On Identity

There's lots of examples...

There's lots of examples in everyday speech of people breaking the rules of English grammar. For example the subject of a sentence should agree with the verb in terms of number. If the subject is "she" the verb could be "is" but could not be "are". And in the sentence above starting "There's lots of examples...", "There's" is a contraction of "There is", using the third-person singular form of the verb "to be". Which is incorrect, because the "examples" are plural. It is however a linguistic convenience (with fewer syllables) to say "There's" rather than "There are".

But does it sound incorrect? It is easy to accept as normal things that other people say. Especially if they say them a lot. Indeed, if they say them a lot then they become normal - not by changing themselves, but by redefining what normal is.

We are arbiters

I hate the word 'consumer'. Its a normal, everyday word, but I don't think it should be.

When I walk into a shop and buy a sandwich, two thing happen. Firstly, I acquire a sandwich, which I likely then consume. So far, so good. And the word 'consumer' is an accurate descriptor. But the second thing that happens is that the shop acquires my money, which they then spend on ingredients and staff to make more sandwiches. In other words, every pound spent in a shop goes towards keeping that shop in business. By buying a sandwich I vote with my money for which shop should survive in a free market.

I am not simply a consumer - I am an arbiter.

Towards a functional notion of identity

When we think of identity, we tend to think of what people are.

This notion of identity is exemplified in Shakespeare's 'Romeo & Juliet'. Two households define the dominant sense of identity throughout the play. Those who identify themselves as Montagues are in conflict with those who identify themselves as Capulets. One character however is as hard to pin down as his name might suggest. Though he fights with the Montagues, Mercutio renounces the play's system of identity as he dies; "A plague o' both your houses!". Mercutio seems to represent the impulsive, mercurial element in us that will not be tied to any particular identity.

Systems of identity can easily tie us down. They can act as codes that bind us to patterns of behaviour. While in most people's lives the body count from identity-based conflict is unlikely to be as high as in Romeo & Juliet, it can still be liberating to reconsider the words we use to describe ourselves. I am a 'programmer', or a 'coder' or an 'engineer'. But perhaps I am merely 'someone who sometimes writes code'. In another context I could be a farmer. Is the writing of code something that I am, or merely something that I do. It is a very simple linguistic convenience to use a noun ('coder') instead of a full phrase describing an action ('someone who codes'). But it is less constraining to consider identity in terms of things that one does, rather than things that one is.