Keyword Project, Essay on (Personal) Identity

Identity

            "Who am I?", the classic question of identity. But what is identity? When one thinks of the word identity, what comes to mind is typically one of two things. The first being the way a person sees themselves, how they define their personal identity (often simplified to self), and the second being the current Merriam Webster definition, “The fact of being who or what a person or thing is.” Both are used often in today’s society; however, the concept of personal identity is, in contrast to the standard dictionary definition, fluid. My reasoning behind this is quite simple: each and every human being has formed their own identity, whether they are conscious of it or not. Humans also have the extraordinary ability to alter this identity to their liking, however many seem to only be able to perform this alteration superficially. My goal with this essay is to examine identity in a way that will encourage persons in their formative years and beyond to explore their personal identity, in an effort to embolden them to shape it in a meaningful and positive manner. To illustrate the fluidity of personal identity, I look to some of the greater minds of the philosophical community, including John Locke and Theodor Adorno, as well as the teachings of Buddhism and Taoism, as I feel those two religions have heavily (and positively) influenced the spiritual and ethical aspects of personal identity.

            Book II of John Locke’s work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, goes into incredible depth regarding the topic of personal identity. Pertaining to the basest understanding of identity, Locke writes:

            Another occasion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very being of things, when, considering anything as existing at any determined time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the ideas of identity and diversity. When we see anything to be in any place in any instant of time, we are sure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing, and not another which at that same time exists in another place, how like and undistinguishable soever it may be in all other respects: and in this consists identity, when the ideas it is attributed to vary not at all from what they were that moment wherein we consider their former existence, and to which we compare the present.

            This passage describes what can be understood as the criteria for a being or even object to be considered to have an identity, which has come to be called the Persistence Question. John Locke’s perception of personal identity, or self, opposes the Cartesian idea of the self as being linked to the soul, as Locke believes identity to be connected to an individual’s consciousness, i.e. experiences unique to the individual. This of course means that Locke does not endorse the idea that identity is transferrable, compared to philosophers like Plato and Descartes who believed the self would continue to exist after death, and that if a person were to be reincarnated, their soul would retain its identity.

Locke refutes this idea of retention of the soul by stating, “For if the identity of soul alone makes the same man; and there be nothing in the nature of matter why the same individual spirit may not be united to different bodies, it will be possible that those men, living in distant ages, and of different tempers, may have been the same man: which way of speaking must be from a very strange use of the word man, applied to an idea out of which body and shape are excluded. And that way of speaking would agree yet worse with the notions of those philosophers who allow of transmigration, and are of opinion that the souls of men may, for their miscarriages, be detruded into the bodies of beasts, as fit habitations, with organs suited to the satisfaction of their brutal inclinations. But yet I think nobody, could he be sure that the soul of Heliogabalus were in one of his hogs, would yet say that hog were a man or Heliogabalus.” What Locke is essentially saying, is that, if we knew a human soul had been reincarnated in the form of an animal, we would clearly not treat it as human, and thus there is no logical reason to accept the idea of reincarnation.

Locke elaborates on the premise of identity, however, and describes how an inanimate object or animal can indeed possess an identity, whereby this identity is vastly different from that of a human being or even another object or animal (principium individuationis). He utilizes the example of an oak tree that grows from a seedling to a tree, which, when felled, is still the same oak tree, similarly to how a horse remains a horse from birth to death. The largest difference between human identity and the identity of other things, is that the identity of a mass of matter such as a tree does not change with experiences, nor does the tree have any conception of itself. Locke applies the same concept to animals, and although the question of animals possessing or lacking notions of themselves is still tangled with today, if we accept the proposals of Charles Darwin, "It may be freely admitted that no animal is self-conscious, if by this term it is implied that he reflects on such points, as whence he comes or whither he will go, or what is life and death, and so forth." (57)

            Now that the philosophical definition of personal identity has been explored somewhat, at least regarding John Locke’s teachings, it is only logical for me to continue by expanding upon that with the viewpoints of other intellectuals. Theodor Adorno, who had similar views to Locke regarding the concept of Truth per Plato, wrote about what he called identity thinking. Identity thinking is used by Adorno to describe what happens when individuals are arranged in groups that, while reflecting some aspect shared by everyone, actually ignore the unique identities of the individuals themselves. Andrew Fagan, author of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s section on Adorno, described the philosopher’s viewpoint on this subject thusly: “…Adorno condemns identity thinking as systematically and necessarily misrepresenting reality by means of the subsumption of specific phenomena under general, more abstract classificatory headings within which the phenomenal world is cognitively assembled.” This sentence carries considerably more weight once we take into account the fact that Theodor Adorno experienced firsthand the rise of the Third Reich in Germany before spending the Second World War in exile in California. Though the policies of Hitler (or the terrible events involving the Khmer Rouge, slavery, Native Americans, and so many more) certainly took identity thinking to a terrible extreme compared to the identity politics we see in the United States nowadays, I believe his rise to power is a prime example to show how much identity thinking and the distortion of identity can have an incredible impact on vast amounts of people.

            Identity politics may not be as horrifying as the Holocaust, but they still perpetuate false images of large groups of people, encouraging negative stereotypes and offensive or even violent behavior towards the individuals whose unique personalities are disregarded. This is not a political essay; however, I feel that the actions of the 2016 President-Elect have often displayed and even encouraged identity thinking, which is simply not acceptable in a country so rich in diversity as the United States of America (or any country for that matter).

Containing further analysis of identity thinking, Adorno and his colleague, Max Horkheimer, authored the Dialectic of Enlightenment. In this work, they examine and dispute the concept of enlightenment not only in the context of the Enlightenment beginning with René Descartes and ending with Immanuel Kant, but ranging all the way back to pre-Socratic Greek philosophy up until the 20^th century. This enlightenment should not be confused with the Eastern concept of enlightenment however, as it embodies a fundamentally different philosophy. The goal of the Enlightenment was to promote reason, logical thinking, and the accretion of knowledge as the path to human domination over nature and the freedom to shape the destiny of our collective species in an attempt to, per Adorno and Horkheimer, basically usurp any perceived higher authority. Essentially, the Enlightenment sought to drive human beings towards omniscience. I won’t go into much further detail regarding this concept, simply because there is enough content within their text to write a multitude of papers discussing the views voiced within, but suffice it to say that the two philosophers believed even an enlightened world would carry with it insurmountable flaws.

If we take a look at the other side of the globe, we discover a very different approach to the concept of enlightenment. The Eastern take on enlightenment advocates the expansion of the mind, which inherently includes knowledge, however their position is not that of man seeking to place himself above all else. Basically, the goal of Buddhism and Taoism (I admit I am neglecting other Eastern religions in this essay, however these are most familiar to me) is to reach a state of being wherein man is one with everyone and everything. This concept is so intriguing because it involves letting go of so much that we now consider to be essential. Possessions have become something by which most persons in modern society measure their self-worth, and thus, by extension, money becomes the one thing we pursue throughout our entire lives. Millennials such as myself will most likely recognize the famous hip-hop line “Cash rules everything around me” (Wu-Tang Clan, “C.R.E.A.M.”), which I believe is one of the best modern examples (although Joey Bada$$’s song “Paper Trail$” is perhaps a better critical work) of the monetary dependence of our culture. Success in life now equates to having a full bank account and the ability to buy whatever you want, but Buddhism and Taoism, each in their own way, preach humility and independence from material things.

The ultimate achievement in Buddhism is enlightenment, which in this context means reaching an all-encompassing understanding of the universe that lifts one above all that is worldly. In a way, a Buddhist who has reached enlightenment becomes what we Westerners would call a higher being, but in contrast to the Christian concept of God, Buddha serves as an example to follow, rather than an all-powerful being who is to be obeyed without question. In Taoism, the goal is to simply follow the Tao, literally the “Way”, which in a basic sense represents the path to enlightenment, and is very similar to the teachings of Buddha. The reason I find these two religions particularly relevant in regards to personal identity, is that they preach inner reflection, something that human beings far too often neglect. Reflecting upon one’s self, examining both the negative and the positive, and using the knowledge gained to improve, is the most effective way I can see to utilize the incredible abilities of the human mind to deconstruct one’s personal identity and reconstruct it as a new-and-improved version.

John Locke did not state how to positively influence one’s personal identity in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, or how to change it at all for that matter, however his belief that it is shaped by our experiences suggests that anything with a substantial enough impact on our lives can change our personal identity, and so, although my reasoning may be considered naïve or even fallacious, I think we have the mental ability to shape ourselves not in the image of some higher being, but in the best possible portrayal of our own unique identity. With that in mind, I encourage anyone who has ever asked the question “Who am I?” to simply take some time away from the inconsistencies of life and imagine who they want to be, to hold on to that image for as long as it takes to become it, and then go back and repeat the process again as many times as it takes.

(As this is an academic paper written for a college course, I have a works cited page available upon request.)