If someone will stay in a relationship or job that drives them to the verge of suicide for “identity” reasons, it means that the person/institution providing someone’s identity has almost unlimited power over them.
I’m thinking of something like academia, which is used to dealing with people for whom their identity as an “academic” is the most precious thing in the lives. It’s not just internal “culty” things like academics having their own friend groups, markers, and even language. It’s also how external society sees them, like academics having special social status and even different names (“My name isn’t No, it’s Doctor No!”) that reinforce “academic” as a precious identity. As a result, academia can impose arbitrary rules on its members, overwork and underpay them, and cause them to be depressed and anxious at 6 times the rate of the general public.
Perhaps the antidote to this is to build up an identity that is self-conferred, rather than being dependent on the approval of other people. You can call yourself a “rationalist truth seeker” for example even if the rightful Caliph thinks you’re a moron, so that’s an identity that doesn’t open you to exploitation.
If someone will stay in a relationship or job that drives them to the verge of suicide for “identity” reasons, it means that the person/institution providing someone’s identity has almost unlimited power over them.
I’m thinking of something like academia, which is used to dealing with people for whom their identity as an “academic” is the most precious thing in the lives. It’s not just internal “culty” things like academics having their own friend groups, markers, and even language. It’s also how external society sees them, like academics having special social status and even different names (“My name isn’t No, it’s Doctor No!”) that reinforce “academic” as a precious identity. As a result, academia can impose arbitrary rules on its members, overwork and underpay them, and cause them to be depressed and anxious at 6 times the rate of the general public.
Perhaps the antidote to this is to build up an identity that is self-conferred, rather than being dependent on the approval of other people. You can call yourself a “rationalist truth seeker” for example even if the rightful Caliph thinks you’re a moron, so that’s an identity that doesn’t open you to exploitation.