![]() ![]() By doing so, this understanding of identity acknowledges that context is never absent, and it is always shaping the thing it contextualizes. It can describe, rather than define.ĭescriptive - identity attempts to capture what something means in a given context. If identity doesn’t define us, then what does it do? If it’s not who we are in a definitional sense, then what is it, and what does it mean to say “I am an X, a Y, or a Z”? Well, if it’s not telling me what something is, the best it can be doing is telling what something is like. It does not shape, or limit, or solidify someone in a particular form, or category, or manner. But what if we break that cycle? What if we crack it open at the moment when an identity defines someone?ĭefinitional - identity does not make a person who they are. And that cycle of justifications becomes a self-supporting set of arguments. When it’s fixed in form just the way I like it, then I can be comfortable with it defining me. In order to have more control of it, I want it to be fixed and concrete. There’s a feeling of intimacy with an identity because it seems definitional, and if something defines me, I want to be the one in control of it. ![]() I can say it’s mine, and tell you how to treat it, and make the rules about it. Lots of people want identity to be a noun because nouns are real and concrete. It is created in the interplay of people, and is therefore made and remade constantly.Ĭontrolled by any one person - identity is not held in the control of a single entity, and therefore is not subject to definition by any one entity (even the person claiming the identity). One’s identity can be one thing in the morning at breakfast, and another thing in the afternoon during class, yet both are still fully identities.Ī possession - identity is not something that someone owns. There isn’t a “true” self that exists within a person, with everything else being layers of interpretation. Singular - identity is not something of which a person has only one. It can also change from situation to situation, over very short spans of time. Let’s start with a few things that identity isn’t, to help us figure out how to think about what all it can be.įixed - identity is not something that remains the same throughout one’s life. Many other people think that identity is changeable and malleable, but even they misunderstand how and why identity is changeable and malleable, and end up using the word (and the idea) poorly. Many people think of identity as simple and fixed, but it’s not. ![]()
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