My dear boy,
I read the commentaries of my brother on religion, society, and a number of other subjects, and there is this mellowed pleasure marinating deep down my soul. This is not to say that I absolutely agree with all that he says. It is that he gets it: this pulsating idea called “identity,” where identity is but hooked on agency: the belief that you can shape your life and environment. Albert Bandura (2001) in Annual Review of Psychology, (52, 1–26) agrees thus, “A person’s identity is rooted in self-efficacy — the belief in one’s capability to exercise control over one’s functioning and the events that affect one’s life.”
See, growing up we couldn’t necessarily BE ourselves. But what does that even mean: to BE yourself? We were the boys trained to turn the other cheek when they were slapped. This meant you were a good boy- other kids could look up to you. The typical pastor’s child.
Nonetheless, you really couldn’t say that out loud as others will remind you of how your education is made possible because of their tithes and offerings. These are people who even barely paid tithes; the ones whose annual offering was barely half a drop in a sea of collection. Other children made you feel like a community project. So, you should speak only when spoken to or when given permission to speak.
Consequently, we learned by experience to appear without colors for in this act have we found protection, and by extension preservation. This, W. E. B. Du Bois would call “double consciousness.” Frantz Fanon (1952) in Black Skin, White Masks casts his two cents when he says, “The black man has two dimensions. One with his fellows, the other with the white man. A Negro behaves differently with a white man and with another Negro.” So, we wore fragility before some and before others, the cloak of invisibility. To evolution and the traits it births in us, we say, Cheers!
Given, identity is what is left when we are unclad: stripped of titles and achievements and masks woven by expectations and accolades. It is a deep knowing of your roots irrespective of your present situation. Paul Ricoeur (1991), in Oneself as Another, agrees thus, “Identity is narrative — the self that we tell ourselves we are.” Simply put, it is storytelling.
When you hear, “The clothes don’t make the man,” it is but an indictment that buried underneath all the embellishments is the man. I should add that “names” are excellent signals to who this man is. Granted, our sense of identity is domiciled in the mind. It is therefore a subconscious model against which all else is cast. Thus, it stands the test of time and circumstances. “Identity is the awareness of the fact that there is a self-sameness and continuity to one’s character, and that others recognize this sameness and continuity.” argues Erik Erickson (1950, 1958) in Identity: Youth and Crisis (1968).
Furthermore, it informs our non-negotiables. My boy, stand for something(s) or you will fall for anything. In a world that has a weak resolve, develop a tough interior. This generation gallivants with excuses, fashioned as quotes, in their pockets readily waiting to put them to use. Having this understanding, Charles Taylor (1989) in Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity exclaims that “To have an identity is to know where one stands — to be oriented in moral space, defined by what is good, worthy, and valuable.”
Nevertheless, it is worthy of note that identity is fluid in some sense. Identity is an ongoing negotiation between the past and the present. Unfortunately, the past is almost always not the past as it is constantly weighed on the balance of history and expectations. Stuart Hall (1990) in Cultural Identity and Diaspora establishes that “Identity is not as transparent or unproblematic as we think. It is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being.’” Modernity and Self-Identity has Anthony Giddens (1991) throwing Hall a supporting pillar when he states that, “Self-identity is the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of their biography. It is not a set of traits, but a person’s understanding of who they are across time.”
As a consequence, you can be many things to many people, in that further exploration and commitment impacts how we see ourselves. James Marcia (1966) further explains that “Identity is a self-structure—an internal, self-constructed, dynamic organization of drives, abilities, beliefs, and individual history” as captured in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (3(5), 551–558).
A remarkable thing, however, about identity is that it can be inherited, imposed or constructed. As I have always shown you, my dear boy, that we are men immune to failure by the reason of our bloodline; you, through the lens of observation, have become the same. George Herbert Mead (1934) acknowledges this when he posits that “The self is not a thing but a process — arising from social interaction through which individuals come to see themselves as objects” in Mind, Self, and Society.
Little wonder the Holy Scriptures establish that “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Inversely, we behold and we are formed. It follows that a sense of identity can be born from seeing ourselves through the eyes of others (“the looking-glass self”). In The Social Construction of Reality, Peter Berger & Thomas Luckmann (1966) corroborate the foregoing when they state that, “Identity is formed by social processes. Once crystallized, it is maintained, modified, or even reshaped by social relations.”
In all, we can conclude that “identity” is the evolving sense of who we are: shaped by personal continuity, social interaction, cultural context, and moral orientation. It is both self-constructed and socially interpreted, fluid yet anchored in narrative and meaning. It is through our identity that we make sense of the world. Hence, we act from the place of identity. We can therefore infer that a man who is reactionary is a man who has lost his identity as he lacks a sense of agency. Perhaps, all I have attempted to communicate to you is that you guard the truth which I once committed to you: agency belongs to you- you are ultimately responsible for your life.
Love,
Dad.
