I’ve been thinking that “keep your identity emergent” or “keep your identity honest” might be better advice than “keep your identity small”. That is, people should let their identity emerge as a consequence of their individual object-level views, instead of deriving their individual object-level views from their identity. That reversal of causation seems to me the problem with identity, not identity in itself. So instead of deleting almost all of my identity (and how would I know which little bits to keep?), I should figure out my object-level beliefs first, and then summarize them as aspects of my identity.
Using feminism as an example, if I notice one day that I’m identifying as a feminist, I stop and ask myself about each of the individual object-level issues that feminism touches upon. If my views on those object-level issues really & truly align with those connoted by the “feminism” label, I might as well identify as a feminist; the identifier arises organically from the beliefs. If my views don’t align with it, then I should stop identifying as a feminist. (My views could of course change over time, in which case I adopt/drop the identification accordingly.)
Your comment shows one advantage to this approach: it’s less liable to mislead people than simply keeping one’s identity “small”. If I agree with the X-ist cluster of beliefs and behave accordingly, other people might well have a more accurate model of me if I self-identify as an X-ist than if I stoutly refuse to identify as such. (Of course, if I want to taboo “X-ism” in a conversation, it can make sense to avoid identifying as an X-ist. But doing so indiscriminately can increase confusion & exasperation rather than reduce them.)
people should let their identity emerge as a consequence of their individual object-level views, instead of deriving their individual object-level views from their identity. That reversal of causation seems to me the problem with identity, not identity in itself.
I’d expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep the causation one-way, even if you’re trying hard and are aware of all the consequences. In order for something to be promoted to conscious attention, it has to make it through a set of perceptual filters which include some coherence checks with your existing identity: it’s quite possible to believe earnestly that you’re taking into account all the data even as you silently drop half of it from your consideration.
To make matters worse, I’d also expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep identity criteria stable. For example, the kids in the famous Robber’s Cave experiment (Sherif et al., 1954) readily generated stereotypes for themselves, all to support a more or less fabricated image of a distinct identity group; and this certainly isn’t limited to the laboratory, as the behavior of whatever political group you like the least should demonstrate! The lesson seems to be that identities aren’t static classification functions; justifications and superstitions accrete around them like nacre in the guts of an irritated oyster, growing and feeding back into an increasingly tangled complex of beliefs.
I suspect that if identity is as sticky & accretive as you suggest, trying to purge my identity could prove at least as hard as wearing my identity loosely on my beliefs. But that is just a guess on my part — I ought to chew on what you’ve said for a bit.
One of the benefits I’ve found from keeping my identity small doesn’t seem to be reducible to keeping my object-level views honest. Namely, I’ve recently identified areas of my life in which my identity was preventing me from trying new things, e.g. I thought of myself as the kind of person who didn’t care about nutrition or exercise. I wasn’t mistaken about any property of the world but I was supplying myself with excuses for not expanding my comfort zone. (Edit: Academician describes this happening to him in this post which I think is a useful follow-up to Keep Your Identity Small.)
I’ve been thinking that “keep your identity emergent” or “keep your identity honest” might be better advice than “keep your identity small”. That is, people should let their identity emerge as a consequence of their individual object-level views, instead of deriving their individual object-level views from their identity. That reversal of causation seems to me the problem with identity, not identity in itself. So instead of deleting almost all of my identity (and how would I know which little bits to keep?), I should figure out my object-level beliefs first, and then summarize them as aspects of my identity.
Using feminism as an example, if I notice one day that I’m identifying as a feminist, I stop and ask myself about each of the individual object-level issues that feminism touches upon. If my views on those object-level issues really & truly align with those connoted by the “feminism” label, I might as well identify as a feminist; the identifier arises organically from the beliefs. If my views don’t align with it, then I should stop identifying as a feminist. (My views could of course change over time, in which case I adopt/drop the identification accordingly.)
Your comment shows one advantage to this approach: it’s less liable to mislead people than simply keeping one’s identity “small”. If I agree with the X-ist cluster of beliefs and behave accordingly, other people might well have a more accurate model of me if I self-identify as an X-ist than if I stoutly refuse to identify as such. (Of course, if I want to taboo “X-ism” in a conversation, it can make sense to avoid identifying as an X-ist. But doing so indiscriminately can increase confusion & exasperation rather than reduce them.)
I’d expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep the causation one-way, even if you’re trying hard and are aware of all the consequences. In order for something to be promoted to conscious attention, it has to make it through a set of perceptual filters which include some coherence checks with your existing identity: it’s quite possible to believe earnestly that you’re taking into account all the data even as you silently drop half of it from your consideration.
To make matters worse, I’d also expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep identity criteria stable. For example, the kids in the famous Robber’s Cave experiment (Sherif et al., 1954) readily generated stereotypes for themselves, all to support a more or less fabricated image of a distinct identity group; and this certainly isn’t limited to the laboratory, as the behavior of whatever political group you like the least should demonstrate! The lesson seems to be that identities aren’t static classification functions; justifications and superstitions accrete around them like nacre in the guts of an irritated oyster, growing and feeding back into an increasingly tangled complex of beliefs.
You and Qiaochu_Yuan raise good points.
I suspect that if identity is as sticky & accretive as you suggest, trying to purge my identity could prove at least as hard as wearing my identity loosely on my beliefs. But that is just a guess on my part — I ought to chew on what you’ve said for a bit.
One of the benefits I’ve found from keeping my identity small doesn’t seem to be reducible to keeping my object-level views honest. Namely, I’ve recently identified areas of my life in which my identity was preventing me from trying new things, e.g. I thought of myself as the kind of person who didn’t care about nutrition or exercise. I wasn’t mistaken about any property of the world but I was supplying myself with excuses for not expanding my comfort zone. (Edit: Academician describes this happening to him in this post which I think is a useful follow-up to Keep Your Identity Small.)