Teodor MATEOC
Abstract. Race is the ultimate trope of difference and identity because it is so very arbitrary in its application. We too often use language in such a way as to insert racial difference as natural into our statements.
To do so is to exacerbate the complex problem of cultural or ethnic difference rather than diminish or clarify it. In the context of identitarian debates, racism seems to have become fashionable again;
The fact that literally every day people are killed in the name of differences ascribed to race and ethnic identity renders even more urgent the necessity to deconstruct the ideas of difference inscribed in the trope of race in order to reveal the latent relations of power and ideology inherent in the popular and academic usage of the concept.
Keywords: identity, marginality, race, ethnicity, otherness, culture, ideology.
Preliminaries
Today, we can see identitarian politics at work in several ways: the rise of neo-Nazism, the emergence of regional nationalisms and religious fundamentalisms, the renewed forms of racism or, in the academia, the critique of multiculturalism.
Simply put, identitarianism – as the project of either marginalizing the other or reducing it to the categories of the same – pervades our contemporary world.
Identity has always been a key concept in western thought. Different fields of inquiry have wrestled with it: philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychoanalysis have all attempted to define it either ontologically, i.e., in itself, or praxiologically, as a social self (re)shaped in the encounters with the others, cast themselves into different roles as the result of cultural pressures coming from peculiar structures of power and ideology.
The issue of identity has been explored by philosophers and thinkers for millennia. Socrates‟ idea of “knowing thyself” has been historically pursued from the scholastic philosophy of Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant, to William James who introduces it into psychology wherefrom is then appropriated by psychiatry and psychoanalysis, to such contemporary thinkers as Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel
Ph.D., Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Oradea, tmateoc@uoradea.ro
Levinas or Hannah Arendt. As A. Modell points out, ever since Descartes separated the mind from the body, the question has been: “How can individuals private experience of the self be treated as a scientific reality by others?”1. One of the first answers is given by William James who, in Principles of Psychology (1890) holds that the experience of the self is a fundamental reality which cannot be reduced to something more objective. As M. Putz noticed, echoing E. Erikson, „identity‟ is fundamentally ambiguous and not limited to a single field of application. This ambiguity – which has often led to a baffling conceptual confusion: identity, self, ego, subjectivity, personhood etc. – is ultimately the result of the paradoxical nature of the self: on one hand, we speak of identity as, conventionally, the same; on the other, the consciousness of self is always changing.
For the sake of clarity, I suggest that a distinction should be made between
„self‟ and „identity‟. The first term denotes the inner, essential and assumed being, what C. G. Jung called “the personal core” and W. James “the real nucleus of our personal identity”2. „Identity‟, on the other hand, expresses a unity in variety; it speaks of our relations with others and points to an inner awareness of the ever changing stream of consciousness. It is, then, best conceived of not as a fixed entity, but as a function, a selecting agency that directs attention to what is more interesting or appealing in the outside world.
Within the framework of the discussions about identity, the term is sometimes used in a commonsensical, intuitive manner or, on the contrary, it becomes too theoretically sophisticated or context-specific. However, I would like to submit that, no matter how identity is approached, there are three ideas that need accentuation: identity can only be discussed in relation to time; it can only and always be defined in opposition to what it is not, which brings up the issue of otherness; it has to be considered from a larger, cultural standpoint.
Identity and Temporality
The temporal dimension of identity has been considered either from an essentialist stance, i.e., proclaiming the permanent and unchanging nature of the self, or from a relativist position that, in its extreme, post-structuralist form (cf. R. Barthes, J. Derrida) proclaims the death of the subject and the dissolution of identity.
The first position has its roots in classical antiquity, specifically in the Platonic idea of the self which holds that the soul has an identity that precedes bodily and social existence. The subsequent Christian idea of the self similarly maintains that the soul has a role in a heavenly community which, on Earth, is represented by the Church. Further, St. Augustine introduced the idea of a private self which is capable of self-reflection; the understanding and acceptance of this private self manifest itself as “love of the self”3.
1 Arnold H. Modell, The Private Self, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1993, p. 2.
2 Manfred Putz, Fabula identităţii, Institutul European, Iaşi, 1995, p.30.
3 Quoted in A. Modell, op.cit., p.41.
From Periphery to Centre
For John Locke, what accounts for the unity of identity is its self- consciousness and what maintains the continuity in time is memory, understood as the retrospective expression of reflection. In the chapter “Of Identity and Diversity” of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke further asserts that identity implies assuming and reducing all variations to a common core guaranteed by consciousness.
Much along the same essentialist tradition is another line of thought which aimed at arriving at a science of the subject. Like Sigmund Freud, for example, who focused on the structural and unchanging aspects of the self: his first model is topographical, proposing a division of the mind into preconscious, conscious and unconscious; the second is structural, postulating the relatively stable, well-known triad: the ego, the id and the superego, or over-consciousness whose emergence he attributed to the memory of the threat of punishment by the primordial father (cf.
Totem And Taboo, 1913). In what concerns the continuity of self in time, Freud explained it as a reflection of lasting identifications with formerly loved persons.
Julia Kristeva takes on from Freud and, in La Revolution du langage poetique (1974), adds that reason and order are essential attributes of a unified subjectivity that expresses itself through an orderly syntax. It is equally true, however, that what is ordered and accepted is continuously being threatened by the „heterogeneous‟ and the „irrational‟, by the subversive presence of laughter or poetry, in a word, by desire.
The concept of „desire‟ is also used by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan when he describes the subject as split between the conscious life of the „ego‟ and the unconscious life of „desire‟. Lacan restates Freud in Saussure-ean terms stating that human beings enter a pre-existing system of signifiers which takes a meaning only within a language system that enables us to find a subject position within a relational structure. Furthermore, he makes the distinction between the imaginary and the symbolic in order to show how we acquire an adult identity: the imaginary is a state of plenitude without a clear distinction between subject and object; the child projects a certain unity unto his fragmented self-image in the mirror, thus producing a
„fictional ego‟. Like with Freud, the presence of the father teaches him to distinguish himself from the others and summons him to take up a position that is defined by (sexual) differences, or by interdictions and taboos. Its identity as a subject is constituted by relations of difference and similarity with the others around him, so he moves from the imaginary register into the symbolic order, the pre-given structure of social and sexual roles or relations.
To complete the picture, I intend to turn now to the opposite perspective, that which sees identity as time-bound and discourse related. For the notion of a stable identity is but an illusion. Not only do we not bathe twice in the waters of the same river, but change in time is inevitable and, sometimes, necessary. “There is a note of noble humanism in the belief that each4 of us can change” and, indeed,
4 Andreea Deciu, Nostalgiile identităţii, Dacia, Cluj-Napoca, 2001, p. 14.
lived experiences, significant encounters or dramatic events do change us for the better or worse. It is in this sense that David Hume in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) speaks of „degrees‟ of identity and Derek Parfitt of „stages‟. For Hume, such degrees can be reduced to unity through „imagination‟ and „belief‟, while for Parfitt, what gives continuity and consistency to a person‟s identity, considered at two different temporal moments, is self consciousness and awareness of its identity and continuous existence in time5.
If we have to admit that the self changes, how does one preserve one‟s sense of a stable identity that can be recognizable for others? The French critic Paul Ricoeur has convincingly answered the question by proposing a new theory of identity starting from the etymological meaning of the concept. In Latin, „identity‟
can be designated either as idem or ipse, both related to what he calls “the primary trait” of the self: temporality. Identity as „idem‟ embodies the principle of permanence in time, of continuity and repeated self-assertion and is practically synonymous to „sameness‟. On the other hand, identity as „ipse‟ is that which is not defined by permanence in time, but which undergoes changes and makes alterity/otherness possible. The synonym of „ipseity‟ is the notion of „selfhood‟.
The relation between the two forms of identity is to be taken dialectically, functioning rather as a binary system, always in search for equilibrium. Idem-identity and ipse-identity are further instrumental in Ricoeur‟s defining of the concept of „person‟, a concept qualified by means of the predicates that we ascribe to it, by way of „identifying reference‟. However, it is possible to ascribe two different kinds of predicates to one and the same person: physical predicates that a person shares with others and mental predicates which distinguish it from others, this being, in Ricoeur‟s words „the identity of ascription‟, since “ascribing a state of consciousness to oneself is felt; ascribing it to someone else is observed”6. The implication of such a statement is important, for it allows for the next step in the discussion about identity, bringing up the issue of otherness.
The Self and the Other
Ipse-identity/selfhood can be seen in a dialectical relation not only to idem-identity/sameness, but also as part of another binary opposition, i.e., that between the self and the other (than self). Shifting the focus from the private to the public realm of the self adds a new dimension to the relation of the two: that of desire, control and especially power and ideology, all of them present in the realm of everyday praxis.
To consider the private self in relation to the others in the private space means to understand the self and the other as functioning in an intersubjective
5 Derek Parfitt, Ceea ce credem că sîntem, in Secolul 21, 1-7, 2002, p.103-104.
6 Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1994, p.38.
From Periphery to Centre
system. Such an arrangement can be looked at from a double perspective: either as the extension of the self into the other (or the other into the self), or, conversely, as the degree to which the other is experienced as separate, external or alien. This is tantamount to saying with Todorov7 that the experience of otherness is based on egocentrism and can embody several forms: if it is ontological, then it can be „assimilationist‟, seeing the other as equal or identical, or „discriminating‟, which presupposes a positive or negative assessment of the other; in its epistemological form, it would become manifest either in the desire to know the other or to ignore him; and, finally, in the praxiological order this would imply either keeping a distance between us and the other, or covering that distance in order to know him.
If we take into account the notions of desire and power, this will lead us to consider the relative degree of altruism and self-interest, the inequalities of need and desire which make one partner more vulnerable, or more powerful than the other. The wish to merge with the other is invariably accompanied by some form of love, by an idealization of the other, or, on the contrary, the perception of the other as alien is usually accompanied by some form of enmity and hatred.
Merging and separateness can be seen as a dialectical process. Merging with the other triggers a counter-reaction because the establishment of a private self is crucial for psychic survival, otherwise the self runs the danger of being swallowed up in the other: “In asymmetrical relationships, in which the other is idealized, individuality is threatened also by the fact that idealization of the other is accompanied by depletion of the self. What is valued is not in the self but in the other. The other is a person who knows and who has”8.
In his Phenomenology of the Mind (1807), while commenting on what came to be known as the master-slave relationship, Hegel, too, admitted that the self and the other exist in a dialectical, if paradoxical relationship, posing dilemmas that have no solutions. The paradox is twofold: that of the private and public self, simultaneously caught into a relationship of dependency and autonomy, and that of the self as a fixed identity, yet within the flux of experience. The conclusion that Hegel draws from here is that the self is split and divided against itself. Or, as Taylor writes in his exegesis of Hegel‟s work, “what we have is an oscillation between a sense of our own self-identity and an equally acute sense of our dependence on a changing, shifting external reality. The subject has to accept the fact of an inner division, in which the inner self is painfully divided, into an ideal immutable and self-identical being on one side and plunged into a world of confusion and change on the other”9.
7 See Tzvetan Todorov, Descoperirea Americii. Problema celuilalt, Bucureşti, 1994.
8 A. Modell, op.cit, p.115.
9 Charles Taylor, Hegel, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1975, qtd in A. Modell, op. cit, p.99.
Hegel‟s elaboration upon the master-slave relationship transcends its topicality and is, in fact, a meditation upon an important aspect of human condition seen as caught between commitment and disengagement, between solitude and belonging. Needless to say, this dialectic is not only valid in the case of the self and the external other, but refers also to the internalized relation between an idealized and an actual self.
Cultural Otherness
In Strangers to Ourselves (1991), Julia Kristeva starts her discussion of
„the foreigner‟ from the assumption that „otherness‟ underlies elementary civilization. Alongside the psychological meaning of the other that tends to exclude the dissimilar, there were, from the very beginning political and pragmatic meanings that would deny the foreigner the status of a citizen in the polis, state, or empire.
The shift from politics to symbolic, cultural factors led to an internalization of otherness which came to be seen as barbarity (cf. the opposition Greek/non-Greek, i.e., barbarian) and moral inferiority. Whether politically, religiously or culturally defined, the foreigner as the other has always been defined in negative terms, as the „black sheep‟ of the family, community or church. Edward Said made a strong claim for the cultural definition of otherness when, in Orientalism (1978) and Culture and Imperialism (1993) showed that the construction of an identity involves opposites and others; generally speaking, Said argues, Western culture acquired an identity by seeing itself as distinct from the Orient, whereby the latter came to be seen as a sort of cultural ersatz, or hidden self: “European culture gained its strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self”10.
But any simple difference, be it cultural, political, religious or sexual, is not enough to support the idea of otherness. For, ideally, a social and cultural structure can evolve towards a liberal democracy that is positive and assimilationist and, therefore, accepts the other. Or, at the other extreme, it can evolve towards a totalitarianism that overrules otherness and stresses conformism and levelling of differences. Therefore, what makes acceptance or rejection possible is the particular configuration of power detained by the group or class to which the other does not belong and possibly defined as the ability to cause or prevent change. The concept of „power‟ is instrumental in the maintaining of self- esteem and in the process of identity-building; when the sense of significance is lost and replaced by the feeling of „powerlessness‟. The self may resort to violence, or to perverted or neurotic forms of self-assertion.
In Power and Innocence (1872), R. May reconsiders the concept of power in the context of the dialectic between the self and the others and suggests a
10 Edward W. Said, Orientalism. The Western Conception of the Orient, Penguin, London, 1978, p. 3.
From Periphery to Centre
taxonomy that is worth mentioning at this point. Moving from a benign to a harmful model, he identifies five avatars of power that govern the relationship with an external other: integrative power, or power with; nutrient power, or power for (as in teaching or democratic statesmanship); competitive power, or power against; manipulative power, or power over (as in the media or in politics) and, finally, exploitative power, i.e., the brutal exercise or imposition of force11.
Practically, most of the important cultural theorists (Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Stephen Greenblatt) link the formation of the subject and the construction of identity to the notions of power and ideology. For Terry Eagleton, all social practices, art included, exist by and in ideology because “what we say and believe connects with the power structure and power relations of the society we live in”12. The ideological overlaps the aesthetic if only because we always use language in the context of political discursive conditions that, inevitably, affects the way in which we construct and express our personal and cultural identity.
Race, Ethnicity and Alterity
„Race‟ and „ethnicity‟ are cognate terms that are sometimes used arbitrarily or intuitively to describe, generally speaking, a categorical interpretation of the encounter between the self and the other. To distinguish between the two one would do well to start with the definition of the terms. According to the psychologist J.M. Casas, „race‟ can be defined as a subgroup of peoples possessing a definite combination of physical characters, of genetic origin, the combination of which to varying degrees distinguishes the sub-group from other sub-groups of mankind [sic]”13. As the author further points out, the biological definition has no
„Race‟ and „ethnicity‟ are cognate terms that are sometimes used arbitrarily or intuitively to describe, generally speaking, a categorical interpretation of the encounter between the self and the other. To distinguish between the two one would do well to start with the definition of the terms. According to the psychologist J.M. Casas, „race‟ can be defined as a subgroup of peoples possessing a definite combination of physical characters, of genetic origin, the combination of which to varying degrees distinguishes the sub-group from other sub-groups of mankind [sic]”13. As the author further points out, the biological definition has no