by Varun Gauri
These days, fights about social identity are coming to the boil. Could mindfulness practice lower the temperature of those disputes? I want to suggest that it could. To understand why, it’s useful to start by describing the psychological components of social identity. There are a variety of ways of thinking about the topic; many have addressed it. I want to highlight three dimensions.
First, identity enters the body and the imagination. You can tell what groups people belong to from their languages, accents, clothing, symbols, habits, and ways of carrying themselves. Some Sikhs wear turbans on their heads; some Catholics wear crosses around their necks. Most Brazilians and Portuguese speak the same language, but with different accents. Women tend to carry handbags and men wallets. People have strong emotions about the way their bodies and words disclose their affiliations — sometimes pride, sometimes shame. They love their country’s rivers and mountains; they relish the food and drink of their neighborhoods; there are songs that bring them to tears, smells and gestures that evoke the sense of being at home in the world. Even when people reject their identities of origin, the disavowals often have the effect of acknowledging the relevance of those identities to their self-understanding. Let’s call this the expressive aspect of identity.
One could try to argue that Christianity is a more imaginative and beautiful religion than Buddhism, or vice versa, and it might be fun to waste some time on that debate, but it really doesn’t make sense to say that one group’s languages or symbols are superior to another’s. Some expressions of identity are morally contestable (consider headscarf bans or statues of Confederate soldiers), but as a general rule, people are, and should be, free to express their identities. Read more »