Identity as a Requisite for Violence
In a clip from a talk by Slavoj Žižek called Black Lives Matter & Identity Politics (uploaded in 2020), he states, “The problem of identity politics is that it presupposes that identities exist. I don’t think they exist.” Similarly, Mark Fisher wrote in his 2013 piece, Exiting The Vampire Castle, “[…] there are no identities, only desires, interests and identifications.” The concept of the identity being an illusion spans religion, philosophy, and in some cases, psychology. “Identity” (in this case: a set of physical, psychological, and historical features that come together to create a gestalt that engages in the inner psyche and the outer world) may be “real” or it may be illusory. To me, that’s not important. What makes identity “real enough” is that identities become the basis for violence. In the words of Cornel West, “There are such things as horrific realities. Barbaric realities that violate sacred values. Violate the preciousness of fellow human beings.” And these violations are often based upon their identities; identities that are “real enough” to warrant such violations.
Identities are, in part, forged and defined by the various forms of violence perpetuated upon individuals and groups by other individuals and groups; violence plays a crucial role in creating, perpetuating, reinforcing, and maintaining identities. In the simplest terms: identity is used perversely to justify violence.
So to say that “identity is an illusion” borders on a thin musing uttered during a cocktail party, when, indeed, that very “illusion” is the raison d être to subjugate others and to be subjugated upon.
Whether or not identity is “real,” it is made “real enough” due to violence, no matter how subtle (a hateful glare) or overt (stoning; legislation.) Whether or not identities are “real” metaphysically, they are made “real enough” politically.
This brings me to the point: violence, in all its forms, makes all illusions “real enough.” Violence transforms otherwise imaginary things into objects of import. The borders between countries may be virtual, imaginary lines, but the violence that they can engender makes them “official” and therefore (you guessed it) “real enough.”
If identity was not surrounded by this aura of violence that ever-smiths us into its categories, then our identities would be virtually moot. That is not to say that human beings would be “neutral” or homogenous-isotropic (“the same in all locations and in all directions.”) We would not be clones. Rather, we would have our individual kinks and characteristics as we do. We would have our own local languages and customs as we do. But we would likely be even more varied than we are now, because we would enjoy an even more radical freedom to be however we wanted.
We would probably see our identities as “arbitrary, but mine.” We would see ourselves as the result of a combination of circumstances beyond our control, but peppered with a mix of some choices, alongside the ability to grow and change. We would enjoy our own identity and those of others, but we wouldn’t have such an obsession over them. Deviations from the norm would be more welcomed, perhaps even celebrated.
If the possibility of violence were not such a huge part of identity, we’d be much more free to admit, “Yes, it is something of a mask, isn’t it? But it’s a mask that helps me communicate who I am to myself and others.” Identity would be there with all its kinks and characteristics, but we would know it for what it is: something of a convenient contrivance, or, “the way I like to play.”
Now, try holding on to the assertion that “identity is an illusion” while being a Person of Color in the wrong side of the South, or a Jew in the Weimar Republic, or a Christian in ancient Rome, or a trans person virtually anywhere.
If identity and violence weren’t so intimately linked, we would not care so completely about our identity and the identities of others. But the fact is: identity is a necessary prerequisite to other and alienate an individual or group.
You cannot commit violence upon your fellow human being if they are truly your fellow human being. They first have to be “blacks” or “women” or “Kurds” or “Palestinians” or “fags.” They have to be othered first, and you cannot other the other without a proper identity to other them by. Then you’ve got them. (Even Putin had to identify a wide swath of Ukrainians as neo-nazis to faintly legitimize his invasion of a sovereign country.)
I can’t help but think of any authority figure asking that emblematic question to my point, “Let’s see some ID, please.”
For example: just as the early white colonists othered Africans by deeming them “black,” “slave,” and ultimately “non-human;” this process of creating identities ends up becoming a terrible self-reinforcing feedback loop. In the case of white America, first you other Africans by making them “black slaves.” Once they get a breadcrumb of pseudo-freedom in the 20th Century, they must then rally together as “black Americans” or “African Americans” who must fight politically to get a more legitimate slice of the freedom they’ve been promised. The violence against African Americans naturally causes them to organize into a counter-violence (e.g. the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Movement), wherein, the identity they’ve been forced into must be embraced as a group consciousness to fight its own illusory (yet made “real enough“ through violence) unequal, anti-human dynamics.
Most grossly, “Black Lives Matter,” an open acknowledgment of the link between identity and violence, has been undercut by the banefully insidious and pitiful counter-slogan “All Lives Matter” — a retort so empty, so backward, so bankrupt of depth, so stubbornly resistant to historical reality, and so meaningless — that it betrays those who employ said counter-slogan as vapidly neotenous to say the least. If human history has taught us anything it is that all lives do not matter. Rather, only certain identities do in certain places and at certain times.
America is so incapable of facing this link between violence and identity, as well as the part we’ve played in engendering it, that it speaks to either our remarkable juvenility, or it is merely a flat assertion that we’ll never accept our own history. This is also why there has still yet to be reparations, reconciliation, meaningful apology, or deep social change in America. It’s been called “white fragility,” and it is spot on. But America is not alone in historical denial. For instance, the Japanese still do not discuss the mind-numbing violence that occurred during the six weeks of the Nanjing Massacre.
Historical denialism exists because the fear of admitting to any wrongdoing whatsoever in the past could undermine current or future forms of authority and officialdom. In this way, violent power is always hindered. Violent power can never face a clear mirror. Violent power is incapable of soul-searching and honesty. That official State incapableness then filters down into individuals and groups, who must maintain the righteousness and justifications for their own actions and identities — birthing slogans like “All Lives Matter.”
The point is this: the actual purpose of violence is to uphold the illusions that enable power. Identity is a key part of this process. Identity, though a fiction of the cultural operating system, the human virtual reality, is a convenient contrivance that one inflicts upon another (and then that one inflicts upon themselves) in order to maintain power and violence. Identities groups must then rally together in solidarity to protect themselves and resist the violence perpetuated upon them. It’s a vicious cycle.
Herein, once again, identity is “real enough,” because violence makes it real. Violence keeps these convenient contrivances “real enough.“ Violence oils the engine of illusions.
Therefore, we should always interrogate: To whom does my identity truly serve? Where, historically, did my identity come from? In what ways does my identity disempower me? In what ways is my identity the result of violence and/or a justification for violence to be set upon me? Is my identity even mine?
The queer identity has gained some popularity in recent decades, I believe, because it is a category that questions categorizations in general. It embraces fluidity. Frankly, I believe all identities are queer until they become smithed by cultural values and violence. This is not to say that the queer identity is the best identity; but it is the only identity category that I am aware of that embraces the human being as an unfixed form with, as Fisher listed, “desires, interests and identifications.”
In an ideal world, our identities would be aspects of ourselves that we enjoy about ourselves and each other. But since violence is a defining feature of States and societies, identities can not be enjoyed, nor thought of, purely in this way. It is no coincidence that soldiers throughout history have had their tribe’s emblems boldly displayed on the weapons and armor.