Some time has past since I wrote an article about the misuses of social terms as a way to quickly sketch out an idea about how identifying into certain groups often morphs into a political issue; however this shouldn't be the case, as attaching any moral significance to ones group identity in a particular race or ethnicity paves the way toward conflict and lack of cooperation seen today—this is the root of collectivism as opposed to cosmopolitan individualism.
It's good to remind ourselves that individuals can either voluntarily or through birth be part of groups, tribes, hives, and other collectives, though the distinguishing parameters of labels are constantly fluid and are ultimately generalized observations based on often culturally relative, arbitrary characteristics. You might even take this understanding for granted and that's expected in everyday life, as it can be beneficial and convenient to make general statements about humanity which makes our thoughts about the social order simpler to arrange in our minds.
What's interesting about attributing moral meaning to those labeled as a race or ethnicity is that this might very well be the genesis of the nation-state as Wisniewski suggests. The old divide and conquer strategy is always the name of the game in politics and what better way than appealing to the lowest common denominator of social categories? Sorting different collectives by some hierarchy of moral values underscores the true nature of humanity and the social order, giving power to those who want different factions of people to fight each other so they can eventually rule over them.
In a laissez-faire market economy affiliations between individuals are created without the slightness concern over ones perceived group identity, what actually matters is what one can offer another through mutual exchange whether its relational, material, or intellectual. When Phoenician merchants traded along the Mediterranean and Atlantic, they counted on the natives attributing moral irrelevancy to their appearance while placing more importance on who they were and what they could provide. Aesthetics or in this case ones superficial appearance does play a role in the development of culture, but it's key to know what actually falls into that realm instead of something in the moral realm.
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Interesting. Something that strikes me about the many groups that we humans tend to classify into is that many of them (if not all) are created by the perceived difference between them and other people, for example, people who identify themselves as black do so because they perceive a difference with respect to whites, and vice versa, in this way, a relationship of codependency is created between both groups in which each one needs of the existence of the other, or similar ones (yellow, etc.), in order to exist, that is, if there were only blacks in the world, or whites, then no one would identify as black or white, and the group would lose its unity and cease to exist. Nation-states may very well have been created in some similar way, and it is not surprising to realize that the existence of one state depends on the existence of all other states, and in turn, the other states are the cause by which the state exists. It's kind of a vicious cycle.
Something similar happens when people develop our identity, that we differentiate between what we perceive that we are in the "I", and what we are not in the "other", and these two things exist each because of the other, and in turn, they are defined by their opposite without being anything in itself. Just concepts.
In this sense, the person can come to identify with everything except with what he really is, and stop recognizing himself as an individual, but as part of a group, I think this is when collectivism begins.
Anyway, I'm glad to come across your publication in my feed, greetings!
Excellent points. If identity is group-based than nobody would have an identity if we were all one group, which we actually are as human beings. Of course this can't be the case, so our identity is developed by the unique characteristics each individual has. The question then becomes why does anyone choose to neglect their own identity in favor of the non-identity of race or nationality?
Well I could give a very philosophical answer to that question, and I would say that it is because they don't know themselves, then they define themselves by what they are not, which is what they know. But it may not be the case.
Seems to be true. Self-knowledge, which really is just actual thinking, is probably the most lacking thing in the world.