3. More Identity Crisis
My dear reader in the future, your generation is enjoying a homogeneous integrated social structure on earth and beyond. But far behind in time, existed our generation that was cursed with split social structure and hence the split identity. Let us explain the identity crises within an individual.
In the last post, we wrote about the systemic issues of an individual's identity. Now you will read about the personal conflicts each individual faced from within about identity. The first and the foremost identity of a human was derived from his historical faith, also known as ethnicity. This was based on the physical features such as skin, eyes, nose, height which broadly divided people into being Nordic, Hispanic, Asian, African, Mongolian etc. In addition, there was a grouping based on faith resulting in religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism etc. Of course, you know all this in your history books but you don't get an idea of how this caused a turmoil for each individual within self. Going further, the ethnicity and the religion had different sects or castes like catholic and Protestant Christians, Sunni and Shia Islamists. Thus a complex identity was in place on the social structure.
To add to this, there were political structures in place too. The nationality was the mandatory political identity for everyone.The nationality was hyped too much at times of political conflicts so much so that the ordinary humans were willing to sacrifice their lives. Moreover, there were philosophical divisions such as capitalism, communism, socialism that ensued not only intellectual fights but also street fights. The nationality and the philosophical allegiance not always went together, for example, a communist in America was not a good combination. And of course, there were economic layers which would impose identities upon clothing, eating, education and many more.
Now, at present you are a global citizen having a single identity as human on the earth. Can you imagine the confusion of a common person caught between so many identities in the past? Take for example the case of an employed lower caste Hindu living in Kuwait migrated from India. His better than average economic condition made him enjoy luxury in life but his Indian nationality prevented him from buying a house there. His religious identity caused social alienation in the Islam dominated society. In Kuwait, he could celebrate Hindu festivities equally with others, but when in India his lower caste disallowed him from certain rituals during the same festivities. While working in Kuwait, he earned money from his employer there but his inner connection was with India all the time.
With all these boundaries erased, we could imagine how simple you might be feeling, just like you may imagine how the people lived complicated lives back in our time.
In the last post, we wrote about the systemic issues of an individual's identity. Now you will read about the personal conflicts each individual faced from within about identity. The first and the foremost identity of a human was derived from his historical faith, also known as ethnicity. This was based on the physical features such as skin, eyes, nose, height which broadly divided people into being Nordic, Hispanic, Asian, African, Mongolian etc. In addition, there was a grouping based on faith resulting in religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism etc. Of course, you know all this in your history books but you don't get an idea of how this caused a turmoil for each individual within self. Going further, the ethnicity and the religion had different sects or castes like catholic and Protestant Christians, Sunni and Shia Islamists. Thus a complex identity was in place on the social structure.
To add to this, there were political structures in place too. The nationality was the mandatory political identity for everyone.The nationality was hyped too much at times of political conflicts so much so that the ordinary humans were willing to sacrifice their lives. Moreover, there were philosophical divisions such as capitalism, communism, socialism that ensued not only intellectual fights but also street fights. The nationality and the philosophical allegiance not always went together, for example, a communist in America was not a good combination. And of course, there were economic layers which would impose identities upon clothing, eating, education and many more.
Now, at present you are a global citizen having a single identity as human on the earth. Can you imagine the confusion of a common person caught between so many identities in the past? Take for example the case of an employed lower caste Hindu living in Kuwait migrated from India. His better than average economic condition made him enjoy luxury in life but his Indian nationality prevented him from buying a house there. His religious identity caused social alienation in the Islam dominated society. In Kuwait, he could celebrate Hindu festivities equally with others, but when in India his lower caste disallowed him from certain rituals during the same festivities. While working in Kuwait, he earned money from his employer there but his inner connection was with India all the time.
With all these boundaries erased, we could imagine how simple you might be feeling, just like you may imagine how the people lived complicated lives back in our time.
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