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.
I have been (trying) to teach the difference between culture and identity for a long time now. It has also been the most difficult thing for me to do. In large part, I think it is because we really love stereotypes. They are the source of much of our humor, even if we realize that this sort of humor can go too far sometimes. Another reason is that it is simple, and our minds like taking it easy. In a larger part, however, I think it is because identities are what provide us guideposts on how we are supposed to behave, even if only subconsciously. It also provides us with guides on how other people are expected to behave. Since nationhood is a very powerful part of our identity, it is also a powerful guidepost on how we are supposed to behave, and – ultimately – our behavior becomes our culture.
Here I highlight two problems with ‘cultural identity’. First, nationhood is not the only source of identity, and nationalism creates alienation. Second, it confuses us about how people actually think and change their minds on things.
Limitations of reducing to the nation
The big problem with ‘cultural identity’ is that it tends to mean ‘national culture’. In other words, people usually nationalize or ‘ethnicize’ what they mean by both culture and identity. That’s not to say that the country one comes from is not a major influence, but it attempts to eclipse other origins of outlook. There are many different regional cultures within countries. Class also has a major implication on one’s worldview. So does gender, faith, one’s urban/suburban/rural origins, and family background. Some of these also relate to identity, of course, but they highlight the limitations of reducing ‘culture’ to national identity.
By nationalizing culture, we tend to highlight one frame of how we are supposed to think and behave, thereby undercutting other ways of thinking and behaving. That means that we bend what our culture becomes to the nationalistic (or ethnic) frame. On the identity front, we allow national culture to create barriers, where it does not need to do so. In part, that is by design – making the ‘own’ seem more like us, and the ‘other’ seem alien, regardless of the truth.
Different dynamics of identity and culture
Identity and culture are not the same thing. They come into our brains in different ways and change at different rates. Culture is slower, less discrete, and the biggest influence come at our very formative stages, usually from our parents, media, teachers, and such-like. Identity influences us later, more rapidly, and mostly by way of our peers and later role-models. We only have one childhood during which the main cultural traits are instilled in our minds. Our parents are naturally very influential, but so are media and teachers who lay down some of our basic frameworks that influence our communication and learning styles, social values, and world views. These tend to be fairly robust influences, and the culture they instill is very difficult to adjust later in life. By and large, however, these are not actually what drive our day-to-day passions. Identity does that more powerfully.
Identity – while we tend to think that this is fixed – is not. We pick and choose our home teams, largely depending on whom we identify as our main antagonist. That home team, then, becomes our identity. In the US, right now, Democrats and Republicans identify as major antagonists of one another. Everything revolves around that, and our ‘beliefs’ in protecting whisteblowers, proper legislative procedures and foreign relations, and even our geostrategic ideas, pass through that us-vs.-them filter. Leavers and Remainers are doing the same think in the United Kingdom right now, even realigning party preferences as a result. We identify with the best home team that antagonizes our antagonizers, and adopt the ephemeral notions that coincide with what helps the home team against the enemy. When the identity alignment changes, so do our notions. Hypocrisy is born this way.
The fact that the identity alignments change more rapidly than culture does means that they sometimes align with the basic cultural foundation and sometimes they do not. Furthermore, our antagonists are usually located much closer to us than people with very different cultural foundations are. As such, culture is a poor guide to antagonism, even if we think that so many antagonisms are borne out of culture. Yes, cultural difference can create antagonism, but we usually hate the traitor (the person who is nominally ‘of’ our culture) more than the person who is supposed to be different. Therefore, our greatest antagonisms are usually aimed at people nearby, whereas culture tends to differ more across further distances.
Conclusion
Being able to distinguish between culture and identity is a powerful tool for being able to understand the dynamics that move our societies. We should not join them at the hip in the concept of ‘cultural identity’. Culture and identity operate by different dynamics, and at different rates of change. Connecting them tends to nationalize (or ethnicize) culture, when culture has many different origins and facets than national identity does. Separating culture and identity also helps warn ourselves against manipulation of the behavior that is expected of us, and hints of whom we are supposed to oppose. It also means that we no longer have to weaponize culture in the service of our momentary battles against the other-du-jour. Because cultures are longer lasting, conflicts truly based in culture may also become grinding conflicts that can never end or be solved.
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