Philosophy of Identity

Comparative Worlds

Identity and becoming are not meanings, but provide the “logics” in whose contexts meaningful discourses are composed. The study of societies and cultures, and the disciplines within them, reveals their constant and irrevocable presence. No sociocultural discourses and intersubjective practices are totally structural, revealing only fixed identity, or totally in flux. Social and cultural phenomena suggest that in principle, identities are describable in their essence, whereas flux, also in its essence, cannot be delimited without residua. Flux lends itself only to an approximation, and the latter depends on culturally available means of discourse and intersubjective understanding. There are two pervasive modes of discourse, one suited for identity, the other for dynamics. The former, in the West, exhibits something Platonic-scientific, something “puritan” about it; it is bounded and circumscribed, delimiting a presumed order that can be expressed either theoretically or practically. Changes, in turn, may be understood in a sense of wild immersion in some spontaneous movement of forces whose sense requires one to live through the process. This living through appears in life philosophies. This does not imply a superiority of one over the other mode of expression. In some cultures, identity is deemed to be the ruling factor, but the dynamic is more important in others. Thus, for example, in Bali the most significant decisions are gleaned from cryptic sayings of persons caught in a trance, or rebirth is elicited by a catharsis of a revivalist, or national pride and destiny are invented in a flux of political rhetoric uttered by an actor on television. This allows the introduction of one of the pervasive distinctions between the exoteric discourse, appropriate to identity, and the esoteric, appropriate to becoming.

The relationship and differentiation between identity and change, and their major articulations, can be deciphered in rough outlines. Change and [Page 560]identity can be correlated in a harmonious way (e.g., Chinese Confucianism), arranged in a succession of temporary domination of one over the other (e.g., a tendency in Hinduism), immersed in a hierarchy of powers and controls (e.g., medieval and early modern Europe), or even understood as a battle until one of them is completely annihilated (e.g., Marxian revolutionary theory, and some prophetic and eschatological religions). Some becomings can be regarded as totally dominated by the permanent identity wherein the only solution is a complete escape (e.g., Gnosticism), or, finally, the identity could be conceived as a mere appearance, a maya, veiling a total flux (e.g., Buddhism).

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