the history of identification..
Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:56 pm
we moderns, we self identify... I am a male, American,
baby boomer, married, senior citizen, middle class....
I could have self-identified in a dozen different ways,
as other people could self-identify in a multiple number of ways..
gay, women, French, LGBTIQIA, New Yorker, Catholic, Buddhist,
the number of possible self identifications is endless...
Now Hegel theory in history was the story/history of reason in history..
in other words, history was a listing of the expansion of reason..
he called it spirit.. Just replace Spirit in his writing with reason,
and it still works.. but is that the only way we can work out the story
of history? We have another path in which to work out the story of history
and that path is the history of self-identification...
How did people self-identify? Think about it... from the beginning of
human history has been a increase of ways we can self-identify..
From the small family of the cave man, perhaps to a dozen or so families,
to a small village, (After several hundred thousand of years)
to a city to an ever larger political, social, economic understanding
of what it means to be human...
In the beginning, there was a family... and that family decided for safety/security
and being able to feed themselves, unite with several other families... the
basis of pre-history, the million years of the hunter/gatherer human existence
was about hundreds of small scale, perhaps a dozen or so families, that migrated
and followed game....it was only in the last 10 or 15 thousand years, that
human beings self identified outside of or beyond that small group
of families.. today we call them a tribe...the rise of the city/town created
the next basis of self identification... I no longer belong to a tribe, but I
belonged to a city...I self identified as a citizen of that small city...my own
personal self identification has expanded beyond just being part of a tribe...
Now most self identification still laid on the self identification within birth
groups, but a self identification with a city is more about those who exists
within that city and not within birth groups...my own self identity lay
with those of my city... however large or small that city maybe...
now we can compare two simultaneous events.. the Greek world
of ancient Athens, Sparta, Corinth.. as examples and the Persian
Empire... now did a soldier from Assyria, in the Persian empire,
how did that soldier self identify? Did he self identify as a Persian,
being part of the Persian empire or did he self Identify as an Assyrian?
I am pretty sure that nameless soldier identifies as Assyrian...and
not as Persian.. and that trait can be followed into the
19th century...the average soldier in the American Civil war
self identified as a member of his state, not as an American...
but that is the progress of self identification, it went from family
to tribe to a small city to a larger city to a nation and then to
an empire...a member of the Roman empire didn't just
self identified as a citizen of Rome, but they could be
citizens from Spain, France, Turkey, Greece, England, Egypt..
or any dozens of modern countries....and therein lies the power
of self identification.... At each step, the area and scope of the
self identification grew from tribe to city, to state to empires like
Rome...
This self identification can also go beyond nationality to religion,
to chess player to an dozens of self identifications
so, when those right wingers self identify as Americans,
and go with the 'White is right" crowd.. they are actually
going backwards in the history of self identifications..
If I self identify as American, then I self Identify with millions of
of other Americans regardless of race, religion, creed, color, sexual orientation...
it doesn't matter what my race is or my religion or my city or my
sexual orientation... that is irrelevant to my self identification as
American...
with each increase in a self identification, the number of people who
also self identify as say "American" increase.. so instead of hundreds within
a small city, I self identify with 350 million other Americans...
and some day will increase that self identification from an American
to a human being...
just as my own self identification as American overcomes my being Irish-American
or being white or being male is no longer that important as a self identity
because my being as an American overrules or overrides those smaller self
identities of being white, Californian, atheist, being a baby boomer...
and because the path of self identification will lead us to one day thinking
being from a city or a state will become unimportant... because it is
unimportant.. we will begin to self identify as a nation and then as
a species.. I am a human being... and when asked, that will become
the self identification of people.. I am human....just as in the past, people
self identified as being from one tribe or another or one city or another..
the history of the human race is the growth of self identification...
from a tribe to being human... and then when alien life is found,
we shall self identify as life.. not just as human, but as life...
and then after that we will grow and increase in the nature of
our self identification... no longer will being a member of tribe or
city or race or color will be enough.... and that day can't come soon enough
for me...
Kropotkin
baby boomer, married, senior citizen, middle class....
I could have self-identified in a dozen different ways,
as other people could self-identify in a multiple number of ways..
gay, women, French, LGBTIQIA, New Yorker, Catholic, Buddhist,
the number of possible self identifications is endless...
Now Hegel theory in history was the story/history of reason in history..
in other words, history was a listing of the expansion of reason..
he called it spirit.. Just replace Spirit in his writing with reason,
and it still works.. but is that the only way we can work out the story
of history? We have another path in which to work out the story of history
and that path is the history of self-identification...
How did people self-identify? Think about it... from the beginning of
human history has been a increase of ways we can self-identify..
From the small family of the cave man, perhaps to a dozen or so families,
to a small village, (After several hundred thousand of years)
to a city to an ever larger political, social, economic understanding
of what it means to be human...
In the beginning, there was a family... and that family decided for safety/security
and being able to feed themselves, unite with several other families... the
basis of pre-history, the million years of the hunter/gatherer human existence
was about hundreds of small scale, perhaps a dozen or so families, that migrated
and followed game....it was only in the last 10 or 15 thousand years, that
human beings self identified outside of or beyond that small group
of families.. today we call them a tribe...the rise of the city/town created
the next basis of self identification... I no longer belong to a tribe, but I
belonged to a city...I self identified as a citizen of that small city...my own
personal self identification has expanded beyond just being part of a tribe...
Now most self identification still laid on the self identification within birth
groups, but a self identification with a city is more about those who exists
within that city and not within birth groups...my own self identity lay
with those of my city... however large or small that city maybe...
now we can compare two simultaneous events.. the Greek world
of ancient Athens, Sparta, Corinth.. as examples and the Persian
Empire... now did a soldier from Assyria, in the Persian empire,
how did that soldier self identify? Did he self identify as a Persian,
being part of the Persian empire or did he self Identify as an Assyrian?
I am pretty sure that nameless soldier identifies as Assyrian...and
not as Persian.. and that trait can be followed into the
19th century...the average soldier in the American Civil war
self identified as a member of his state, not as an American...
but that is the progress of self identification, it went from family
to tribe to a small city to a larger city to a nation and then to
an empire...a member of the Roman empire didn't just
self identified as a citizen of Rome, but they could be
citizens from Spain, France, Turkey, Greece, England, Egypt..
or any dozens of modern countries....and therein lies the power
of self identification.... At each step, the area and scope of the
self identification grew from tribe to city, to state to empires like
Rome...
This self identification can also go beyond nationality to religion,
to chess player to an dozens of self identifications
so, when those right wingers self identify as Americans,
and go with the 'White is right" crowd.. they are actually
going backwards in the history of self identifications..
If I self identify as American, then I self Identify with millions of
of other Americans regardless of race, religion, creed, color, sexual orientation...
it doesn't matter what my race is or my religion or my city or my
sexual orientation... that is irrelevant to my self identification as
American...
with each increase in a self identification, the number of people who
also self identify as say "American" increase.. so instead of hundreds within
a small city, I self identify with 350 million other Americans...
and some day will increase that self identification from an American
to a human being...
just as my own self identification as American overcomes my being Irish-American
or being white or being male is no longer that important as a self identity
because my being as an American overrules or overrides those smaller self
identities of being white, Californian, atheist, being a baby boomer...
and because the path of self identification will lead us to one day thinking
being from a city or a state will become unimportant... because it is
unimportant.. we will begin to self identify as a nation and then as
a species.. I am a human being... and when asked, that will become
the self identification of people.. I am human....just as in the past, people
self identified as being from one tribe or another or one city or another..
the history of the human race is the growth of self identification...
from a tribe to being human... and then when alien life is found,
we shall self identify as life.. not just as human, but as life...
and then after that we will grow and increase in the nature of
our self identification... no longer will being a member of tribe or
city or race or color will be enough.... and that day can't come soon enough
for me...
Kropotkin