Identity

Dario Sztajnszrajber
Scene 1: An Identification Office
Personal characteristics/information
Main questions: who I am? Am I always the
same person? Do I need to know who I am?
Am I what I want to be or what others want
me to be?
Origin: Idem = what is repeated in the same
way There is something that never changes
(up to modern times)

Post-modernity challenges the essential trait
of identity
Stable identity

Is there an answer for the identity quest?
security;/confort
Curtail our search
Western philosoply postulated the principle of
identity as necessary to organize reality/the
world each entity is identical to itself, it is
what it is and not another thing
Thus: IDENTITY is what defines the nature or
essence of any entity (thing, person or group).
There is na essence nature that is different
from the accidental characteristics
Individual identities
ESSENTIALISM = WHAT REMAINS ALWAYS THE
SAME
LUIS IS LUIS. There is na essence in himself
that does not change
Valid for individual identities
Collectives identities and esssentialism
Scene two (people watching football)
Sexual/ religeous/cultural/national identities
Can they be understood in this essential way?
Is there a national way of being Brazilian
There are some patterns of nationality, but not
with a clear essence or nature
If we postulate the existence of a national
identity, many people are left aside.
Identities as discourse constructions
What if we consider identity as discourse
constructions made by people depending on
interests, origins and contexts?
Then, we can understand that the idea of identity
is related to power, that is, to fix and idea as if it
were true so that nobody can modify it.
Thus, we may understand that many things that
we believe to be natural are just meaning
constructions
Changing the very foundation of
identity
Seeing it more as a search than as a certainty.
Thus, we change the questions:
Who I am? What am I being? How can I create
myself better?
Scene three: sexual identity
Necessariness: things never change
Contingency: things can always be different
From a modern point of view, identity is necessary one
which never changes as it is determined by nature
From a post-modern point of view, identity is
contingent as it is a discourse construction = people are
always different and re-inventing themselves;
(Heraclitus had already referred to this characteristis of
the human condition: no one ever steps twice in the
same river.
We are always being another
Identity and consumerism
If we are what we consume, arent we what
the others want us to be?
Identity as a text/a story
(scene of the interview)
Identity is a text/story made by us about
ourselves
We tell ourselves who we are to tell the
others.
Identity as alterity
We are the others, there is nothing in its
purest form in the world: religions, ethnic
groups, genders are all open to new
signification.
FINAL QUESTION:
What world do you want: only for people similar
to you or a world open to all?