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Against Identity, originally presented by Alexander Douglas, opens with the question of why our inner being is not a blank emptiness, but rather an all-embracing multiplicity that society feels compelled to define. In an ancient myth, the faceless Emperor Hundun is punctured with holes to match the appearance of other emperors, and in the process, he dies. This represents the story of how we receive identity from our peers and how, when we do so, something essential is destroyed within us. The faceless, indefinite nature of Hundun is a metaphor for a self that is not yet forced into a rigid, recognizable category. Consequently, the act of imposing a definite identity upon us is a form of spiritual violence.
This philosophy of escaping the self is found in the works of three thinkers from disparate times and cultures. We start by contemplating the ancient East Asian philosopher Zhuangzi, move to the Dutch Republic with Benedict de Spinoza, and finally arrive at the twentieth-century French theorist René Girard. I propose that all three thinkers diagnosed the same social ills in their respective eras, which led them to develop strikingly similar philosophies against identity. Therefore, this is not merely a historical survey, but an exploration of a piece of wisdom that transcends the boundaries of local culture. This deep dive will build an understanding of how our hunger for being leads us into a destructive quest for identity.
Each of us is born with a deep biological urge for self-preservation. But consciously pursuing self-preservation requires some notion of who or what our self is. We are actually born into a predicament where, at the beginning, we are not sure of who we are. Some believe that we can find out by introspecting and looking within, but Zhuangzi, Spinoza, and Girard would argue that introspection reveals only a mess of confusion. This leads to the fundamental insight that since introspection yields no map, we are forced to look outwards to others as models of our true being.
We act as children when we play at being superheroes or monsters, but actually, we never stop when we grow up; it just stops being a game. When people say they know who they are, they usually mean they know who somebody else is, and they have decided to be that person to fill the blank inside. This profound ontological unoriginality is an embarrassing fact that we go to great lengths to hide from ourselves. Consequently, proving the theory that drives this philosophy requires more than rational argument; it is also necessary to overcome our deep psychological defense mechanisms. Individualism is a formidable lie that we tell ourselves to maintain the illusion of autonomy.
The three epochs that these thinkers lived through all share the common trait of a social order that was either falling apart or had already collapsed. Zhuangzi wrote during the Warring States period of pre-China, Spinoza lived in the Dutch Republic following the breakup of Western Christendom, and Girard worked in France and the United States in the later twentieth century. In each age, new individualistic philosophies arose to celebrate the power of individuals to decide who to be, freed from old social controls. The philosophy examined here warns that these individualistic philosophies are dangerous. The alternative is not a reversion to a traditional social order, but an understanding of how identity is formed in order to escape it.
Psychologists often distinguish between identity as a specific concept of your role and the self as the subject that operates that identity. To know any object, we must identify it under some concept or description, but a portion of the self always exists beyond any identity. The philosophy explored here starts with the theory that identity, the concept under which the self is known, comes from observing others. This process is inherently destructive, acting as a form of spiritual violence that leads to concrete conflict. Because no matter how deeply you push yourself into an identity, there is always a residue that refuses to be absorbed.
We must trace this problem to its root: our original hunger for being. Since mere being is an empty concept, wanting to be must mean wanting to find a true identity, which only comes from the outside. If we were instead to strive to overcome this hunger for identity, we could remain happily indefinite and enjoy whatever accidents occur. This brings us back to Hundun; when his face is drilled, the hospitality of his faceless state is killed. Imposing identity reduces us to what can be defined, and in doing so, it destroys the unique, undefinable portion of our existence.
Identity is not merely destructive, however, as it provides moral guidance in our lives. Knowing who you are provides a sense of what you should do in a given situation. Zhuangzi, Spinoza, and Girard hold to a theory of metaphysical desire, where desires beyond basic biological appetites arise from a fundamental drive to be a certain sort of person. I want to eat foie gras because I want to be a member of a certain group, or listen to specific music because I strive to be the sort of person who listens to that genre. You decide who you are, and that decision determines how you act, what you possess, and who you connect with.
Identity management is a core part of how human communities are governed and maintained. Human communities often use proactive violence to police the identities of their members and discourage reactive violence. Those whose character makes them seem like the wrong sort of person are far more likely to be targeted for precautionary punishment. Developing an identity, or at least the right sort of identity, is necessary to avoid this violence, even if the modern world has replaced physical force with psychological warfare. Yet the process of imposing this identity is itself a form of spiritual violence, just as shown in the fable of the emperors who killed Hundun.
Identity also inspires violence because it is tied to distinction and comparison. To identify yourself is, inevitably, to identify others and to draw lines between groups. If you define yourself by your ethnicity or your political opinions, you demarcate yourself against others who do not share that identity. Intelligent people often turn out to be surprisingly unresponsive to evidence because their beliefs define their essential self. Consequently, threats to their ideas appear as threats to their survival, and rational argument loses all power against the survival instinct.
Thus, the thirst for identity brings a constant risk of violence. When pursuing one goal is part of the essential identity of one group, and an inconsistent goal is part of the identity of another, they end up in an existential war. Belligerents experience disagreement as violence, so they feel no hesitation in throwing out taunts, insults, and condemnations. These harsh tactics make perfect sense once we recognize that they are not debating facts, but fighting for their very existence. This struggle for identity is what leads people to fight so brutally over matters that seem too uncertain to be definite about.
Our current philosophical sickness is manifested in the rise of polarization. The United Nations has noted how people become polarized when they incorporate political opinions into their identities. If your whole identity is based on a political view, you are likely to develop an extreme version of it, much like someone who makes exercise their entire life. When political beliefs become part of who you are, anyone who disagrees is at risk of becoming an enemy. Consequently, identity stops the world from working together to solve its common problems.
In my own experience, during disputes over university pensions, I saw academics propagate wild misinterpretations of their own financial statements. The crowd of academics, despite being specialists in rigorous thinking, did not question the calculation because the dispute had become their identity. They were ready to believe anything to retain that sense of self-worth against the perceived attack. I have no doubt I have believed equally absurd things in the pursuit of a particular political identity. Neither education nor intelligence makes the mind more resistant to this drive; even when people have the most to gain from working together, they twist facts to show they are right.
Philosophy and life tell me that this fight for and against identity is universal. I was raised in a multiethnic household and lived on different continents, and I am struck more by the similarities among people than their superficial differences. Being an outsider makes it difficult to succeed in the specific status games of any given culture, but it also provides a unique vantage point. Those born native to a culture seem to fall easily into the illusion that their drive for identity arises from deep within themselves. From the outside, it is apparent how much these ambitions are imposed by the culture, like Hundun’s face being drilled into him.
It is hard to see how the pursuit of identity can lead to happiness, given that we are all competing for limited public attention. We live in a limited-attention economy where each aspiring exemplar must compete for approval. Social interactions become a complex, competitive game of pride and envy, where the stake is the retention of identity. Influencing others becomes the primary goal, meaning we end up in a theatre with all actors and no audience. We work harder, take greater risks, and exhaust our resources, all to keep the illusion of our identity alive.
Most of all, we find ourselves unable to adapt to change. Identities are formed in the past, but life drives us into the future. When our current ways of life prove unsustainable, we cannot change them because to do so would feel like losing our being. If superpower status is part of a nation’s identity, it will prefer war to a comfortable seat on the back bench. When an intelligent species finds its energy base unsuitable for long-term needs, it struggles to adapt because its current patterns of production are internalized. We lock ourselves into unsustainable patterns, not because change is painful, but because our identity makes it logically impossible.
One symptom of the identity drive is hyperactivity. We consume vast quantities of materials and energy trying to control events and each other to match the pattern of our self-image. Few philosophies enjoy less popularity than the Daoist ideal of wu wei, or non-action. While there are many important things to do, such as lifting the poor out of poverty, a great deal of activity occurs only for the sake of gaining more status. People achieve glorious identities, then see others catching up, and run to stay ahead.
Imagine if we could stop, even for a moment, trying to be anything. Could we then find new ways to live consistent with a changing world? Could we raise our gaze from the easel on which we are furiously painting our self-portrait and see the beautiful, multifarious world around us? Could we learn to see each other not as the backdrop to our own portrait, but as vital subjects in a shared tableau? We could then do the one thing every creature that has endured extinction-level events has done: we could adapt.
The hardest thing I have experienced is watching my father in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. His humour and wisdom were still there, but they shone through clouds of confusion. I worried that his core traits were under threat from an invisible, interior enemy. A friend told me I had to stop trying to bring my father back to my world and learn to enter his. That turned out to be the secret; he was not vanishing, but changing, continuing to teach me.
If my father could learn to adapt to his strange new world, so could I. His personality dissolved and his appearance changed, but the love remained. Nor did his love ever disappear; as I listened to his language breaking down, I felt it more than ever. He was becoming Hundun, and he was teaching me to become more like Hundun. I learned to let go of the things I was exhausting myself trying to hold onto, the things by which I had defined us both, and find joy in what was there.
This wisdom shed new light on the philosophy I had been reading for years. Nothing can stay the same, and trying to hold onto things is a losing game. But love remains, because love can flow along with the ways that things change. Love is as supple as the world, and the world’s transformations cannot erase it. Love is the opposite of identity and the secret to adaptation.
Adaptation means changing, and changing means not needing to be the same. Not needing to be the same means not having a definite, immovable identity. It means giving up on trying to remake the world in your image, or indeed, having any image at all. It is thoroughly inconsistent with egotism and ambition. The philosophy presented here holds that the world needs less of those things and more of the love that penetrates to the deeper, uncarved layer of self and world. It holds up an ideal of reconnecting with the unpunctured, faceless Hundun.
Zhuangzi and Spinoza propose a way to achieve this, by deflecting our emulative tendencies toward a different sort of exemplar. This exemplar is called Dao by Zhuangzi and God by Spinoza. Both terms refer to a fundamental, undefined being that underlies the well-defined reality perceived by our senses. By emulating this superdeterminate being, we might reverse the pressures that drive us toward a definite identity. We might feel a unity with others that is deeper than mere identification: seeing in them other expressions of the same superdeterminate being we express.
Against Identity is an exposition of this philosophy as found in Zhuangzi, Spinoza, and Girard. It will argue that this is an achievable goal, but it requires us to counter some of our deepest psychological tendencies grounded in our fundamental philosophical assumptions. It will explore how three such different worlds produced such a strikingly similar philosophical position. What allowed these thinkers to see the danger in something as fundamental as the pursuit of identity? What allowed them to go much further than others who recognized the same danger, all the way to the goal of opposing identity wholesale?
All three of the ages through which these thinkers lived were times in which identity meant a great deal, yet people faced genuine choices about who to be. Identity was not decided for them, as it had been in previous ages, and this new freedom came with a cost. They present an alternative ethos to the identity-curation that is marketed to us so aggressively today. Rather than building profiles to fill the blank space of our fundamental indeterminacy, we can make peace with it. Hundun was happy and generous before society attacked him with a face.
The Zhuangzi is a compilation of texts regarded as canonical within the philosophical tradition known as Daoism. This tradition is characterized by a distinctive ambivalence in advocacy, manifested in an indirect, non-argumentative style using poetry and parable. Daoism as a label was applied long after the Zhuangzi was written; the author never knew he was a Daoist. This Dao refers to a way of being, thinking, and acting. It also refers to the way of things, the way that the cosmos endlessly changes without any definite goal, indifferent to human ambition.
Tradition ascribes the Zhuangzi to the legendary figure Zhuang Zhou, who lived around the fourth century BCE. It is one of the strangest literary works from any culture, matching Zhuangzi’s image as one of the most radically unconventional characters in history. Most scholars agree these texts were not composed by a single person. Despite these contributing voices, we refer to the author simply as Zhuangzi. Historical records tell us he served in a lacquer garden before abandoning his position to lead a simple life, and the text is full of hermits, criminals, and beggars who see through societal hypocrisies.
Zhuangzi lived during the Warring States period, born into the fallout of a great civilizational collapse. Following the demise of the Western Zhou empire, rival factions emerged, scrambling for power. Frequent military conflict occurred among increasingly divided powers, while advances in metalworking led to improved weapons. In a sense, society was modernizing, and all modernization comes with anxiety about what the collapse of the old ways will bring. This unease can be felt in the ancient verses of lamentation that convey a sense of dispersion.
Philosophical writing from the time of the Warring States discusses questions of social order. Probably the most famous of these is the Analects, ascribed to Confucius. Confucius was such a famous figure that he features as a character in many Zhuangzi stories, sometimes as the object of parody. Confucius aimed to restore the governing sociopolitical order by ensuring that the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, and the son a son. His anxiety was that fathers, sons, subjects, and rulers would stop being fathers, sons, subjects, and rulers altogether.
For Confucius, the way to restore order was to look backwards toward a better past. But to others, this period might have appeared as a time of liberation from old moral codes. People once interpellated by identities based on gender or family position were no longer forced to act according to traditional understanding. What would have appeared as a strange riddle under the old regime had become a live possibility. Confucius proposed to rectify names, meaning he wanted to restore the roles prescribed by older tradition, to be shaped by traditional values.
Confucius’s campaign shows his awareness of the symbolic order, the social order built out of role models for agents to emulate. Each name encodes a model, and a world where names are rectified is one where people are hailed and emulate their models. Confucius demanded that we play our roles sincerely, that we fully identify with them. Some have called this a sincerity regime, where the demand is not just to play the role, but to identify with it. This regime promotes a specific type of conformism to historical models.
Zhuangzi was a much wilder figure, an outcast by choice. His writings ridicule the implicit conformism of Confucian ethics. But they are no less subversive towards the other sort of conformism found in the ethics of individualism. If Zhuangzi could speak to us, he might tell us not to be a man, and if an individualist joined in to say "just be yourself," Zhuangzi would tell us not to be that either. He aims at breaking through the reader’s defenses to make room for a radical message.
That message is that true happiness and wisdom mean going against identity. To get there, Zhuangzi takes us into a whimsical story-realm, drifting away from old assumptions before arriving at an upside-down world. We will begin with a critique of individualism to expose the falsity of individualist identity. When the arbitrariness of Confucian roles has been exposed, the way is cleared for Zhuangzi’s radical anti-identitarian thinking. You are free to choose, but the fact that you could have chosen otherwise signals the part of you that can never be taken into the role.
The emergence of a sincerity regime marks the opening of an unbridgeable gulf between individual identity and the cultural order. If you try to look within for a natural identity, you are in the same predicament as the role-based one. You can try to only follow your natural instincts, but then you might not have tried this; you might have striven to overcome them. No less than with the social role, some part of your being resists absorption. This brings us to a famous line from the Zhuangzi, "I lost myself."
The crucial distinction here is between the character for "I" and the character for "myself." The portion of the self that is never absorbed into any identity is the "I," which can be pointed to but never identified. The "myself" is the chosen identity, the thing we hold onto. The "I" can grasp at an idea of itself as a "myself," but this idea could always change. Thus, our "I" is always "un-selfing," remaining beyond any objectifiable identity.
This is the situation of a self that wants to savor the satisfaction of making itself into its own identity. And yet, what it understands itself to be is a riddle. Just when the building seems finished, at a whim, it can dissolve the whole thing into nothing. For the existentialist, the honest response is to sustain a constant sense of responsibility for your own being. You must never allow yourself to believe that nature or heritage have settled your identity.
But there is a contradiction in the existentialist ethic, as an obligation to be authentic seems like a contradiction in terms. Individualism is so pervasive in modern society that we tend to underestimate its power. All brands of individualism run into the same impasse as existentialism; the search for identity is interminable. Whatever you choose as your identity can always, at the next moment, be rejected. Therefore, finding or choosing your identity is never a completed task.
Why is the search interminable? It is not that the object sought does not exist, but that the process is always subject to revision by future choice. As long as it is revisable, we cannot say it is complete. You can have a plan for the plan, but now you are embarked on an infinite regress. Identity creation requires a received model to aim at, meaning the individualist does not create any portion of their being ex nihilo.
The butterfly dream illustrates how the undefined self is always un-selfing. The authentic self is not identical to any chosen identity. The being of the self consists in not knowing what it is. The story ends with the "transformation of things." When a thing transforms from this into that while remaining the same, it reveals that neither "this" nor "that" can be its essential identity. Appreciating this transformation means giving up on the essentialist view of things.
In the transformist’s view, the boundaries between things are fuzzy. Things are always something else besides themselves. This means giving up on the essentialist view that a table is just a table and can never be a chair. The individual who understands transformism can escape identity, understanding that the distinctions between things are fluid. Escaping identity means escaping from conformity to a model.
The true self is not a thing at all, but a kind of spirit of spontaneity. All other kinds of self are just "footprints," models to be imitated. Not imitating others cannot mean being yourself in the individualist sense, because trying to be like yourself is no better than trying to be like someone else. True non-conformism cannot lie in choosing your own identity. Instead, we must aim to "forget both and follow in the transformations of the Dao."
This Daoist philosophy achieves a sort of elastic identity. To recognize that none of the things you are defines you essentially is to be liberated from attachment to these identities. It allows you to flow freely among them. For this to occur, we must achieve the state of the "perfect person" who has no identity. Why should we abandon all pursuit of identity? Because it sets off destructive cycles of rivalry, ambition, and envy.
Timothy Mo’s novel An Insular Possession contains a powerful statement of the doctrine of metaphysical desire, the theory that our sense of identity determines everything we do. Men act in the very first instance by the notion they entertain of themselves. This tendency leads to squabbles and acrimony. The characters in the novel are competing over self-portraits, and the narrative sizzles with insults and duels. The metaphor is clear: the characters are competing to define their identity.
All these characters require that their identity be recognized and emulated by others. The problem is that each side wants to be the emulated, not the emulator, even as they unconsciously mimic each other’s sense of pride. Confucius’s Analects shows the social controlling function of language, the "symbolic order" built out of role models for agents to emulate. Each name encodes a model, and a world where names are rectified is one where people properly emulate their models.
Zhuangzi’s writings oppose this imitative ethics and deliver the message through the image of footprints. Guo Xiang invokes this image to emphasize the anti-imitation themes of the text. In pursuing an exemplary identity, we are led into contention and grief. But do not think that the "innate character" refers to some definite innate identity. The point is to problematize the whole process of self-definition by way of a model.
First, imitation binds us to our models and hinders our adaptability. Second, imitation gives rise to impossible envy. We want to be the model, not the imitator. Yet we are the imitator, not the model. We are striving to be like our model, but we will never have the prestige of those we emulate. Third, imitation is harmful. It leads to the loss of self, and the great disaster that has afflicted the world is caused by just this loss of self.
It is a mistake to identify Zhuangzi’s project with the pursuit of authenticity. He reminds us that trying to be like yourself is no better than trying to be like somebody else. The goal is not to pursue some authentic notion of the self, but trying not to be led by goals, ambitions, or a notion of self at all. The sage merges with Heaven and Earth and the innate tendencies of perfect principle, acting without a personal self.
Zigong encounters a gardener carrying a jug of water, and the gardener rejects the use of a pump because it would lead to a "machine-like mind." The gardener chastises Zigong for seeking to rise above the masses and peddle his reputation. Yet Confucius sees through the gardener’s stance. He recognizes that the gardener is attempting to cultivate the techniques of Hundun but fails. The gardener boasts about his own simplicity, which proves he has not forgotten himself at all.
A true sage would thank Zigong for his advice and follow it or not, without thinking about what sort of being it would make her out to be. She would be moved by curious delight in things, not by a picture drawn of her private character. She would be unburdened by pride and have no drive to display superior status. Such a person has no problem in following along with local customs. Because pride does not get in the way, there is no ambitious drive to display independent status.
Identity does not necessarily lead to conflict, but it is always something to be feared. The struggle for identity leads naturally to the manoeuvres of pride, and these can quickly lead towards hostility. When two ambitious individuals meet, each insists on having their identity affirmed but refuses to surrender their own. This is the real danger of self-conscious action, the sort of action driven by an internal model. Footprints lead into the paths of other heavy-treaders.
Human identity and the activity of value-forming are two sides of the same human activity: the mutual cultivation of self and things. In carving up the world into good and bad, you simultaneously build up a notion of your ideal, optimal self. In making value judgements, you define who you are more than through any other human activity. As the world changes, the man comes to value things differently, and as he values them differently, he defines himself differently.
If our sense of identity is tied up with the way we value things, once we recognize that things do not absolutely have the values that they have from one limited perspective, we must recognize that our identity is likewise not absolute. This fluidity of identity leads us to exert so much effort in curating it. The experience of living in a foreign culture often involves a constant frustration of being defined by things you do not find important at all, while having the things that do matter to you overlooked.
The connection between identity and values also shows us why identity can be the site of intense conflict. An affront to your identity is a challenge to your values, and a challenge to your values threatens your existence. Worse, since we are naturally inclined both to imitate and to seek to be imitated, our attachment to our own values provokes retaliation. The harder each tries to make the other adopt their values, the harder each will resist. The positive feedback loop can escalate minor differences into full-scale ideological conflicts.
Value transformism means that things are only ever good and bad from "here," but "here" is a shifting and unstable place. Through a shift in perspective, deformities can become advantages. To insist that the world absolutely is the way your judgements rule it to be is to attempt to enforce a law of identity upon a nature that has no respect for it. It is a domineering and egotistical practice.
Zhuangzi’s recommendation is to let go of both value judgements and identity. By holding back from judgements, we can ease off on identity-crafting. It helps to recognize the perspectival character of our values. Everything that I say is good from my perspective is not from another’s. And there is no natural hierarchy of perspectives. Zhuangzi concludes that the sage does not walk along the road of right and wrong.
The ideal of beatitude in Zhuangzi and Spinoza can be clarified by comparing it to modern interpretations. We are driven to become a fixed form to escape swallowing by the infinite. By contrast, the philosophy of the way suggests that a living universe is one wherein the many finite forms are ever coalescing and interpenetrating. We should not worry about not being what we are, because nothing, in fact, is what it is.
Things are not so distinct and demarcated as we think. We lose sight of any marked distinction to be drawn between things. Everything is itself and yet, at the same time, all other things. All things interpenetrate each other and transform themselves into one another endlessly. This implies that the Aristotelian law of identity does not apply in the ultimate sense.
Identity is not the way. It is not the way of things, and it is not the way for us. Spinoza was born in the Dutch Republic during a period of massive social change. The early modern period saw the beginnings of science, capitalism, and the secular state. But it was also a time of death for the medieval organic conception of society, where roles were fixed by divine ordinance. In the modern era, natural rights were invoked by individualism to give free play to self-interest.
Spinoza asserts that the right of nature is nothing but the rules of the nature of each individual, determined to a certain way of existing and acting. He rejects the idea of a law of nature, which restrains individuals, in favor of a conception where the right of nature is the aggregate outcome of individual desires. The final draft of this conception is the market outcome, a myth based on the free exercise of individual preferences.
This vision does not deny the existence of old natural law; rather, it explains that it is the product of desire and power. Legislators impose such laws to restrain the crowd, as if bridling a horse. Spinoza’s context was also shaped by the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent confessionalization, where religious groups defined themselves with increasing narrowness and precision. This led to a new sort of religious identity, driving individuals to confrontation and exclusion.
As the social organism died, a world emerged where real people lurked in the shadows. Once opened, the chasm between reality and presentation could never be closed. A soldier might be sincere in his duties, but the fact that he is sincere reveals that he might not have been. Soldiering defines the role, but not the man. So what defines the man? This is the question of authenticity.
The foundational idea of authenticity is that a unique, true self exists within each of us. We need to navigate our lives around each other, and once sincerity is in question, role is not enough. We want to know the true nature of the creatures we deal with. Spinoza is often read as a philosopher of authenticity, but this is a mistake. He believes we acquire a nature by copying models, and in our highest state, we stop doing this.
Spinoza’s great philosophical masterpiece, Ethics, takes the reader on a journey from abstract reasoning to a vision of salvation. The psychological theory begins with the proposition that each thing strives to persevere in its being. When conscious, we experience this striving as desire. This does not mean desire is essentially selfish, but it does mean that all desire is centred upon a conception of self that it aims to realize. Morality bottoms out in identity.
Desire requires some picture of the identity I am trying to realize. Where do I find such a picture? Girard’s mimetic theory offers an answer: we derive our sense of self in the first instance by imitation. We cannot see our own true self, so we look to others as mirrors. We develop ambition, the urge that everyone loves what we love, because we want to be exemplary. We seek praise and imitation from others, which Spinoza calls empty glory.
The thirst for identity leads naturally to violence. The same property of human nature that makes us compassionate also makes us envious. When we influence others, we create potential rivals. If I make you desire what I desire, and you get it, I have equipped myself with a rival. This is why human conflict emerges so naturally from human nature.
The crowd defines the range of acceptable identities: the types of things you must be to be on the side of the group. Identities are born out of violence, specifically political violence, which defines identities through inclusion and exclusion. The initial pressure towards identity is pressure to identify with violence. The power of the crowd drives you to care about your identity, and the more you care, the more the crowd has power over you.
Girard’s theory of mimetic desire is often misunderstood as saying we want things only because others want them. But it is really a theory of identity; we imitate the desires of others because we seek to be them. We do not want objects; we want the being that a model appears to possess. The object is only a means of reaching the mediator. The desire is aimed at the mediator’s being.
Our own identity is merely the intersection of all that makes us identical to countless others. We have all manner of qualities and characteristics by which we can be identified, but there is no answer to the question of which of them ultimately defines us. We are replete with qualities, but none is decisive. This leaves us with an emptiness when it comes to identity.
Girard was convinced that history has meaning, and that its meaning is terrifying. But his theory does not leave us entirely hopeless. The way out is not renouncing imitation, but imitating the right model. Once he revealed his Christian belief, Girard could state openly that the right model is Jesus. In his view, the fundamental importance of the Christian story lies in its exposure of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism.
What Jesus invites us to imitate is his own desire to resemble God the Father as much as possible. Girard tells us Jesus does not claim to possess a desire of his very own. He does not flatter himself that he obeys only his own desire. His goal is to become the perfect image of God. Therefore, he commits all his powers to imitating his Father.
If we understand God as a being with no single identity of his own, imitating this being means embracing the condition of not being anything in particular. flowing among forms and qualities as a many-splendoured thing without being defined by any of them. The less attached you are to any particular determination, the less troubled you are by external things. You are more at peace with the world, which is nothing more than the endless expression of God’s nature.
We will not find harmony by combining into some common self. We will not find it in national unity, class solidarity, or political alliance. We might find many things of value in such common identities, and we might achieve a great deal, but we will only find harmony by giving up our attachment to identity in general. Only a superdeterminate being can model that for us.
Hundun died when the world gave him a face, and it seems that we will also die from pursuing an identity. We die because identity fixes us in place while the world is always transforming. We die because it is only things with definite identities that can die. The power of these dynamics means that beings with identities cannot, in the end, share a world peacefully.
I have caught the glimmer of an escape route. The first step is to see the trick of identity for what it is: your identity was never yours in the first place. It is always borrowed from a model. We are driven towards models by our most powerful instinct: our hunger for being. Being is always being as something, and identity is the answer we try to craft for ourselves.
If we could embrace a model of superdeterminacy, we could achieve a new sort of peace. We could flow along with things happily, not worrying about mutating from our spuriously definite selves. We could love others, not because they share an identity with us, but because they are different from us. Instead of being threatened by what we do not understand, we could welcome its power to transform us.
If you pursue this path of escape, do not expect support from others. Anyone who escapes the ordinary categories and distinctions by which we define ourselves threatens the identities of other people. They are likely to react with a violent impulse to re-envisage this defector. By refusing the distinctions of prestige and status, you threaten to reveal their arbitrariness to the world.
Real wisdom is to find comfort in recognizing that the outer storm and the inner chaos are one and the same. Drill him all you like, Hundun will always remain, transformed and resurrected the moment he is destroyed. To feel his living presence is to feel a truly universal love for the world. Bless us all, we are translated.
We must allow ourselves to be transformed through our interactions with other agents and the knowledge that passes through us. We need truly transformative thinking about both the self and the world. You cannot find thinking more transformative than what is provided by the three figures we have studied in this book. They responded by arguing passionately and eloquently against identity.
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