4 ms·

I see what you mean. I guess perhaps another way of characterizing PG's advice would be to keep your identity as small as possible, but no smaller. I think it'

by pcl 7y ago

I see what you mean. I guess perhaps another way of characterizing PG's advice would be to keep your identity as small as possible, but no smaller. I think it's a pretty good idea to think about how to not be a "Java programmer" or a "kitesurfer" (to pick two things that I could be identified as), since the former sets my brain up to be implicitly against, say, Kotlin or Haskell, and the latter sets my brain up to be against windsurfing. And I like all of those things too! But certainly, there are things that are core to someone's identity, and I guess that's where each of us needs to find our own boundaries.

thanatropism 7y ago
Not that I expect this to become universal mores, but wisdom traditions from Buddhism to Deleuze advise us (generally speaking, blurring important distinctions) to have no core identity. Identity can be a tool and a crutch. My feeling (as someone who identifies as human and has been hanging out/coping with the world for 3-4 decades -- a feeling, informed by a lifetime of good and bad situations) is that identity politics hurts more the identity-assertion people; the opposite faction is merely annoyed.