Identity

Identity:  The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.

It's really all about symbolism in a form of modern tribalism.  Where the old Scots used to wear Tartan patterns to declare their tribe, today we have tattoos, advertising on our T-shirts, bumper stickers, and haircuts.

But there has to be more to life than showing an allegiance to a clique.  

There's a great slogan that gets my point across:

WE are Individuals.

It makes me laugh (out loud) every time I hear it.  The definition of irony all rolled up into what is wrong with the world.

Identity, in the grand sense, isn't about packaging.  Someone with a strong identity doesn't find it necessary to express it outwardly.  The kind of confidence a strong identity garners means that they can wear anything, and not be in allegiance with any group, and be individuals. In the I sense, not the We sense.  True individuals don't wear the latest fashions or hairstyles as that is Group Think, not individual expression.  They're beyond Group Think.  They don't care what other people think of them.

One of the great memes of science has been "no two snowflakes are alike."  I think most of us have heard that so many times we forget when we first heard it.  What folks may not have discovered, however, it is that is wrong.

Within the small space that is a snowflake, there are a limited (although a huge) number of possible combinations.  Many snowflakes are alike.  Add up the number of snowflakes that have fallen, through all the millions of years they've fallen, and you can determine (within the limited scope of their size and complexity) just how many snowflakes have fallen that are alike.  Because of their small size, there are only so many permutations available.

With all the millions of people on the earth at one time, it is logical to conclude (also) that two people may be very much alike.  That two individuals who may not look alike, may actually think alike, with much the same preferences in clothing, art, music, literature, and politics.  Even with thinking then, within the limited confines of what is knowable; people can share ideas and not be intentionally group like.

When we talk of being individuals then, very often we're confusing it with the concept of uniqueness, of being different (wholly different) than another human being.  Much of what appears as individualism is nothing like it in the slightest.  It manifests in cliques and collectivism.  It manifests thusly:

WE are unique because we dress like anarchists.  But what we really are is group-think anarchists.

WE are unique because we don't like popular music.  Because we refuse to accept another's right to individual choices as being valid, good or bad.  

WE are unique because we dress like Goths not Preppies (or whatever the modern equivalent is today).  But we band together like seals, attempting to dress outrageously (in expensive designer Goth fashions that our preppie parents pay for) because we don't want to give the appearance of fitting in with the majority, but fitting in with the minority is cool.

This has always been an issue for young people.  Feeling included, yet wanting to leave a unique mark on the world.  My Footprint Is Here is idealistic.  Without taking away or disparaging idealism because it is a great motivator to success and maintains optimism, it isn't very practical or realistic and it isn't even important when you get older and acquire a little wisdom.  Optimism is eventually replaced by wisdom.

I've often wanted to conduct a social experiment.  I want to take a group of about 100 socialist-leaning, tattooed, hemp-shirt-wearing young people through an experiment.

Here's how it would be done:

We find 100 people that are about the same size of men and women.  They have about the same color of skin and all have the same eye color.  It wouldn't be difficult as there is a huge pool from which to select people.

Their hair would all be shaved (or styled and colored alike).  They'd all be given the exact same clothing and the exact same soap, deodorant, and shampoo to use.  The clothing would be of the generic type (something off the shelves at JC Penny, such as plaid shirts and polyester, elastic waist slacks).  They'd live in the exact same type of apartments, in a kind of ward environment, with the exact same functional, but not stylish furnishings.  In other words, everything outward would be the same as would be generically devoid of style.  

It may sound strange, but that is exactly what they are advocating.  That's where socialism leads, making all people "the same."  Letting them live in it for a while seems appropriate.  Who am I to deny people want they want?

Then I'd give them all a simple goal:

Be unique (express your individualism).

I can't remember who said it, but there was a woman who once remarked that she loved going to formal occasions where all the men are wearing tuxedos.  With all the normal unique attire (colors of shirts, suit styles, etc.) removed from the equation, when all men were dressed identically, what you were really able to see was the person.  In the sameness you could see the man.  Truly remarkable men (not in appearance terms) stood out from the crowd.

I would imagine, or my hypothesis of the social experiment, is that very few would be able to accomplish being unique or could find anyway to express themselves.  Because once you remove all the external cosmetics, the adornments and affectations, what you're left with is what's inside—what they think, what the know, how they express themselves, and how they persuade.  Most of these folks are empty vessels, soulless individuals finding camaraderie in being ostentatious, with really bizarre and outrageous packaging.

I think most of them would go mad and never recover from it, finding that their ideas of expressions and uniqueness were actually a fad, a façade and a farce.  They're nothing more than clowns and were it not for the group-think acceptance of others in their soulless cliques, they'd never get a date.

One of the reasons that societies have dressed children in school uniforms and strictly controlled their behavior is the recognition that children will be resistant to developing their intellect and abilities if they are allowed to develop them outwardly, instead of inwardly.  They become shells of human beings.  It's so much easier to tattoo your body than it is to expand your mind.  When children are forced to become interesting internally because there is no other option available to them to express themselves, they will do so.  So, too, with behavior.  If there is conformity in acceptable behavior then expressions must become mental hurdles.  

Tearing down social conformity just enables outward conformity of a different variety.  Western civilization left tribalism behind in the 16th century.  Unfortunately, some people didn't get the memo or were incapable of reading it.

What they fail to realize today, however, is that we already know all this about them.  Even without the experiment of similar attire and style.  There is nothing unique about them at all.  They are nothing more than drones (although colorful), trying to feel significant through the acceptance of others, rather than acceptance and development of themselves and their minds.