Identity is an obsession, but also an attempt to escape anonymity

Our contemporary world seems to be characterised by increasing anonymity. This observation may seem paradoxical in an age when concern for ‘diversity’ is obsessive, and when, at the same time, there is constant criticism of growing ‘individualism’. Yet, on reflection, it becomes clear. We are becoming more and more alike. Everything tends to become more homogeneous, and therefore more anonymous, devoid of any real identity. There are many reasons for this, but two in particular – the most obvious ones – should make the point clear. The structural global nature of our world – the fact that everything is close at hand, that everything seems close to us, that everything is visible, that through our screens we can see whatever we want at any given moment – leads us to become more alike. Differences evaporate through the possibility of being whatever we wish to be at any given moment. Indeed, not only are role models available – constantly and all over the world – but also the ‘things’ – clothes, colours, general accessories, etc. – needed to be anything are available at the megastore round the corner, or via Amazon Prime within twenty-four hours, seven days a week, wherever you are. The other issue is precisely that of ‘diversity’. By seeking to emphasise every single difference, we end up with a form of ‘sameness’. We all want to set ourselves apart so much, we want to assert some form of our own specific diversity at any cost, that we end up sinking into indistinctness. Because it is precisely this drive to assert some form of diversity that makes everything identical; it is this drive that leads to uniformity. After all, fungibility is one of the fundamental and successful mechanisms of our economic system. Everything must be replaceable, so that no loss is irreparable.

In marketing, there is the concept of ‘mass personalisation’; customer satisfaction in feeling unique in their choice of product is fundamental to the success of a sale. At the same time, however, it is through economies of scale that the price of a product is lowered sufficiently to generate a profit. In a broader sense, this situation is aptly described as follows: the demand for a specific form of ‘personalisation’, exactly like everyone else – that is, like the masses. Indeed, it is precisely that personalisation that turns us into the masses. In recent years, identity has become a shared obsession on both the left and the right. The maniacal cult of diversity or of belonging to certain ethnic groups, as well as the need to identify with increasingly long and generalised acronyms – the most obvious being the infamous LGBTQIA+ – are nothing more than desperate attempts to identify with something in order to escape the horror of anonymity. The same is true of the resurgence of right-wing identitarian parties: the absolute need to pull oneself out of a uniform global landscape over which there seems to be no real grip, and to which one cannot ascribe any meaning. After all, the anonymous is also that which has no form, that which is undefined, which we cannot name or describe. It is the exact opposite of what we do in life: giving names to things, drawing boundaries, and thereby imparting meaning. Every human activity is an act of giving form; it is an attempt to create some sort of identity.

It is therefore natural that such an issue, which is inextricably linked to our very existence, should also become so decisive at a political level. The perennial question of ‘who are we?’ becomes crucial. But this question is always a question of opposition. Indeed, before we can define who we are – a task that spans a whole lifetime, and is perhaps impossible – we define ourselves in negative terms: that is, who we are not, who we do not want to be. The experience of identity is therefore, by its very nature, an experience of contrast. It is forged through comparison and, consequently, through conflict.

It is a principle based on exclusion; it is, in itself, a discriminatory mechanism, because it begins by saying ‘no’. By denying, by separating, by teaching that one cannot be ‘everything’, or that one cannot be one thing one day, another the next, and yet another the day after. It is, therefore, something dramatic because it erects walls. And yet, without identity, everything falls apart, dissolves, as that sociologist used to say. At the same time, identity cannot be bestowed upon oneself; it cannot be imposed. Identity emerges.

The fact that the West – Europe in particular – no longer has an identity seems to have become the ‘norm’. This is where our history has led us. Whilst it is true that the ‘past’ or ‘tradition’ cannot be restored by decree, nor can corpses be resurrected, this does not alter the fact that this deprivation of identity is something we must address as a matter of urgency. On the one hand, it is as though our society were undermining the very foundations of its own structure by creating this anonymity. Yet, on the other hand, this loss of identity is certainly also its success, because it removes the most direct conflict, sublimating it. It generates that atmosphere of openness and general tolerance in which a society thrives. One might even believe that this ‘loss of identity’ is the very identity of our contemporary Western world. Yet then, in the most unexpected ways, the need for identity resurfaces, because it is something that is structurally – and inevitably – linked to our very existence, and to our ceaseless search for meaning in our lives. And all of this is extraordinarily ‘political’.