Culture and Identity: Not the Same Thing

People talk about their ‘cultural identity’. It is a very powerful concept and people are prideful about those so-called cultural identities. That pride, however, creates alienation and gets in the way of a deeper understanding of human dynamics. It exacerbates our current problems in the world.

Unfortunately, talk of ‘cultural identity’ creates nationalist narratives, even among those who look at culture in an attempt to understand and sympathize with others. In so doing, it can make ‘others’ of people who on many other levels are similar – thereby alienating those people from ourselves. It also blends together two very different concepts – culture and identity – that operate by different dynamics, at different rates of change.

A Matter of Identity

Over the period of the last seven years, I have become increasingly impressed with the power of identity – ergo the title of this blog. The big revolution in my thinking came by learning that the notion of identity is a paradoxical one. Identity is not the definition of what makes an individual unique, but the groups to which the individual belongs. In complex societies, people may become more unique by having a unique selection of groups to which they belong. Yet, the more complex a person’s identity profile, the more latitude they may have in terms behavior deemed appropriate for them, but the more that they and the people around them become confused as to that person’s place in society. That confusion has consequences.

I am an American; I am a Dutchman. I am an intellectual; I am a manual worker. I am a man; I am a feminist. I am a serious thinker; I am a gamer nerd. Etc.; etc. These descriptions are labels that define me as being together with other people who carry those labels. None of these are actual opposites, but they do hint at paradoxes. They trigger stereotypes and expectations of behavior. As an American I’m expected to be a loudmouth braggart. As a Dutchman, not so much. As an intellectual, I’m expected to inhabit an ivory tower removed from reality; as a manual worker, I’m expected to not think, but do. As a man, I’m expected to be masculine; as a feminist I’m expected to be feminine. As a thinker about serious things, I’m expected to not like playing games with plastic spaceships.

People like to have their expectations met. It helps them orient themselves in the world. Disturb that too much, and people start to dislike you. Expectations also help people know what to do with you, and if you confuse that, they don’t know what to do with you – and as a result – have no use for you. More consequential still, this is not only true of other people: it’s true of ourselves as well. We also need guideposts to our own behavior and place in society. Somewhere between our own expectations of ourselves, and others’ expectations of us, we negotiate that place in society. If these expectations are too confused – within ourselves as well as with others – then finding and negotiating a place in society is troubled.

On Nationalism

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of nationalism. Left-wing and centrist thinkers generally fear that this is a throw-back to the ugly past of the early twentieth century. Cosmopolitans deride the movement as a reaction of the rural and white working classes who are too unsophisticated to understand the bigger picture. They are wrong.

Nationalism is still on the march, and it is too powerful a force to break. People hoping to improve civilization should not attempt to do so. Instead, they should embrace nationalism and civilize it.

Nationalism is not some primordial force that has existed since the first people divided themselves. It has not been on the wane since people discovered reason. Nor is it a movement that came and went as an ugly byproduct of industrialization or capitalism. In the nineteenth century it represented the widening of solidarity among the common people. I argue that it still does – and that this is a good thing. Only a small sliver of humanity considers all of humanity as their nation. Most people in the world have a dominant attachment to some – usually smaller – group of people (e.g. family, tribe, town, sect). We are a social species, with our primordial origins being in the ‘band’ of hunter-gatherers. On balance, growing solidarity with ‘the nation’ still represents a broadening of solidarity, not a retrenchment.

"False Consciousness," the Phrase

"False consciousness" is a phrase that saw the written light of day in an 1893 letter from Friedrich Engels to Franz Mehring. Engels wrote:

Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him...

In it, Engels espoused historical materialism, the notion that ideas and ideologies are a distraction from people realizing their true – ie. economic – motives. In other words, ideologies are not really real, and what really matters is what is 'really real', ie. what is material – people's access to the physical basic needs: food, shelter, and clothing.

I both agree and disagree. I do agree that ideas and ideologies frequently distract people from their basic economic interests. There are still a billion people living in absolute poverty. Many in the richer parts of the world are also living in insecure circumstances. It is no small thing that ideas and ideologies can continue to see them materially deprived. However, since it is a fact that those ideas and ideologies have that influence, it means that they are 'real', and that they therefore need to be understood.

I also think that while people can change their minds - I do so frequently - there is nevertheless such structure in the global distribution and content of ideas and ideologies that one should not consider them ephemeral. It is also the case that ideas and ideologies are the only things that can solve the problems of the distribution of basic needs, security, and freedoms.

Mostly, I just find the term 'false consciousness' enjoyable and provocative. That is why I am happily adopting it as the title of this blog. The purpose of the blog is to explore the structures in the ideas and ideologies, how they influence local and global events, and are themselves influenced.

Purpose of the False Consciousness Blog

The purpose of the blog is to explore the structures in ideas and ideologies, how they influence local and global events, and are themselves influenced. I do not intend it as a news-commentary blog. There are enough of those. Instead, I want to step back and look at bigger pictures.

That does not mean that I will not comment on current events. However, I intend to do so only as those current event illustrate broader points.

As an international studies/affairs scholar, I’ve read, studied, and thought about a large range of global and interconnected human dynamics. I have developed my own ideas and opinions about things. I do not think of them as an ideology, but simply an approach for thinking about those human dynamics. That approach attempts to be well-rounded without being holistic. Holistic thinking is frequently incomplete.

The purpose of the approach is to prompt thinking about human developments from social, economic, political and cultural dimensions. Since I still hope to publish the underlying framework of this approach in a journal article, I will not be detailing that approach on this blog. I will just be using it as I discuss related phenomena.

I also have my own values. Some might call them socialist, since I think that the needs of the lower- and middle-class many outweigh the needs of the wealthy few. Some might call them liberal, since I also believe in reasonable protections of the few against the unreasonable demands of the many. This includes the social and economic spheres of life. At the time of writing, I already have a blog post drafted in defense of nationalism, so I suppose I am a nationalist too. At the same time, I am clearly a globalist, given that I think there are real global problems that nation-states need to attend to, above their myopic interests.

Ultimately, I don’t think any ideology has magic answers, and the best option is to muddle through imperfectly towards greater goals. However, there are better and worse ways to muddle through. The best way that we can muddle through is by having as many people inclined to think about these things have the tools to do so, and the reminder to consider multiple angles.

I hope that this blog can serve as being part of the debate that helps us do that muddling through. I also just want a larger audience for my observations. I think these observations have something to contribute. Hopefully, the marketplace of ideas agrees.