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Aug 3, 2022Liked by Eliza Mondegreen

This really rings true.

Especially: “This friend and I shared the same job for many years, a job that mixed research and activism. We often landed on the same side of arguments. But she was an activist and I was a researcher. When a new issue arose, she asked: “What can I do to support this?” and I asked “What’s going on here?”

We can easily be fooled into thinking we share the same approach as someone else, purely by the fact we often ‘land on the same side’.

I have come to realise this in the last few years.

For example, to me an interest in politics is an interest in exploring political ideas. From a non-biased base. What is the best tax rate? What happens when you raise tax? What happens when you lower it? What do other countries do? What works best?

However, to some of my friends and relatives, an ‘interest in politics’ is in pursuing an ideal, or being part of a tribe, not in genuinely questioning ideas.

I may land in the same place as them, but only after really exploring the ideas. Perhaps I had naively assumed everyone else did the same.

But for some, the position comes first, and they never really explore the underlying assumptions.

The difference in the two approaches is laid bare when a new idea comes on the block.

Trans ideology is the perfect example of this.

What is your instinctive response? Do you ask ‘which side fits with my general identity?’ Or do you ask ‘What’s this all about?’

I treasure my identity as someone who will (at least try to) question everything.

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I love this. So interesting, the insight that you and your colleague started with these different questions that led to such a divergence of paths. I also ponder my own yearning for identity, even as (like you and many of your readers here) I have left the identity of the good progressive behind. I realized this yesterday when a neighbor complained that a new neighbor was a "Trump voter." I didn't have the same shared and comfortable tribal response I would have had a few years ago. That old response of being in smug agreement with her seemed not only lacking in nuance and compassion, but also really boring to me. But--do I have a new identity? Is my new identity a "recommitted feminist?" Is it a "heterodox x-lefty"? Do I have to hang on to that "progressive" thing in some ways that still matter to me? Nothing really fits, and that is both destabilizing/scary and also bracing/freeing. I can't seem to help TRYING to re-define my identity though! I think it is part of being human. Maybe identity is more about others than truly a self-definition. We are social animals, tribal animals, and personal "identity" is inextricably linked to our social identity. We must find community because it is part of who we are.

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It’s like with these teenagers thinking they’re so subversive when they’re conforming to every institution and authority. We’re the real rebels. 👊🏼

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Brilliant. Each of us is the product of our own brain's endless variety of invention, not least in attempting to construct a coherent narrative of the fiction of self. Identity is always illusion.

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Seeing through social constructs and recognizing bullshit when I see it is an ingrained part of my personality which has been present since I was a child. I don’t know if, therefore, you could call this “identity.” I see identity as being equally something handed to you; it’s a two-way street. I have been identified by others as “bad,” as “a troublemaker,” as “causing problems,” and many of the ways in which I’ve been identified by my own family and by others in school etc. have to do with the fact that I’m female; my willfulness and tendency to ask questions, my natural rebelliousness, were always a problem in a way, say, my brother’s far worse behavior (legally speaking) was not. I’ve been treated like absolute crap by my family and by the culture for the sin of being both female and naturally anti-authoritarian.

They did manage to make me unable to stand up for myself, which led to a lifetime of rape and abuse. They did not, however, stamp out the ability. I lived through a mini-dictatorship when I taught in Mexico, and I was the only one who stood up to the tyrant, our department head, who terrorized staff and ruined students’ educational careers throughout her reign of terror. She came after me though I just wanted to be left in peace, because she saw me as an adversary and was afraid of me, and afraid that she couldn’t control me; like most people with a personality disorder, she projected onto others her own tendencies, so she expected me to try to sabotage her and get her tossed out of her job, something she’d done to the prior department head, who’d been there 18 years but had never gotten tenure, as the tenure system wasn’t in place there when she began, and she was such a friendly person that she’d never seen the need for it. Who could expect a personality-disordered person would show up and begin manipulating the head of the college against her? So of course, this person thought I’d do the same to her, so she began going after me. Big mistake. Despite the fact that she did have tenure, I got her fired, which greatly helped all the rest of the cowardly staff and all of my beloved students very much indeed.

So apparently, I can stand up for others. I stood up to her in order to help my students, whom I cared about very much. On my own behalf, I’m not sure I would have. My family and the culture certainly did a number on me.

So the identity foisted on me is one of “noisome troublemaker.” In reality, I’d say my real personality is more “refuses to say, do or believe things just because others say so.” Since I see identity as a two-way street, that’s not my identity; rather, that’s my personality, if that makes sense.

It’s also lent itself to abilities as a researcher and a difficulty believing in trends or joining groups; groupthink, as a rule, is very off-putting to me. I love your distinction between “what can I do to support this?” And “what’s going on here?” I’m definitely a “what’s going on here” type of person, too. Other people do not like this character trait, *particularly in women*, and that’s yet another reason that women saying no to the gender borg have been cast as public enemy number one: pure, undistilled sexism.

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Great article Eliza! I can count on one of your articles to put my brain into objective thinking mode. I read a few lines and my first thought was that's ( ) and I to a t. I am certain we never fought. In school we were in different grades, she was older. I was the loner, artsy bad girl and she was cheerleader, may court, prom, social events organizer. I was voted most likely to stay single and never need anyone. She had an event-calendar with every day filled and I got exhausted looking at a calendar. Even now we are on different sides of politics. She is strictly a Republican and I am not very fond of any one of them. We can talk about anything, and I trust her with everything. It's not what you have that matters, it's what you are.

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Glad I discovered this post - so thought-provoking! Reminds me of a quote I saw by Ionia Italia saying something like (I'm paraphrasing) "For all our intelligence, humans are not primarily driven to seek the truth. We are primarily driven to seek social connection, and when we communicate with each other we are more concerned with seeming trustworthy and likeable than with being truthful." A big reason people cling to insane, irrational politics is a deep, primeval need to fit in. But it makes me ponder why some people do walk away from dangerous political movements while others don't. I don't think it's a question of intelligence, as plenty of brilliant minds have believed mad, dreadful things. Maybe some people are less reliant on others' approval, less scared to go it alone? Or maybe they feel connected enough to different social groups outside their political tribe (family, old friends etc) that leaving the movement seems less scary? As someone who feels politically homeless right now, I'm aware of both the appeal and the risks of plunging straight into the "anti-woke" camp (as some cancelled feminists have done, quite understandably). Ultimately it's another tribe and I don't want any group to provide me with pre-packaged views on things! But it's hard to know what to do for the best.

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Thought-provoking! I divide friends into those who ask "What would I do if I was in charge?" and those who ask "How will this affect the ordinary Jo?"

How easy/hard is it to "cross the floor of the house" as we say in the UK, and switch positions? Especially if they're part of your self-image.

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