The Only Identity You’ll Ever Need

All the fuss about identity as of late is mostly babble. But the promise of unity, fraternity, solidarity—power—seduces compliant individuals to its tribalism like a pike to a lure.

The differences between the particular and the universal are irreconcilable anyways. It is impossible to reduce an individual to a part of a group on the one hand, then consider that group an individual on the other. Groups are always composed of individuals. This also applies to the common notions of identity in their typical, post-modern, “social” sense. These types of identities are construed, whether chosen for oneself or bestowed on others, and never actual. They are always after the fact.

Add on top of that the convenience of nounism, increased by the ever-growing inability to describe oneself and others using descriptive terms, our fallen creature necessarily retreats into the crevices of his imagination in order to describe the groups he falls into, but is left floundering when tasked with describing himself.

I am making a case for cold hard nominalism where identities are concerned. But that isn’t romantic enough for those concerned with group allegiance. A metaphysics of things, of originals, of bodies remains unconvincing for souls tempered by the siren of their solipsism. It would require them to look outside themselves long enough to see that, yes, we are each our own being, a one-of-a-kind, as priceless as much as it is original.

Without such an approach one could only ever misidentify the subject in question—himself. The moment he applies his caricatures and memberships to this or that person, he sets a rigid boundary within which he must fight to remain. But so long as he can adopt identities, his introspection needs not gravitate beyond the labels and prepackaged meaning he affixes to himself and others. And why should he be bothered to do otherwise?

But there is one identity under which all others are designated, the heading of headings, the subject to every subsequent predicate, and the particular to every universal. It not only serves the function of best identifying what and where and when and who we are speaking about, but it is also the only identity an individual could ever demonstrate of himself without slipping into essentialism and tribalism.

That identity is, of course, the one designated by the personal pronoun, emblazoned across our identity cards, the one label we carry from birth to death, and the one identity that everyone who knows us will remember: your name, the only identity you’ll ever need.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I think the propagandists, I mean public relations people have us pretty well figured out:

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I think the propagandists, I mean public relations people have us pretty well figured out:

I have a feeling, or maybe just a hope, that the public relations and propaganda racket is dying a slow death.

Bias and prejudice might as well be synamous with each, common sense, since the gods are so hard to please, and are so easily offended. Its all about me, me too, an me three

Were all relative, even though the math on those odds say otherwise.

a reply to: dfnj2015

If you can see a room full of suits without getting sick to your stomach, you are the problem.

Where's they get that influence ya suppose? Who printed the first badge of authority? So proud Moran who wanted permission to breath and was proud to have that stamp of approval?

I mean who came up with them drivers license. How stupid and evil that must have sounded to 99% of drivers. So what happened?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

It is impossible to reduce an individual to a part of a group on the one hand, then consider that group an individual on the other. Groups are always composed of individuals. This also applies to the common notions of identity in their typical, post-modern, “social” sense. These types of identities are construed, whether chosen for oneself or bestowed on others, and never actual. They are always after the fact.

Have you ever heard of systems theory? Or mathematics for that matter? What you seem to be claiming here, if I'm reading you rightly, is that there is no stability to personality.

If that is what you are claiming, the vast majority of "mind" scientists - neuroscientists, psychologists and developmental psychologists - would dispute that on soli evidence.

D'arcy Thompson recognized over a hundred years ago that the human body was "mathematizable". The British neurologist John Hughlings Jackson even figured out a notion which is a cornerstone of modern neuroscientific thinking - and of course, builds off from Darwin's theory of evolution - that the more external parts of the human brain are more 'recent' in its evolutionary origin, whereas more inner parts, especially the brainstem, are increasingly older. He also posited, quite logically, that when metabolically taxed, the human brain undergoes what he termed "dissolution": a regression of ontological functioning from an attractor organized by the cortex, to an attractor organized by the brainstem/midbrain.

I am making a case for cold hard nominalism where identities are concerned.

All of my threads at ATS disprove this claim of yours. Evolution is real. Our brain-mind is a homeostat: which means each state of being we embody is adaptive

From my perspective, you are fighting within yourself to keep this primitive illusion alive, mostly because your brain-mind compels you from a deeper logic than you are willing to recognize.

As a system, all of your identities, or "self-states". are configured around an emotion: either love or fear. If the former, 'safety' is the general condition which allows a more energetic organization of the mind-brain. The solitary nucleus - a brainstem nucleus - actually controls the vagal systems (and the sinoatrial node) and also directly enervates the very heart of the amygdala: the central amygdaloid nucleus.

All of the evidence could not be any clearer - so long as you aren't religiously committed to keeping yourself ignorant lest you experience the consequences of cognitive dissonance for mental functioning.

Myth. In short. Myth is what you guys are doing, and keep doing, and it is all unnecessary. None of this needs to be seen this way; nor is it impossible for a human being to change, and accept themselves in their wholeness, but with a new orientation to action: to promote stability.

In my opinion, you cannot think clearly at a metaphysical level if you don't accept the ontological primacy of developmental processes. If you don't think watching and learning about the cause and effect processes of human interaction doesn't matter, there is an unconscious self-state 'driving' you towards a more affectively "palatable" perspective.

Anybody with any sort of psychodynamic knowledge, however, can see whats really happening. Fear (an abstract potential related to self-preservation) allows the most dominate self states (identities) correlated with real life situations in the external world, to determine the conscious state of the thinker. The thinker is 'guided' by affective tones triggered by interfacing with a concept. In this way, the mind is 'organized' from the bottom-up, according to fear dynamics (objects which threaten) and idealization dynamics (which direct the mind elsewhere, thereby protecting the self from experiencing the conceptual conflict between its present behavior and the fact that a host of past traumas anchor the mind to think in certain ways).

I hate to burst your bubble, but it's a bit too much for me to watch - with the 'echo chamber effect' of hearing only what you want to hear, ignoring the plausibility of seeing your behavior as stemming from fear, and not a "self-controlled" knowledge of something "higher", as the pretentious idealization systems compel the thinker to believe.

So, no, sorry - as to the issue of whether or not identities 'exist'. We have many of them. For as many contexts and situations that we have gone through in our life, those 'repeating' ones have created and evolved within us all sorts of identity states and identity states which 'bridge' between other identity states.

Ain't that the whole idea of the 'tarot' deck? Isn't this a fundamental knowledge of the occult? That humans have 'different ways of being', depending on the motivational system in play - and thus, the context the person is in?

a reply to: Astrocyte

No, what I mean is, the personal pronoun is the only identity we need, and the only identity we need to cultivate. We are one thing, and that thing was given a name at its birth and will have that identity to his death.

This hocus-pocus about different identities, which is essentially attaching myriad labels to one thing, purely after the fact, is nonsense.

The only thing you see with your “psychodynamic knowledge” is your own thoughts. There is nothing in reality you can line a string between it and the vapourous terms you toss about, which is all an attempt to give solidity to pure wind.

. I hate to burst your bubble, but you are wasting your time.