tendicular

thanks for the link. this is about protecting our 'investments', the fallacy of sunk costs. OTOH if we try to be honest and self-aware, what we're left with are the few core values and ideals, mostly about what choices are acceptable to us, that form our moral core. Maybe that's what he meant by "narrow" identity.

when you are being 'cognizant and honest', it is not about labels anymore. sticking with labels is exactly what 'politicking' is all about. 'Communist' is a label. Belief in voluntary mutual help, freedom of thought (i.e. right to know, to have free access to full information), freedom from coercion and manipulation (by deceptive misreporting, or forbidding access to some info, etc.) actually clashes with accepted practices by political communism as observed in recent history, but is goal- and values- oriented. So my thing is, let it be not about labels but about values - specific values, about sum total of our stances on specific issues. "To be" a "Communist" is thus a self-deception, substituting labels of political party affiliation for the true and real values. We as people often mix the two - we search for groups of people sharing our values to join in with them, and use labels as approximants, but this vague thinking usually / always leads to confusion and self-delusion. Same with religions. We sink into the details of a particular myth and forget that it was the shared values we were after, in the first place.

I think when he talks about "identity" what he really means is unquestioning allegiances, preventing purely merit-based objective discussions on some issues. IOW when you have an angle in it, when you're in a discussion not to get to the truth of the matter, but to achieve certain goals you have, to influence others, to push them in a direction that is favorable to you (without being conscious of it, otherwise you're just a dishonest manipulator, and this is not about that).

Just wanted to be more precise about what this "identity" thing really means. I think though that you can have a "wider identity" and have "fruitful" i.e. truth-seeking merit-based discussions at the same time; you just have to be conscious - and honest - about it. So I'd dispute his implied drive that you mustn't "be" something (Communist, Christian, etc.). What is really called for is being cognizant and honest.

Taking being Communist as an example, this would mean that you're playing for the ultimate goal, not for the advancement of your party over others no matter what. Putting ideals over politicking.

Of course the core ideals is a much harder core. These core ideals are the true core of your being, there's no easy arguing about changing them.

I apologize if this all is trite and cliche.