At 04:31 PM 1/13/96 -0500, BPenuel who-is-at aol.com wrote:
>Eugene writes:
>
> "For me the most interesting question is
>when, why, how, and uder what historical and sociocultural circumstances
>people have started talking about their identies (I think it happend rather
>recently: no more than 80-100 years or even more recently)."
>
>There is a good book by Charles Taylor on this subject entitled _Sources of
>the Self_ (1989) in which he traces the emergence of the notions of self and
>identity in early modern philosophy, developed and brought into fruition (if
>not its current form) by the Romantics.
>
Bill, thank for the reference!
>I agree, Eugene, that the interesting questions have to do with the
>historical _dimension_ of them, but for me, that doesn't require that I don't
>use the term. The concept of a stable individual or even national identity
>has powerful ideological consequences--inspiring people to collective action,
>war, defense against natural disasters, and what not. Likewise, for those
>who are victimized by negative characterizations of their identities--whether
>women, African Americans, or gays, to name a few--there is a powerful
>movement in reclaiming them with more positively valued traits.
Well, witchcraft was (and is in some place) a powerful concept that inspired
people for murder, war, and other disasters (for example, read "Return to
laughter: An anthropological novel" by Elenore Bowen, 1954/64). Does it
mean that witchcraft should have conceptual power beyond its
phenomenological, descriptive power? In Nazi Germany there was the concept
of aryanness, also very powerful and inspiring concept. But did it have
conceptual power? I don't argue that an ideological concept can inspired
for good as well as bad. My question is does an ideological concept is
useful for conceptual analysis? And if so, what kind of property should it
have beyond being descriptive and inspiring?
>This is not to say that these identities are stable or 'real' in some
>ontological sense--in fact, it may be their irreal, unstable, and unfixed
>quality that helps to make "identities" such a perennially contested domain
>within human social practices and of such importance in a variety of
>contexts.
No, no, no. I don't argue against the concept of identity because it has
the flexible, dynamic, and contextual inherent nature. So far, for me the
term "identity" is useful for description of people who use this term (but
not scientists). It seems to me that often (if not always) using the term
"identity" inspires and supports a special action of separation of
individual or a group from another social group. In this context, identity
is an ideology of separation (among possible others -- e.g., supremacy). I
want to add that I'm not a specialist on the phenomenon of identity and my
analysis is entirely amateur (i.e., "everyday," "folk," "common sense"
analysis). But as any amateur I'm interested in this issue.
Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz
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Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz