Identity Crisis
Individual fears for the Masses
Every individual undergoes some form of identity crisis, at a point in their life. It is a small introspective step, to consider the nature of self, and how one can define their identity. However, too much thought can lead to a situation where the individual is more fearful about relevance, rather than focused on the actions needed to evolve. The 21st century presents an interesting conundrum with the onset of the internet and social media in particular. Information is available at the click of a button. So the eventual overload and excessive consumption prevalent in society was always inevitable. But it has also created a strange paradigm; the communal leader known as the social media star. Given the nature of content, any one person or group of people focused on creating it, will always be deified by their followers. Once the following reaches critical mass, it manifests into hero worship, giving birth to the internet celebrity.
Religion has followed the same path for thousands of years. From the early tales, giving a physical presence to the forces of nature, to the heroic folklore of gods, men and women traversing the earth looking to contain these natural powers, domesticating it to give meaning to man and woman alike. It’s not without its flaws, but the sheer number of years it has existed has lead to the creation of epics; sagas so vast that they can encompass all aspects of faith. And this faith is given to the followers, imbuing them with hope of a better tomorrow. The internet, for better or worse, has given us instant access to these epics sagas, both old and new. And in looking to create meaning, our excessive consumption has made us partially blind to reason behind this meaning.
Everyone is offering a get rich quick scheme, in their own capacity. You can choose who you want to be everyday. In yesteryear, one might have to make a conscious choice in the path they wish to take, and eventually work towards educating themselves for that goal. Which in-turn would help define identity and resolve crisis. In today’s day and age, that information is available everyday, with new tips and tricks coming up each hour. In our effort to process this storm, we resort to creating labels and categories for everything, hoping that each tag to ourselves will cement our concept of identity.
Birthing Fear
The problem with associating ourselves in so many buckets, is that it is just as easy to change labels as it is to define them. Given that we can state our preferences, likes and dislikes at any point, there is no consistency in our statements and thoughts. Reason for this existing is fairly simple, as we interact with other individuals on a social platform, we can see the way they define themselves and we are inspired to give ourselves that same level of solidity. Problems however arise when we go for the quickest solution, copying the same labels for self. They aren’t supposed to fit that easily for different personalities. Another association issue is that we give weight to these labels we assign ourselves. Without appropriate distancing, we start believing the lies and inconsistencies we have associated to our being. And its extremely fluid nature means we never get a sense of continuity. And we let it worsen our identity crisis, by letting it build into social fear and anxiety.
Religion and faith have similar paranoia, the social context of our actions has always governed what is and isn’t acceptable in a gathering. Using stories of saviours, communal leaders create beacons that are to be idolized and followed. Given enough idols, you have the freedom to choose your beacon, but the consistency you were originally craving does not exist. This is not to say that change isn’t good, or that it is better to remain stationary. While a human being should always look to evolve, attaching our identity with whom we follow, rather than what we do, leads to this unrest.
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The internet has created a similar paradigm; there are numerous beacons to choose from and by association, we believe we are similar to these celebrities. The challenge with this association is that these individuals are very much here and now, and all their actions are tracked and documented. Religious deities, have existed in a metaphysical capacity forever. They do not fault, they do not make mistakes, and they exemplify the perfect existence. And they have had these tales refined for years, and have not been scrutinized. The internet celebrity is fickle and is held up to scrutiny for all their actions. These leads to us changing our idols and ideals a lot more often.
Adult Fears
So in an every changing emotional landscape, how do we create consistency and coherency? All religions have followed the same approach throughout history, they lock our identity in our history.
By associating our identity to the past actions of others, communal leaders create a sense of pride and honour. They will tell us that it is okay for us to fault now; because our ancestors were perfect beings incapable of fault, it is okay for us to be given a free pass in our current state. As this manifests to an entire group, it preemptively links our pride and honour to the unique nature of our idols. Humans have always allowed themselves to fall into buckets, through the absurd concepts of creed, caste and gender. And the leaders have associated our pride to these buckets, ensuring that we are proud of something we have no control over. Gender defines your actions in a family, Caste decides your actions in a society, and Creed defines your actions with other societies. The individual can be flawed, but the collective cannot falter, since the collective has never faltered. Association to caste and religion can give birth to fanatics. Association to creed can give birth to nationalism. Association to gender can give birth to misogyny.
If the pride linked to these concepts is injured, the individual is hurt. The community is angry. They reject the idea that their history, or their pride can be discussed, critiqued or deconstructed. Art that does this, must be stamped on without mercy. A book can critique a nation or government, but it cannot critique our own nation and government. A movie can deconstruct a religious group, but it cannot deconstruct our religious group. Art of this nature is ostracized infinitely. Fanatics will look to destroy the art, discredit the creator, thereby restoring balance to their pride and honour. Nationalists will close their borders, and suppress minorities, so that their role in society is not challenged, thereby maintaining order, and restoring pride. Man will rape, harass and abuse woman, till she knows her that she is inferior to him.These concepts are very human, and they showcase the worst possible nature of a human being, his ego. They serve no purpose, other than ensuring that the communal leaders maintain power and status quo. They go unchallenged, while we accept constructs that demean and subjugate our equals.
Which begs the question, how will the internet change this?
Seven Second Saviour
The internet has its ups and downs. While there are people out there fighting for equality and justice, their voices are being drowned by the sheer mundane celebrity worship we have associated to it. The message is lost, as the messenger is glorified. Equality is not what we will celebrate, the person preaching equality is the one we will celebrate. Given the constant nature in which our preferences change, humans will eventually become comfortable with idols changing everyday. The challenge is to ensure that we do not link our pride and honour to the past actions of these or other celebrities. On a small scale, it could mean that we no longer can dissociate the message from the messenger, there by turning the messenger into the message itself. And in doing so, we will have fixed identities for everyone, with crisis only for ourselves. On a large scale, it could lead to the crucifixion of all aspects of our social interactions, there by disabling us from taking any action and making progress.
On the other hand, the internet might just cut through the red tape, and finally allow us to associate our identity with action. Education is far easily available and there is no shortage of material needed for learning any trade. And as we move from one internet star to the other, it is also possible that humanity might just start focusing on the messages itself, by simply moving from one messenger to another, quick enough that pride and honour can no longer be linked. If we do evolve through action, we might finally put to rest our crisis, by resolving our identity, both as an individual, and as a community.
