The following article, Democrats’ Identity Crisis Pt 1 – Being American, was first published on The Black Sphere.
Elon Musk brought up a profound concept recently in an interview with Tucker Carlson.
Essentially Musk said that American society has lost its religion, and thus many Americans have a hole in their souls. Musk then declared,
“Nature abhors a vacuum…they need something to fill that void. So they adopt a religion, but it’s not a real religion… Woke.”
Elon Musk says the West is declining because people are abandoning belief in God and replacing it with the religion of the “woke mind virus.” Elon also said he identifies as “culturally Christian” and grew up Christian
“For most people, they need something to fill that void, and… pic.twitter.com/AXTmL3o4MI
— George (@BehizyTweets) October 7, 2024
What Musk insightfully points out is the identity crisis in America. And the identity crisis of today touches on timeless philosophical debates about self, individualism, and collective identity.
From ancient to modern thinkers, the struggle to understand the self has been at the core of human inquiry. And many would agree that today’s crisis reflects both a departure from and a misunderstanding of these deeper philosophical traditions.
The Search for the Self: Ancient Philosophers
The quest to “know oneself” has deep roots in philosophy, epitomized by Socrates, whose aphorism “Know thyself” urges us to explore our own nature. For Socrates, this exploration was not merely about personal identity but understanding our place in the moral universe. The self, to him, was intimately tied to wisdom and virtue rather than external categories like race or gender.
Similarly, Plato viewed the self as a reflection of universal truths, suggesting that the soul (the essence of self) exists beyond material distinctions. Plato’s ideas oppose today’s focus on identities like gender or sexuality, instead calling for an understanding of self that transcends physical and social categories.
I recall a family road trip where we picked up a man whose 18-wheeler had broken down. He was a 20-something white guy, and very chatty. He said two profound things during his time with us.
First, he mentioned that he was only driving a truck until he found something better. He said that he still needed to “find himself”. Second, he mentioned that he made $21,000 annually. This was more than my grandparents earned collectively.
After we let him out at a truck stop, I asked my grandmother why he said he needed to “find himself”. I joked that he was “right here!” Little did I know how this would impact me later, as I needed to find myself.
Nature vs. Nurture: Enlightenment Thinkers
The tension between nature and nurture has been another longstanding philosophical debate. John Locke, the English Enlightenment thinker, famously argued that the mind is a “blank slate” (tabula rasa) upon which experience writes. In contrast, Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed that humans are born inherently good, but society corrupts them. Both philosophers emphasized that individual experience and societal influence jointly shape identity.
However, modern society’s obsession with social categories may suggest an inversion of this idea. Collectivism—the pressure to conform to social groups based on external identity markers like race or gender—has, in the eyes of critics, stifled individualism. This sentiment is echoed by Alexis de Tocqueville, who warned that democracy could, paradoxically, foster a “tyranny of the majority” where societal pressures subdue individual liberty.
I suggest that we all struggle with this concept from time to time. Perhaps you are stuck in a rut, and can’t seem to deprogram. Is it genetic or have you learned from experience to procrastinate, for example?
In my case, I chronicled in my first book, The BIG Black Lie how I always felt the tug of my father’s DNA, as I assessed my place in the world. My father was not a good man, and I often felt like I would undoubtedly follow in his footsteps. It took far too long for me to dismiss this notion, and allow the nurture of my maternal family assuage my angst.
Freud and Jung: Inner and Outer Identity
The duality of man is something I thought about at a young age. And for the reasons stated earlier this duality involved my father. Funny how most of life’s problems do revolve around childhood. Which brings me to Sigmund Freud.
In what validated by Freud and Jung, I noted how I had one public facing me, and the one I hid. I learned later that Freud introduced another layer to identity by focusing on the unconscious mind. He argued that unresolved internal conflicts shaped our sense of self more than societal categories.
Carl Jung, a contemporary of Freud expanded on Freud’s theory, emphasizing that individual identity must reconcile both our conscious persona and our collective unconscious (archetypes shared by humanity). This need to balance personal individuality with collective archetypes aligns with my observation that we belong to broad collectives like being human and being American, while still retaining individuality. I propose further that one’s individuality must be well-balanced with the various collectives. For example, I am human, however I don’t espouse to all human nature. Ergo, my individual, my self as it were will not give into the collective if I believe the collective to be flawed.
Criticism of Modern Identity Politics
Many critics of modern identity politics argue that it diminishes the importance of individuality. George Orwell warned in his novel 1984 of the dangers of collective identity leading to oppression. Today, some, like Jordan Peterson, argue that by emphasizing identity categories like race, gender, or sexuality, modern society risks reducing people to labels rather than focusing on their personal virtues and capabilities. I happen to agree.
My question about why society “wants so desperately for me to be part of the alt collectives” can be understood in light of the tension between individualism and collectivism. While Western societies historically valorized the individual, as reflected in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance,” today’s focus on identity politics often prioritizes group membership over personal agency. The collectivist trend I observe can thus be seen as a reversal of this traditional Western emphasis on the individual.
The Crisis of Individualism
The modern obsession with identity that I observe turns what should be private traits—like sexuality—into public markers of social distinction. This, in turn, leads to what Charles Taylor refers to as the “politics of recognition.” Thus, today society increasingly demands that personal identities be publicly acknowledged and validated, as with personal self-ascribed pronouns. However, this emphasis on group identities can overshadow the deeper, more universal aspects of human experience that bind us all together.
Plato’s Republic explores the idea of the soul and the universal truths of selfhood: Plato – Republic
John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding on tabula rasa: Locke – Essay
Carl Jung’s works on the collective unconscious: Jung – Collective Unconscious
Be sure to read Parts II and III of this article.
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