06-Dec-2010, 01:16 AM
Recently, I happened to read a couple of articles addressing the question of how assumed identities and ideological affiliations help and hinder social discourse. I am quoting below excerpts from these articles along with some comments on how in my opinion they are relevant to a forum like this.
1) One nation, with Aunt Susan (November 25, 2010, The Economist)
In our context, the argument holds equally well if you replace 'evangelical Christian' with 'skeptic' or 'atheist'. In practice this means that besides 'coming Out' in forums like this one, we will serve the cause of the Out Campaign more completely if we come out in our beekeeping groups, hiking groups, book clubs and salsa classes.
2) Keep your identity small (February 2009, Paul Graham)
This is one of the clearest disambiguations I have read to forestall the ubiquitous misconception that 'freethinking' equals an 'all-accepting stance'. This is also a useful cautionary note here counselling that 'you exclude people who respond from identity' (this underlies many troll contrarian warning signs perhaps). In discussions here as well there may well be 'Marxists','Trotskyists', 'Periyarites', 'Nehruvians', 'Libertarians', 'Objectivists' and 'Naturalists' but even a quick skim is enough to demonstrate that the most edifying threads are the ones in which these identities don't jarringly jut ahead.
3) Identity and Violence : Prof. Amartya Sen's lecture at UC Berkeley
This one is a classic companion to the above articles and make a strong case for pluralism and the reconciliation of multiple layers of identities as integral to conflict resolution.
1) One nation, with Aunt Susan (November 25, 2010, The Economist)
Quote:Aunt Susan may be a Methodist, and you a Jew, but you know that Aunt Susan deserves a place in heaven anyway. In fact, Susan does not have to be your aunt, because in addition to the Aunt Susan principle the authors have invented the My Friend Al principle. In this case you befriend Al because, say, of a shared interest in beekeeping, and later learn that he is an evangelical Christian. Having an evangelical Christian in your circle of friends makes you warmer than you were before to evangelical Christians.
In our context, the argument holds equally well if you replace 'evangelical Christian' with 'skeptic' or 'atheist'. In practice this means that besides 'coming Out' in forums like this one, we will serve the cause of the Out Campaign more completely if we come out in our beekeeping groups, hiking groups, book clubs and salsa classes.
2) Keep your identity small (February 2009, Paul Graham)
Quote:For example, the question of the relative merits of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers. This sometimes leads people to conclude the question must be unanswerable—that all languages are equally good. Obviously that's false: anything else people make can be well or badly designed; why should this be uniquely impossible for programming languages? And indeed, you can have a fruitful discussion about the relative merits of programming languages, so long as you exclude people who respond from identity.
This is one of the clearest disambiguations I have read to forestall the ubiquitous misconception that 'freethinking' equals an 'all-accepting stance'. This is also a useful cautionary note here counselling that 'you exclude people who respond from identity' (this underlies many troll contrarian warning signs perhaps). In discussions here as well there may well be 'Marxists','Trotskyists', 'Periyarites', 'Nehruvians', 'Libertarians', 'Objectivists' and 'Naturalists' but even a quick skim is enough to demonstrate that the most edifying threads are the ones in which these identities don't jarringly jut ahead.
3) Identity and Violence : Prof. Amartya Sen's lecture at UC Berkeley
This one is a classic companion to the above articles and make a strong case for pluralism and the reconciliation of multiple layers of identities as integral to conflict resolution.