Identity Urgency—Part 1

Many people are currently wrestling with several different kinds of identity crisis. Most of us possess a number of identities; for example, those that we have formed on our own, those that our friends and family have created, and several that civil and governmental institutions have attached to us. More and more, some of us are being required to carry identity cards to prove to authorities who we really are, to validate what we are engaged in, and even if we are legal or allowable in their sight.

Let's back up a little. To begin with, what is an identity? The basic dictionary definition is “the fact of being who a person is.” Well, that's a little vague. The dictionary further describes identity as “the characteristics determining” who one is—such as possessing a “Canadian identity.” Some synonyms of identity are: personality, self, distinctiveness.

With that basis, we can view identity as something that gets continually molded over our lifetime. A baby is born with almost no identity—other than being a helpless ward of mom and dad. It has little personality or distinctiveness at first. As we grow, we gradually form our identity, and do so largely by the groups we find ourselves associating with and are members of: family, church, school, neighborhood, club, and other social and employment groups. These groups constitute our social network. They form our personality... our identity.

Over time we come to internalize the norms and values of the groups we're members of, and we begin to behave accordingly. Catholics have different values and behaviors than Muslims do. Motorcycle gang members have different values and behaviors than quilting club members do. So our adoption and internalization of the norms and beliefs of the groups we associate with largely establish our identity. Identity, in other words, is primarily a social construct. Our groups—which form our social network—in a sense define us.

Before the time of social media our identities were created very differently from how we do it today. We previously formed mostly face-to-face relationships with other members of the groups we joined. It was a more visible and tangible process. Now we have Facebook and other social media, which play a major role in the creation of the identity of many people. Because we often no longer use those face-to-face relationships to form our identity, many people even consciously construct their online identity, which is often something quite different from their “real” identity. The identities people create in online games can even become rather fanciful—quite the opposite of who they actually are. It can get confusing, as to which identity is real, which is virtual, which is imaginary. For many people this situation is creating a kind of identity crisis.

More on identities next time...