Loitering at the intersection
Speaking of groups and maintaining them and rights and related issues – my colleague is working on a book about identity, one which looks set to be very good and very interesting. We were talking about it on the phone yesterday, I was talking about Amartya Sen and his view that identity can and should be multiple and fluid and voluntary, and JS said (something like) yes but we don’t want all identities to be fluid and optional, we for instance want to stick to the Enlightenment (that’s very approximate; I wasn’t taking notes and besides he talks very fast and I get only about one word in ten). I said yes but is the Enlightenment a matter of identity? Is it not rather one of values or principles? I don’t remember where we went from there, but wherever it was he had a point, but so did I, and the intersection of the two is one I frequently find myself loitering at. It’s the obvious and familiar paradox: I believe in critical thinking; very well, so do I believe in critical thinking about critical thinking? Well, yes, of course, but I can’t help noticing that the result is always the same: I go on believing in critical thinking. To do anything else would seem to be a contortion beyond human ability. If I think critically about critical thinking and so decide it’s a bad thing and that I will be dogmatic and uncritical instead, then I no longer believe in critical thinking, so I’ve been consistent, in a sense, but I’ve also turned myself inside out. I suppose I can just answer by saying that no matter how critically I think about critical thinking, I still go on thinking critical thinking is necessary, but I do so for sound reasons. A dogmatist could just reply that I merely think I do so for sound reasons.
Maybe I can just resort to a brute fact. It’s a brute fact that we have to think in order to function well. That’s how we got here. We can decide to give it up, but it’s not the best way for entities like us to function, just as it’s not clever to poke our own eyes out or chop our own legs off. (Some people do chop their own legs off. I got a phone call from one such person a few months ago. He’d read an article I wrote for TPM on the subject, and phoned me to tell me about his recent leg-chopping-off. Oh god…)
This paragraph from Jerry’s book in progress is relevant to all that.
It is not only in tightly-knit groups such as Buford’s hooligans that this merging of personal and group identity occurs. Indeed, at least in part, we all define ourselves in terms of our membership of particular social groups. Thus, for example, the author of this book self-identifies as British, heterosexual and male. However, the part that such identities play in what might be called our narratives of self, and the emotional investment that we have in each of them, varies from individual to individual and from group to group.
And also from time to time, and situation to situation. For instance, I was probably much more aware (albeit in a background way, because slightly different thoughts were in the foreground) of my identity as a female while I was writing that back of the bus comment below. I’m more aware of my identity as an American when reading or hearing unaffectionate comments about Americans in for instance global media. I’m possibly slightly more aware of my identity as heterosexual when writing comments about anxious archbishops, although actually I doubt that, because (as queer theorists rightly point out) straight identity is generally so dominant and taken for granted that one doesn’t really think about it even when faced with a contrast; it’s the same (as whiteness studies theorists point out) with whiteness. Default identities recede way into the background in ways that less dominant ones don’t. Nationalism must have been a much punier thing before cheap rapid travel, because whatever you were was the default thing to be.
More later.
Two points,
critical thinking is more of a pragmatic metaphysical position for me. I use it because it works. Which I suppose could be considered applying it to itself and it passing.
Secondly,
some identities (depending on how you define the word) simply are. For example, I am human, nothing I can do about it, there is no way I can validly claim or have imposed on me a llama identity. I am also a father, nothing, not even gender re-assignment can alter that. Of course you can assert other identities, but to assert that all identities are completely flexible sounds a bit to po-mo and relativistic for me.
“Nationalism must have been a much punier thing before cheap rapid travel, because whatever you were was the default thing to be.”
Really?
Napoleonic wars – no strong nationalism?
JS: “Indeed, at least in part, we all define ourselves in terms of our membership of particular social groups. Thus, for example, the author of this book self-identifies as British, heterosexual and male.”
I think one of the critical things here is what is meant by the phrase “define ourselves”.
What JS has written seems to me to be more of a description than a definition; although I admit to being unable to pin down exactly what I mean by that distinction.
If I say that “I am Australian, male and 49 years old” have I defined myself or just listed a few unrelated attributes? There are certainly few, if any, reliable inferences about me that you can draw from those attributes.
BJN,
True. I should have said sense of identity – that’s what can be flexible. One can alter which particular identity is in the foreground – one doesn’t have to put woman or gay or Muslim at the front all the time.
Keith – it’s like those moments on cop shows. “Can you describe him?” “Well he was a white guy, medium build, clean-shaven.” “Great – that only describes about 100 thousand people in this precinct.”
I’m always confused with all this identity talk. Similarly as Keith writes, I don’t think that just because something happens to be true of me, it needs to define me in any way. Yes, I happen to be Slovenian, but I have no idea what it would mean for me to say that being Slovenian is my identity – especially since I despise things like patriotism and nationalism from the bottom of my heart. I also know many men, for example, who are just as enraged by the back-of-the-bus incident as OB or I are.
What is all this identity talk anyway, then?
What paradox? You either do or you don’t – not and; the word ‘so’ shouldn’t be there, there’s no ‘therefore’ about it; evaluating everything, not automatically negating everything. Besides, carved otherwise, for some it’s not universal – they’ll say things like “On that particular subject, it’s best to leave well alone”.
_
I think the issue is not so much what one says about oneself, but which groups that necessarily identifies oneself with. To say that one is heterosexual may have less actual significance for one’s being than to say one is a Pyrrhonian sceptic [if one is an intellectual who is not getting any], but there is no question which of those ‘identities’ carries the greater political charge.
Everything, as they used to say so pithily on NYPD Blue, is a situation. Today’s situation is one where groups defined by ethnicity, religion and sexuality [and necessarily often therefore also by gender] dispute the public sphere. You can ‘identify’ or not as one of these groups, but it doesn’t matter, ‘cos they’ll do it for you whether you like it or not.
I suspect the only thing to do when being interpellated by such discourses is to tell them to f*ck off, but to do that, one does need somewhere to stand. For me, that place is the blatant fiction that is Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Which is rather ironic, since amongst the things the rest of that text ‘guarantees’ [ha!] are the right to a nationality and free religious practice, but there you go…
GTingey – read Eugen Weber’s _Peasants into Frenchmen_ for an account of how a widespread and consistent notion of Frenchness is actually a product of the C19th rather than the Revolution alone.
And then read almost anything written on the subject since – which will tell you that Weber exaggerates grossly…
Interestingly, the period of the greatest international migrations [proportional to overall population] probably remains the later C19, when sail and steam combined to ship tens of millions cross the Atlantic, and within Europe itself people crossed borders and settled almost at will from Glasgow to Warsaw. All that, AND rabid imperialistic nationalism too…
Nicholas
Interesting how something that doesn’t exist can “tip over into evil”…
What do you make of Tajfel’s work?
Dave, “You can ‘identify’ or not as one of these groups, but it doesn’t matter, ‘cos they’ll do it for you whether you like it or not.”
-yeah I get pissed off with being included against my will, in sermons promoting assymetric political deals for religion, atheist soulless materialist racist neocon stooge that I am… the apparent clincher is that I’m merely unwittingly assuming a ‘default position’ …It just reinforces my identity as “Pissed Off, the Midlands.”
The other side of the coin is that people get very pissed off if they identify as part of a particular group, and other people don’t concur.
Check out the unpublished writers at one of the many writing forae on the net. They become apoplectic if anyone dare suggest that they are not actually writers.
Or football fans – suggest to the nutters that hang out on football web sites that they are not real fans, and you’re likely to get a kicking.
And FWIW, I could do a whole riff here about Hegel’s dialectic of master/slave, and it’s link to international relations.
But I’ll spare you all. (You’ll be pleased to hear.)
Jerry S I see you’ve (maybe?) cited Buford’s Among the Thugs… it got a couple of shreddings from a few lefty academic journals, but it did mess with the then fashionable notion that football violence was to do with poverty; the working classes acting out a ‘Marxist’ outcome…
Yes I talk about Buford’s book quite a lot in the first chapter. (And also Nick Hornby at one point – though nothing to do with football.)
Football violence to do with poverty… did anyone really believe that?
I used to be friendly with someone involved with Chelsea’s intercity firm. He wasn’t the least bit poor, and neither were a lot of his colleagues. (They were also quite contemptuous of Chelsea’s skinhead following, which much more closely fitted the idea of disaffected working class youth – though unfortunately for our Marxist friends, they were rather racist!)
looking forward to seeing the book.
Jerry,
‘Interesting how something that doesn’t exist can “tip over into evil”…’
But Nicholas didn’t exactly say that identity didn’t exist, and in any case what tips over into evil is the fantasy. I think there’s a good deal in that, you won’t be surprised to hear. I haven’t read Tajfel though.
You once told me you could do the Hegel master/slave thing too, and said you’d spare me too – but actually I’d quite like to know. But perhaps it will be in the book and we just have to wait patiently?
‘The other side of the coin is that people get very pissed off if they identify as part of a particular group, and other people don’t concur.
Check out the unpublished writers at one of the many writing forae on the net. They become apoplectic if anyone dare suggest that they are not actually writers.’
Hmm. That’s interesting. I think I have a real objection here, or at least a question. Are you sure that’s what the unpublished writers are doing – identifying as a group? Are you sure it’s not rather that each of them is identifying self as a writer? The forum is a group, obviously, but does that really mean that they are necessarily thinking of themselves as members of the group, Writers, as opposed to each one thinking, I Yam a Writer.
It could be both, I suppose. But thinking of oneself as a writer seems almost necessarily a one at a time kind of thing more than a group kind of thing.
Well, on one reading, Nicholas came pretty close to saying that identity doesn’t exist (Emperor’s New Clothes; scam; etc)
Not sure if that’s what he meant, though.
To answer your question about writers. I think it is both. They self-identify as a writer on the basis of being part of the group of writers. If one was talking about “writers” – as a group – then they’d be joyful to be thought to be a member of the category. They say so explicitly, actually. (And talk frequently of wishing desperately to join the ranks of published writers; it’s something about the status, the company they’ll be in, etc – because obviously they all write anyway, they want what comes with being “a writer”).
But, as perhaps you’re suggesting, I think what’s important to them isn’t group membership per se – it is to be thought of as being the same kind of person as Stephen King, Danielle Steele, Barbara Cartland – you know, the greats!
At least they’re not *critics*, *spit* *spit*…
“You once told me you could do the Hegel master/slave thing”…
Oo-er missus…
How British, a double entendre in every port…
[falling about]
Oooh, Hegel, kinky.
Ohhh, that kind of wanting to be a writer. Yeah – that does fit. I once knew someone like that – it took me forever to catch on that he meant a writer like Tom Clancy. In his case at least the status, fame, money, movies angle was what was desirable, not the actual activity of writing.
I think the psychology of it is something like this.
They esteem writers; they write; they want to be the kind of person that they esteem; but there is this nagging voice saying – but anybody can write, just like anybody can sing in the bath, it doesn’t mean you’re a writer; so they need recognition that they are “a writer”, like other writers, in order to get the pay-off from self-identifying as something that they esteem.
Something like that anyway. Basically, for them, the term “writer” is already defined with a social/group component attached.
Ah. Sure.
But then that begins to seem rather broad – because it’s just a practical condition of any kind of work or vocation. It applies to plumbing, driving a bus, any old thing – you can say you’re one, but you’re not one really unless someone wants to hire you or buy your product. Is it really identity or is it more like just professional or vocational, um, ratification?
Still – there are some of those that have a certain kind of mystique, and writer is one, so I guess I do get it.
Mountaineer is another: that’s a hugely social one, with a lot of mystique.
It’s the “being a writer” thing. As you say, the mystique, the forrowed brows, creativity, imagination, etc.
On these writers’ forae, there are always references to their own creativity; you know, whole threads about it: “Are you the only person in your family who is creative?”; “Is creativity under-appreciated in modern society”.
They are self-identifying as particular kinds of people; it’s to do with self-esteem, narratives of self, etc, etc.
Pretty interesting, actually. That’s why I read them.
Ahh crap, takes me ten minutes to post something and it’s all moved on. If your saying they identify with a specific person, I’ve less of a problem with that.
Aha – creativity; yes, now I get it. That’s also a great buzzword in the US generally, especially when it comes to education – schools are expected to foster ‘creativity.’ You often get a forced dichotomy between ‘creativity’ and uncreative stuff like, you know, math, science, foreign languages, history.
I tend to think there’s a connection. That all these rather woolly cuddly self-soothing categories tie up together – that people who croon about their identities are mostly the same kind of people who croon about their creativity. A mix of sentimentalism and self-obsession. Some people trace the distinction to Romanticism v Classicism – it’s Romantics who worry about their identities and their creativity; classicists prefer to think about things external to their own selves.
(I wonder…I wonder if that kind of thing isn’t also considered very American, especially outside the US. All this European anti-Americanism we hear so much about – I wonder if that’s one component. I think we’re thought of as self-obsessed in that way. And god knows a lot of us are…)
Laughing at campanilismo. Very good. Also very Murkan. Murka the greatest country in the world, say people who’ve never looked at any other. How oh how do they know?
I seem to say that a lot. Come to think of it – I said that a lot as a child, too. I have a sudden unbidden memory of saying that to my older sister and brother all the time. Ha! Bratty interrogator in the making.
But they didn’t know, you know.
I think you guys are being a little harsh on unpublished writers. But then I would, I was one for years.
When you get that first letter that says, ‘ We would be pleased to …’ the rush is amazing. Your friends might tell you your stuff is good, but when a stranger (and professional) says it’s good enough to put money on …
Of course I’d love to think of myself as being in the same ‘group’ as Wilkie Collins, MR James or HP Lovecraft but publication means that you have not been spending your precious free time on the equivalent of glueing sea-shells to household objects. It means there are people out there who think that the time it takes to read your stuff is time well spent.
Of course you need the recognition that you are competent at the endeavour you have chosen and print is the arbiter.
Incidentally, the income I have made from writing over five years is rather less than I would have made in a month of selling cleaning products door to door.
” being a little harsh on unpublished writers.”
I don’t mean to be harsh. I’m not saying that they’re not talented, etc. And we are talking here about a specific subset of unpublished writers. And the thing about it all is that I don’t think they would deny anything that I’ve written. They’re very open about how important it is to them.
(Obviously I’m generalising here.)
Nicholas – I guess we just don’t agree! But check out Tajfel. It’s very interesting.
“Tajfel (1970) points out that this last finding is blatant discrimination caused by categorising the boys into meaningless groups.”
Yes exactly. The boys favoured their group even where there was no basis for its existence. That’s the point. We identify. Even where there is no reason to do so.
(I haven’t read the link!)
Hi Ophelia – Johann Hari wrote an excellent article about how the Chapman Brothers’ art and philosophy is an assault on the Enlightenment:
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1066
Check out the response of Jake Chapman here!
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1067
A perfect example of postmodern rage…
Don,
Well, yeah. In fact I’ve tried to explain all that to Jerry a few times, as part of larger discussions of the need or lack thereof for external validation. I like to be or pretend to be or claim to be grandly impervious to any such need, but on the other hand, I can’t possibly pretend not to be pleased that there are strangers who write to me to tell me they like the way I write. Sometimes they’re even people I’ve heard of, even people I’ve admired for years. Since writing this kind of thing (as opposed to the creative kind of thing, which I mistakenly used to think was the kind of thing I wanted to write) is important to me, I can’t pretend to be indifferent to reception.
BJN,
Okay I take it back! Elite mountaineers, may be what I meant. You know, the people who collect the world’s highest peaks, die on Everest, etc.
Oh – Tajfel has to do with that experiment where the two camps of boys warred with each other? I do know about that.
No, it’s a different one. I forget the name of the other.
“I think that it is perfectly possible to use it sensibly”
I’m really curious about this. I can see that in the abstract, or in a perfect world, but what I wonder is, do you think it’s perfectly possible to use it sensibly in an existing context in which it’s so generally used unsensibly? I would say that it’s so contaminated by endless repetition and encrustations of sentimentality that it’s not really possible to use it sensibly (in the sense of readers’ knowing what you mean by it) unless you stipulate a precise meaning at the beginning. Though that could be quite inapplicable in an academic sociology context.
Heh – we kind of asked the same question, BJN.
Both words have been so misused that it’s hard to use them in an uncontaminated way now. But maybe it’s hard but not impossible.
Bingo! Your reply to Nicholas showed me what you mean.
The sense of identity is real, however what you identify with can be anything from a complete fiction (those boys) to concrete reality (my own fatherhood).
In those terms I was hammering on about the problems of identity with a fiction. Which I suppose is bloody obvious. Well ‘der’ to me :)
Arrgh, I’m posting and trying to do several other things at the same time and keep getting out of sync with my posts.
OB, snap! That’s the same thing I was asking, but much less eloquently than yourself.
BJN
Yes, exactly. :)
Though there are complications. Consider, for example, the Marxist idea of false consciousness; or the difference between a “class in itself” and a “class for itself”.
I guess some people would argue that it is possible to get it wrong when you self-identify because there are objective facts about your identity.
I’m not sure, though, that this would make the self-identity any less real or a fiction. It would certainly be the same in its effects. (Or at least very similar.)
It gets complicated, obviously.
Niko,
Good link. Of course, how can we dare to challenge the transgressive po-mo artistic world unless we have immersed ourselves in it, any more than we can challenge religious view-points without a lifetime of studying theological minutiae.
I take a philistine view-point, I don’t see what is so great about Tracy Emin’s work, but she seems like a fun kind of person so good luck to her. I don’t see what the Chapman’s have to offer, but they seem like a couple of twats, so sod ’em.
Trashing a Goya? How transgressive. Twats.
Jerry,
Yes, exactly. :)
then why didn’t you say so in the first place :)
‘It gets complicated, obviously.’
Which could be why there’s a book to be written about it. A win-win situation, as we say over here.
Thanks for the link, Niko!
Niko,
thanks for the off topic post. I’ve always disliked the Chapmans, I used to think they were banal vandals at best, however they really much worst than that.
Transsexuals anyone? Or are we assuming that that’s just a pathology?
I mean in the sense “I guess some people would argue that it is possible to get it wrong when you self-identify because there are objective facts about your identity”…
Been said before, but worth saying again. It is strange how po-mo transgression seems to limit itself to winding up liberal institutions rather than transgressing things which would invoke a some what more vigourous response. Jesus and Mo takes more real risks than the Chapmans ever could.
Interesting, Dave. I was thinking also about the person that thinks they’re Jesus. Obviously they’re not the historical figure Jesus. But does that mean that the self-identity is a fiction or not real?
I’m just not sure…
If one defines self-identity in terms that refer only to things like: the stories that one tells oneself about oneself; narratives of self; the emotional investment that one has in one’s beliefs, attitudes, judgements, etc – then I’m not sure that a self-identity can be a fiction. It just is what it is. Though, of course, in terms of its narrative, etc., it might well be untrue or false.
Surely the sense-of-Jesus-identity is real, its what is going on in their head. However the Jesus-identity itself is false.
OB
So if I say that the Jews were persecuted by Hitler, do you take that to mean that every Jew was persecuted by Hitler?
Or if I say Chelsea fans were distraught after they were hammered by Manchester City, do you think that means all Chelsea fans?
I just don’t. But I think they are analogous. Aren’t they?
Yes interesting about transsexuals – because amputee wannabes are similar, at least in their own view. They feel (or say they feel, think they feel – it’s complicated, because there’s the possibility of a feedback loop, as Ian Hacking says) as if their whole selves aren’t their real selves; that the real self doesn’t have that extraneous leg. It’s very strange stuff…Talking to that guy on the phone was interesting, in a painful way.
Hacking talks about epidemics that come and go, sort of like moral panics; they can be suggested into existence and then fade away.
BJN
Yes, I guess. Except I suspect that we’re then talking about what might turn out to be radically different things (identity and self-identity).
Various things about separating them out make me nervous. For example, it seems to let in the Marxist thing where a whole class can be falsely conscious.
Also, defining “identity” in this kind of objective way seems to strip it of its internal, reflexive dimension (which maybe is okay, but I’m not sure).
Hmm.
No, I don’t think they are analogous. For different reasons. In a sense every Jew was persecuted by Hitler – and anyway it’s more usual to say ‘Europe’s Jews’ or some such, isn’t it? And the Chelsea fans one is different because being a Chelsea fan entails being distraught when Chelsea is hammered; that’s the meaning of the term. But Muslim doesn’t entail being offended at (say) cartoons of the prophet, though I’ll concede your point before you make it that it almost does. Muslims in general are more intense about Islam than followers of other religions are about theirs, but all the same, some Muslims are as a mere matter of fact lukewarm or even secular, and others are mystical and gentle and tolerant like Salman Rushdie’s grandfather. There are some Muslims who are sensible, and don’t pride themselves on taking offense! I’ve linked to some right here. So the word is not an exact equivalent of Chelsea fan.
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I definitely don’t think the term Chelsea fan entails being distraught. I consider myself a Manchester City fan, and I’m never distraught when we’re hammered! Thankfully.
I think the Jews example is still pertinent. I think I could say European Jews were sent to extermination camps by Hitler, and not have to specify that I don’t mean every European Jew.
But who knows – perhaps I can’t!
Ah well, it’s just different intuitions. I think I can say “Muslims were offended by the cartoons…” without it being taken to mean every Muslim.
But I could be wrong. Where’s the research when you need it!!?
Jerry,
I’m probably missing something again, but how does self-identity differ from identity, as opposed to sense-of-identity?
No, you can. Dammit. I have noticed that before – there is a kind of ambiguity in the language, or in usage, which means that you may be right. You could say the thing about European Jews and not have to specify. Dammit! I don’t even understand why that’s true. But it is. You can say women are underpaid without having to say you don’t mean all of them.
Maybe it’s just context. Which is hopeless; completely vague. I have no problem with women are underpaid, or Muslims are underpaid for that matter; I balk when ‘are underpaid’ is ‘are offended’. Because it’s cognitive…? Can I get away with that? If it’s cognitive, it sounds different?
I’ll think about that.
Very cautious of you to ‘consider yourself’ a Manchester City fan. It’s not your identity then. Like running – tens of thousands of miles, but it’s not your identity.
Tricky stuff…
BJN
Ah sorry – I tend to use “self” and “sense of” interchangeably.
My take is that identity can be defined objectively (so – your father example). Self-identity has a reflexive, subjective component (but will usually be linked to things which are true about our place in the world – though, not necessarily, as we’ve been discussing).
I’m not so keen on the term “sense of identity” because I think people can have very well specified narratives about their identity which don’t seem to be captured by the word “sense”.
I think I can get away with that (that was a short think). They all sound odd to me – women are angry, gays are overjoyed, Muslims are offended, Hindus are shocked. They all just sound like generalizations that aren’t warranted. I think it must be because it’s cognitive, or about internal states. Somehow with external or social facts one knows that it doesn’t necessarily mean all, and with internal states one doesn’t – unless that really is just me. It could be.
OK, I think I get it. Seems like you have problems making objective statements about someone’s internal mental state. Which is fair enough, but isn’t that always the case and how can you have a discussion about these things if you aren’t prepared to do so?
As for choice of words, to me, “self identity” implies some degree of active choice in what you’re identity is, “sense of identity” is more passive, and is just what you are. I personally feel I have a sense of identity, rather than self identity.
That is not to say you can’t make active choices about how you live your life, but my active choices don’t consist of construction of an identity. Does that make sense?
Self identity sounds a bit Nietzschian with a whiff of Superman about it.
OB
Hmmmm! Not persuaded. But I don’t think I have anything extra substantive to add. :)
“Seems like you have problems making objective statements about someone’s internal mental state.”
No, it’s not that. I wasn’t clear.
What worries me is that you’ll get essentialist specifications of identity which have nothing to do with self-identity (or sense of identity).
I’m thinking of Marxism here. Standard Marxism holds that the proletariat are defined in terms of their relationship to the means of production. But Marxists distinguish between a “class in itself” (which is a class as it is objectively defined) and a “class for itself” (which is a class aware of its own status as class).
I’m worried about objective definitions of identity that are like the Marxist class in itself. You know, I could be essentialist about nationality, and insist that everybody born in Britain, with British parents, was British. That’s an objective specification of identity. But it might have nothing to do with self-identity.
I agree with you about the difference between self-identity and sense of identity, I think. Sense does seem more passive, more vague, etc.
Ooops. The second bit of that reply was directed to BJN, obviously.
OK, I think I get it, something like…
Some chap, a citizen of Paraguay say, feels he is British, wants to be British and identifies himself as British. They can’t speak a word of English/Welsh/Gaelic/Scots and have never been to Britain, nor even met someone from there. Yet they still have some feeling of Britishness about themselves.
Well his concept of Britishness probably doesn’t gel with many other people concept of Britishness, especially the passport holding born and bred ones. But without being him, how can we know what her really feels?
Suddenly reminds me of the Tom Sharpe novel (Riotous Assembly?) where a South African Boer policeman so felt he was an Englishman he had an Englishman’s heart transplanted into his chest to make it genuine.
In the case of the Marxists, isn’t the ‘class for itself’ just a bunch of people agreeing with the Marxists definition of themselves?
BJN
Yes to the Paraguay thing; though, as you suggest, one would need convincing that his sense of Britishness was the same as someone born and bred in Britain.
About the Marxist thing: well, not for Marxists it isn’t (just a bunch of people agreeing with the Marxist definition).
Marxists – though not all of them! :) – would argue that the proletariat are the bearers of the liberatory potential of humankind whether they like it, or know about it, or not. So if they become “class conscious”, then it isn’t simply a matter of them suddenly agreeing with Marxists, but rather them realising their historical destiny.
To be fair, Marx did specify some of the conditions that would have to be in place for this to occur (i.e., immiseration, industry concentrated in units of ever increasing size, polarisation of the classes), but, you know, we’re still kind of waiting! Indeed, if one were pretentious one might describe this as an age of waiting…
Waiting shmaiting. It’s only been a century and a half! What am I, a rocket ship? Jeez, you people are so impatient.
(That was Marx speaking.)
Back after a dinner and baby dandling break.
OK, so our hypothetical Paraguayan has, in his head, some sort idea, conscious or unconscious of what it is to be British, and that is what he is identifying with. Not some essentialist idea of Britishness.
Now, surely this is the same as the delusional I-am-Jesus chap’s idea of what being Jesus means or my own idea of what being a father means. We are identifying ourselves to to ideas, and those ideas can be true or false, like any other idea. Some ideas (eg: Britishness) are some what hazy and ill defined by their nature.
At which point, you are back to the old problem of understanding what is going on in someone else’s head. Why having some sense of identity with an idea should cause any extra problems, I don’t know.
So I am a father, the Jesus chap is nuts and the Paraguayan chap has been watching too much Corrie.
Can’t speak for Marxists though.
“you are back to the old problem of understanding what is going on in someone else’s head.”
Though, of course, you can ask them. And you can also do the kind of ingenius experiments conducted by the likes of Tajfel.
“So I am a father, the Jesus chap is nuts and the Paraguayan chap has been watching too much Corrie.”
Well that’s chapter 2 sorted! :)