The Problem of Identity

October 5, 2017 / HinduEyes / 0 Comments

A serious problem the entire world faces today is the increasingly tribal nature of identification and its ugly partner, fascism. The current leaders of some of the most powerful countries in the world, be it America, India, the UK, or China, promote limited, unidimensional tribal identities that seek to protect themselves by eradicating all other identities.¹For an excellent long essay on tribalism, see this post. For a shorter article on Trump and tribalism, check this out. A more recent article about how the NRA made the gun into a tribal identity marker. Left-wing thinkers propose solutions that occasionally seem to point in the direction of eradicating any kind of identification at all, whether familial, racial, religious, or national in nature. But there still appears to be a deeper need for humans to identify with something, and therein lies the problem.

To move towards a solution is not to eradicate any sense of identity at all whatsoever, but rather be clear about which identity is emphasized the most, and what our hierarchy of identification is. That is, in a situation where we have the option to align ourselves with one of two identities we hold that are in conflict with each other, which one do we choose? How do we know which one to choose?

We all have identities that range from very small (my own body) to small (my family, my neighborhood, my city), to medium-sized (my state, my nation), to large (my race, my religion), to nearly all-encompassing (my humanity, my world). We stand at the center of all these identities, but at one point or another, one or the other identity is supreme. For many, their own body is supreme most of the time,²Here I am referring to the selfish individualism ingrained in us through today’s pervasive and unseen neoliberal ideology, where one’s individual self is the subject of all relations in the world. Refer to this article to gain some more clarity and depth on the topic of neoliberalism. and at times, their nation or religion is supreme (resulting in fascist nationalism and religious fanaticism, respectively). But it is difficult to find someone for whom the all-encompassing identity reigns supreme most of the time. This is due to the difficulty in identifying with a subtle, more pervasive identity, for lack of even being able to perceive it.

In the great quest for knowledge of the Self in the ancient Sanskrit text called the Kena Upaniṣad, an example is given to understand why we may not be able to perceive the Self (i.e. Consciousness), despite the fact that it is all-pervading. The text states, pratibodha viditam matam,³See Kena Upaniṣad, verse 2.4. which means “know the Self in and through all thoughts”. This means that the Self is present in all of our thoughts, but we are unable to perceive it. Why? It is simply a matter of non-apprehension due to pervasiveness. When we see an object, we name the object, say, for example, a book. But what we fail to recognize in almost 100% of our perceptions is the light that allows the perception to happen in the first place. Instead of saying “That is light illuminating a book”, we just say, “That is a book”. We fail to see the light because it pervades every single one of our visual experiences. It is unchangingly present, and therefore we have the tendency to focus only on the new, on the object that pops out at us.

Similarly, the Self is what illumines all of our thoughts, the Kena Upaniṣad claims, but we conveniently ignore the Self reflected in all thoughts and instead focus on the content of the thought. If we shift our attention from the object to the thought of the object, and then from the thought of the object to the fact that the thought is only reflected Consciousness, then we may finally be able to “see” Consciousness in everything.

In our daily lives, the interplay of identities we hold weaves our individual existence together. But most of the time we have a tendency to focus on the identity that is popping out, changing, or “exciting”, and in doing so, conveniently forget the more pervasive, more subtle identity,  our humanity. When we interact with our fellow humans, we let our smaller identities flare up and reign supreme throughout our interactions. We fail to focus on our humanity as a possible identity to hold on to because we simply don’t see it. This is the problem of identity, the cause of so much conflict in our world today.

Is there a solution? It is not to eradicate identity altogether, but to be aware of which identity holds the reigns in our lives. Which one is supreme? The problem is not identifying with a particular religion, or any other smaller circle of identification. It is our failure to identify which identity should be the most important one. Which one do we hold to be highest?

Until we hold humanity to be our highest circle of identification, there will necessarily be conflict, there will necessarily be “tribal warfare” and fascistic tendencies will continue to flare up. So identify with a religion, identify with a nation. But if at any point that religion or nation tells you that it should supersede your humanity, then you must be willing to put your allegiance to that religion or nation aside for the sake of humanity. The human identity should reign supreme by default. Only then will there be any glimmer of hope for peace on earth.