men, blacks against whites, gays against straights, fixed gender people against gender fluids, Muslims against the rest of the world. The list goes on.
It's a recipe for unending strife. Which is a bit paradoxical, since the official message is that it's all about some kind of equality, about bringing peace and harmony by making us all the same. Blacks given the same 'rights' as whites, gays the same as straights, and so on. But the result is precisely the contrary of a society of peaceful equality. People are encouraged to discover their (group) identity, nurse it, then take it as a weapon against the rest of the world. Disaster - unless, of course, your aim is to quietly encourage ferment, giving you indefinite reasons to introduce yet more controls and regulations on the unruly masses. Not that anyone would dream of implementing such a nefarious plan.
One group pitted against another. And the soup becomes still more poison since the dynamic is that of victim and perpetrator. One group of bastards behaving badly against another group of poor helpless victims. Victims: women, gay people, immigrants, blacks, transgender folk; all 'minority' groups, so the narrative goes. Perpetrators: white people and their cultures, especially white males, the big baddies in a world of otherwise lovely people.
It goes without saying that a world conceived of in terms of victimhood is not exactly character building. It frames people within a picture of personal weakness, and of being wronged. Rather than getting out of bed in the morning and taking responsibility for their own life. So we need rules, regulations, bannings, censorships, to help right these horrible wrongs. This is the substance out of which modernity with its identitarianism is wrought. Yes indeed, it sucks.
