In this day and age of culture wars, clash of identities, and conflict of beliefs, one idea I keep thinking about is Paul Graham's article about keeping one's identity small: paulgraham.com/identity.html
I thought of it again today, because I saw my neighbours talking under the lights in their lounge, while I was taking out the trash when it's dark outside. I felt like I was intruding on their privacy, and I wouldn't know how to apologise or even just talk with them.
I realise it's because "having neighbours" was never a thing in my life or even a concept in my mind. (lol modernism.) I never had to learn what the appropriate and nice way to interact with neighbours is.
Then I realised that my experience is at odds with perhaps large swaths of the population living around me (or even just in general). People are more likely raised by parents who actually talk to their neighbours! Shock and horror! 😱
I think about all the implications about how that sense of neighbourship that would affect all sorts of aspects of people's lives: how they relate to strangers, how they see their own role in a "community" (lol what's that?), their faith in the public, etc etc.
… and also about what kind of social, cultural, and economic backgrounds are associated with such neighbourliness. A huge, messy, tangled, and unmanageable web of cultures, world history, and immigration is what would lead up to the story of every single person I'd meet.
And that's just so… so incredibly overwhelming! As a not-particularly-social person, I, for one, find that it would be extremely tiring if all interpersonal interactions have to be based on and judged by piles of boundless history. That's where the notion of "identity" comes in.
Trying to understand or interact with each other like that is if we are taking into account the other's "identity". What they'd like, what'd count as polite/acceptable, what'd be the norm --- all encoded in the hazy fog of implicit socio-historical context.
But where did the glorious individual go in this equation? --- All but lost in the narrative of histories, cultures, and societal expectations! I'm losing sight of the room for the individual to set their own standard of social interaction, of what's right and what's acceptable.
I guess I'm just going on a massive, unwarranted rant about how an individual fits into society (or not), hence the topic of "identity". If two people can each keep their identity small, then they can interact as individuals, not as the tips of two piles of historical baggage.
