On that ‘unvarying’ identity

by Susantha Hewa

Identities are not intrinsic but socially constructed. It seems we are nothing but a bundle of identities. Some of them are imposed on us due to who we are in a web of relationships and others depend on what we do. For example, you can’t blame a person for being son, brother, father, uncle, nephew, grandfather, son in law, neighbour, friend, Sinhalese, etc. at the same time. Secondly, we also get our identities from what we do, such as teacher, lawyer, mechanic, labourer, scantiest, politician, businessman, philanthropist, singer, etc. However, surely, identity is context specific; it is the context which determines which identity one assumes at a given moment. Even within the course of a single day you can be conscious of or assume several of those ‘identities’ depending on the context. Often, one of those fluctuating identities takes the centre stage while the others remain in the background of our consciousness until the dynamics of the setting change to bring another or, perhaps, several to the surface. However, when one says “I”, he can’t possibly be thinking of all those identities but just one of them largely determined by the setting.

To illustrate the above point. A person in a group may use “I” to show either his commonality with or difference from the rest. For example, each person in a group of Buddhist pilgrims may think of himself or herself with a sense of belonging when they discuss religion before lunch, but the rare vegetarian amongst them may feel a sense of seclusion when they come to ordering lunch, given that most of the others happen to be meat-eaters. Even in the same group of people, your identity may shift from one to another within short spells. Social psychologists, William J. McGuire and Claire V. McGuire write, “One perceives oneself in terms of characteristics that distinguish oneself from other humans, especially from people in one’s usual social milieu…a woman psychologist in the company of a dozen women who work at other occupations thinks of herself as a psychologist; when with a dozen male psychologists, she thinks of herself as a woman” (Content and Process in the Experience of Self). What is important is the fleetingness of our identities. In other words, we have no fixed or core identity although we may feel we do, which is perhaps one of the leading causes of social segregation and disharmony.

In the foregoing paragraphs we saw that a person’s ‘identities’ are, by and large, socially constructed, based on his place in a web of personal and social relationships; and, most importantly, that these identities are continually shifting and also context specific. In other words, within a span of a few hours one may assume a number of identities, say, father, passenger, employee, client, activist, patient, etc., which is to say that none of those identities are lasting. Yuval Noah Harari in his new book “Nexus: a brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI”, asks the intriguing question, “When is a pigeon just a pigeon, and when is it information?”. He explains how a pigeon becomes ‘information’ when it is used to transmit a secret message. Harari further adds with a chuckle, “As Marshall McLuhan might have put it, the pigeon was the message.” Interestingly, this also explains the fluid nature of identity. Here, the pigeon we see in day-to-day life as a gentle, plump, small-billed bird changes its identity from ‘bird’ to ‘secret information’ in a context of espionage. Hence the unfixed nature of what we call identity.

What would be more interesting is to think of the seemingly fixed nature of any of those shifting identities. For example, let’s think of those fairly stable and relatively lasting identities like father, son, friend, neighbour, Buddhist, Christian, Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, Hindu, etc. How fixed is each of these identities? Think of an eighty-year-old mother and a fifty-year-old daughter. The two were, are and will be mother and daughter till they live. However, the nature of their mother–daughter relationship changes continuously; this is why the daughter, in terms of her relationship with mother, gradually changes from dependant to caretaker as time passes. Prof. Sharon Fraser says that our identities are socially constructed in a network of relationships with others and that it is “through our identity we come to understand our connection to the world, how that relationship is constructed…”.

It is true that in the above example, the two labels, “mother” and “daughter”, don’t change but the nature of their relationship changes, often in much more complex ways than merely swapping their places from “dependent” to “caretaker” and vice versa. In other words, although we generally feel that an individual’s identity, for example, as father, friend or neighbour is static, it is subject to change depending on changing contexts. To put it a bit bluntly, you wouldn’t be the same ‘father’ or ‘mother’ all your life, either in the eyes of your children or outsiders. Likewise, all socially imposed labels are in continuous flux. Perhaps, frustratingly, so is the case with any identity however affectionate or proud you are of them or however solid they may appear.

Just think of your religious and ethnic identities. Are you, for example, the same Buddhist from your infancy up to now? If you proudly claim, “I was a Buddhist, I am a Buddhist and I will be a Buddhist”, perhaps, you may not possibly be thinking of the term “Buddhist” as shifting, slippery or changeable. You may not think it worthwhile to question the quality of your relationship to Buddhism either in the past or at present, or even in the future. Anyone who says, “I am a Buddhist” may not think of his identity as a Buddhist as being fluid. So is the case with those who claim to be of other faiths. We feel smug in our self-made supposedly unchanging religious identity imposed on us at birth. However, it is not difficult to see that religious and ethnic identities that we consider as irremovable and permanently stamped on our ‘self’ are also context-specific and there couldn’t be one fixed religious, ethnic or any other seemingly indelible identity, which would accompany us all along from the cradle to the grave without changing its character. For example, when a child of five years calls himself a Buddhist, his Buddhist ‘identity’ is constructed on ideas, impressions and experiences that are totally different from those of a seventy-year-old person who introduces himself as a Buddhist. So is the case with anybody of any other faith. Richard Dawkins in his “Outgrowing God” refers to the nonsensicality of the “habit of labeling young children with the religion of their parents…[when they are] too young to talk, let alone to hold any religious opinions”. That’s your all-important ‘identity’ for you- be it religious, ethnic, or any other.

Should our so-called identity be a matter of life and death?