Identity
Donald Trump has lost the 46th US Election but the most surprising part for me is the guy has got 47.7% (7,08,06,515) votes and counting. The question in my mind is how come a guy who openly makes a fool out of himself can get so much support, it’s astonishing. It’s all fun to say that stupid person voted for him but it’ll be very shallow to say.
Today Netizens have this new term to play with, “polarization”. We hear this often that society has become the most polarized it can ever be, which is grossly incorrect human history has seen it’s a fair share of polarization. Let’s say all this polarization is in our faces through our devices at best.
The elephant in the room is that why most of the people do not deliberate on their respective views and have rigid stands? So what I’m proposing here is not an opinion but a thoughtful observation and I’ll try to keep this to my age group at best.
Back in the 10th, we studied, heat transfer from body to the body there is no such thing as “cold”. If you remove heat from the body coldness is there, bring back the heat then coldness goes away. The point is there only the transfer of Heat not cold. something like this our “feels good” works. If a person removes confidence, pride, self-respect, etc then there will be anxiety, depression, helplessness, etc, nothing in between. If there is prolonged anxiety then it will cause depression and prolonged depression will result in a suicidal state, which by no means is pleasant.
An Identity plays a huge role to make sure the anxiety and its derivatives are at bay at best. An Individual with no Identity whatsoever is no better than dead ( A person will drive itself to suicide for sure ).
We have two types of Identities 1). Individual Identity 2). Group Identity. Both of these are complementary to each other, the day a human is born s/he becomes part of ’n’ number of Group Identities, and the day a human is named s/he gets an Identity (which s/he has to work upon to be of any use). Now here is the catch any person, at any point in time, at any place will be in ’n’ group Identities no one can run from it but a person may or may not have an individual Identity.
Let’s get with Individual Identity first. The ONLY single possible way to have this is through Competence that’s it. Competence is an ability to do something successfully and efficiently at any given place and time. It must be a no-brainer that the ONLY way to build competence is through self-discipline, consistency, focus, determination and you can add more adjectives as you please. Now every soul knows this is no fun. It’s difficult, tedious, and requires engagement throughout. Although when a person is competent then the source of confidence, self-respect, pride, etc is the “NAME” of that person a.k.a the Individual Identity. Do not misunderstand this with “skill”. A person can be a total loser in overall life and be skillful in one particular thing. The components of “competence” can take different forms and shapes according to a situation. A confident person reflects its confidence everywhere. Let’s say a person is an amazing dancer and is a part of a dance club. In that club, he’s treated as God because of its amazing dance skills and the hard work it puts in dancing, but when s/he comes out of that dance club then there is not much individualistic value left. This might occur because s/he does not have life in order which means the person is not able to channelize the values from dance to life. See it like this, in the dance club the only factor of concern is dance, therefore, that person is on the top of all because s/he is most skillful, thus all the “feel good” factors will be there. Now when s/he goes out now the factor of concern is life, if s/he sucks at that then no “feel good” factors will be there.
Thus my whole point of competence is wholesome and not at any particular aspect.
A person with an Individual identity has all the “feel good” factors in its own hands. The factors do not depend upon others or situations.
Now the question is what happens when a person does not take responsibility to be competent. The answer is that the individual tilts towards the Group Identity of its choice according to its personality traits which provides him/her with the “good factors”. These Identities can be a college group, political party, cricket team, individual role model, country, etc. Let me be very clear there’s no problem with this either, this happens to every one of us. All of us feel sad when our National Team loses a match or our IPL team or our Dept. team of the college.
The real horrific disastrous problem occurs when we give priority to our group identity over our one. Let me be crystal clear here for 99% it’s not a choice, people just drift towards the group identity never realizing and live their whole life as a group.
The moment you put “Group Identity” as the priority that means you as an individual does not matter which implies that “competence” has been undermined and it is catastrophic. Let me explain let’s say competence is the gift of nature given to us so we can decide among ourselves who is better than others without even speaking a word. Have you ever been to a room and just have a feeling that where do you stand among the people present? This only happens when everyone in that room prioritizes individual identity. You can’t even complain that someone else is more competent than you.
Now let us say there are two groups in the room ( it means people who have no concept of individual because we can have groups where people uphold the individual identity). Now the problem is how to decide who is better than whom? This is where the conflict comes in. Look at human history whenever there is Groupism or tribalism there is violence for sure. Now there is no such thing as facts or reasoning between the two groups in the room because it is all about winning. People of the group extracts it’s “feel good” factors from that group and for that to happen your group needs to win no matter the cost. Let’s take a few examples.
Have you ever seen people quarreling among themselves that who is better Messi or Ronaldo? Do you have any idea what they are doing? I mean the players don’t even know how many such quarrels are taking place around the world. People are not defending the players, they are defending themselves because their source of respect is the players, not themselves.
Let’s take another one, this might resonate more with you people,
My age group is in deep political debates at all times Left v/s Right all that stuff. These people are not debating to know something or to even debate but to defeat the other guy so they can make sure their group is on top as well as they. people will go on the Web and type “Iamalwaysright.com” read something and then debate to prove other group and the guy stupid. Then the loser will go to the same site and then come back to prove the other one false and this carries on. The interesting part is people think that they are doing something great.
You must have seen people arguing in lengths on some social media platform. Such stupidity is there that people don’t even know whom they are arguing with it can be an 8-year-old kid or a 60-year-old man. They feel stressed or joyous according to the way the argument is going. It can be anything from Feminism, liberalism, Bhakt, climate change, etc.
The group which wins will have all the “feel good” factors for its members and the group on the losing side will have all the anxiety. So in a situation like this, there is no room for reasons and facts.
Today if someone calls out another person on individual competence even then the whole group comes to save because it’s all about the group, not the individual.
Biggest poison which comes with “Group Identity” is victim-hood. If you observe closely today Groupism gives an amazing opportunity for people to blame someone else on their own shortcomings with genuine reasons. See it like this, feminism started as an amazing movement about “Women rights”, but today majority of feminists are resentful and incompetent. It goes like this you are a women, I am a women and all our problems are only because we have vagina between our legs and the oppressor are the men. No one is telling Karen that she have made horrible life choices and that is the reason she is miserable.
People Identify as group then figure out how they are oppressed, then identify the oppressor group and boom we have all the ingredients of Violence. For a women its a man, white person for a black person, and the list is endless. Group Identity just presumes that if you belong to certain group then it is absolutely necessary either you are oppressed or an oppressor.
When you debate with a competent person then you realize that that person accepts very easily when h/she is wrong (rarely they get wrong because they have become competent doing the right things) because their self-concept depends on themselves, not on some group ideology. So if they’ll be wrong even then s/he will be respected and valued and they know this.A person with group identity always have to validate him or herself
Virat Kholi, Dhoni, Narendra Modi, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Bhuvan Bam, SRK, Lionel Messi, and many more all these are Individual Identities and these people make the group 100X better which they are related to.
Today you can see this everywhere, no one wants to talk, it’s a battle field for every group out there and it’s about winning and acquiring power. The whole problem comes down to one thing people do not want to take responsibility and work on themselves as a sovereign individual but consciously or sub-consciously sides with a group that becomes the source of their “Feel Good” factors. People do not realize that when you take on a group identity it is not just the good parts but also group guilt that comes with it. The more a person goes into the pit of Groupism, the more s/he is not able to be an individual because it’s just horrific and becomes worse as the times passes.
Let me give you a tip which I always use, whenever you are in some talk with somebody about larger Issues always try to narrow it down to the individual. For Example, What have you thought about your future? How successful you are? What schedule do you follow? and so on. Trust me their faces looks like they have seen a ghost.
People need to realize that it’s the individual which defines the group not the other way round. When a person becomes a highly competent then the image of ’n’ number of groups attached to him/her becomes better. People will take a pseudo-moralistic stance not to just look good in others’ eyes but even in their own eyes. Group and individual go hand in hand.
If the first thing is any kind of group identity which comes into others’ minds when they hear your name then my friend I’m sorry to say this you’re A Hall Of Fame level “LOSER”. You’re nobody. Just having a conversation with you for 5 min I will know everything about you because you’re just saying the idea which has been taught to you. Nothing is interesting about you, you’re boring. The worse part is I can replace you with someone else of the same thought and nothing will change as if you were not even present.
Go and stand in front of a mirror and say your name out loud and ask yourself. Who are you?
