A Dozen Ways, No Exit

Startling Discovery

A Day Off from Seriousness

Identity, Self, Soul, Personality, Voice, Name

If nothing else, "identity" serves as a principle of continuity that binds together the cute little baby, the uncouth adolescent lout, the aging-gracefully professor, and (what I hope will be) the white-haired nonagenarian. We customarily talk about this continuity as the subject's identity--who he or she really is. Under the most fundamental sense of the word, we allow one identity per living human body, and we casually ascribe the identity in question to the body: "That's who I mean." Identities can legally be correlated with fingerprints and DNA. An identity isn't a feature of a body though; bodies don't come with their identities pre-packaged, nor does an identity serve as a part of a body. You can't break your identity. You can lose your identity, in a sense, but this loss usually has more to do either with paperwork or a traumatic medical condition. Most of the time, the identity itself remains intact but circumstantially inaccessible.

We also know of the term "a secret identity." Now, in a sense, that's almost contradictory; most of our discourses and practices concerning identity involve recognition, an other's affirmation that the identity-term "my New Testament professor" applies to "this fellow here with the scruffy beard," or that one identity-term "my teaching assistant" also applies to another identity-term "Osvaldo's doctoral advisee." If we make no connection between an identity-term and something else--if the identity-term remains "secret"--then there's no real point to the "identity." But that's not how the term customarily works; more often, a "secret" identity boils down to "an identity very few people know about."

The "secret identity" problem has less to do with absolute secrecy than with layers and features of identity. Bruce Wayne maintains a secret identity as Batman, but Dick Grayson and Alfred know that Bruce Wayne and Batman share one identity. Although Bruce Wayne occasionally dresses in spandex tights and runs around with a mask on, Batman's identity depends on Bruce Wayne. If one of the two dies, both die; in the end, there's only one identity between them. The "Batman" layer rests upon the "Bruce Wayne" layer, and if after Wayne's demise some other hero-in-the-making dons the mask and cape, the "Batman" layer of identity will rest upon her or his street identity.

One of the complicating elements in our discussion of identity comes from our tendency to take the partial information we have about someone's identity as sufficient to envision his or her full identity. Batman seems like a distinct identity to Commissioner Gordon to the extent that Gordon doesn't entertain questions about what Batman does in his non-crime-fighting hours. On the other hand, if Batman went straight to bed after nabbing King Tut (I always liked his episodes best; Penguin was my second favorite, Catwoman's raw sexuality unnerved me, and Joker and Riddler were too similar to one another) and didn't get up until his next opportunity to save Gotham City, his could indeed be a comprehensive, down-to-the-roots identity.

I belabor some of these points because I'm thinking about our identities in their context(s) online. First, we ought probably note that this isn't the first moment of social history when people have developed extensive acquaintance with friends they never meet in person; we tend to underestimate the richness of epistolary culture on the basis of the decline of letter-writing in the latter half of the twentieth century (and even then, the popularity of 84 Charing Cross Road testifies to the lingering attraction such relationships hold). People have long been making sense of relationships mediated by words and images, without physical presence.

You can see where this is headed, though: online relationships are almost always Commissioner Gordon-Batman relationships: what I know of you depends to a great extent on what you want me to know of you, and if you're a millionaire playgirl or -boy offline, you may still be a humble defender of Cixous online, sustaining the illusion that you get by on a musician's and a writer's wages. Are citizens of Blogaria the poorer because many of us guard the specific details of our offline lives?

I think not; I think we tend to overestimate the scope of our acquaintance with our offline friends and neighbors. NPR yesterday featured the story of a small-town banker who soaked his depositors (including friends, neighbors, the town government, the hospital, and the schools) for tens of millions of dollars. Did the embezzler's close physical and social relations with everyone in Oakwood, Ohio, ensure they knew his true identity? A couple of weeks ago, naomichana and I pondered the extent to which she could soundly reveal her academic interests to me if she hoped to maintain her online pseudonymity--see the comments to this blog (by the way, please welcome her to the faculty, our new Professor of Haemophagy and Laputan Linguistics); in the end, she has not disclosed enough to risk my easily deducing her offline identity (I might be able to hunt her down if I made a concerted effort, but I have neither time nor interest, nor the disrespect that would trample her desire to remain pseudonymous). Do I know naomichana less well than the citizens of Oakwood know Steve Miller (assuming that the allegations against him stick)? Does being online or offline make a decisive difference in what counts as an identity?

Busts and Pleas

A couple of answering notes, before I modulate to something else that's been on my mind. Some of Jeneane's best memories of tightest friendship come from times spent in activities that she wouldn't want others to emulate. I'm in a similar boat. My ups and downs didn't involve Betty Crocker vanilla frosting, but they did catalyze vivid, powerful memories and lasting friendships.

--[At this point, Margaret and I seem to disagree on the texture of our reflection on our past(s). We both agree to affirm that good is mingled with bad in ways that defy our capacity to distill one from the other, and we both would not in any way want to escape from or erase our past decisions, or evade accountability for them. We disagree on particular conclusions we'd draw from that assessment and from our experience; Margaret tends to take a more positive view of the whole mess of the story, and I tend to note that my story comes out pretty well, but since others' stories take more tragic turns I'm reluctant to commend the mess.] [Margaret adds, at this point, "But I'm right."]--

As Jeneane observes, even if we wish we hadn't transgressed, we wouldn't erase these days from our history; they constitute vital parts of the selves we've grown into. They're inscribed in our stories, without which the stories wouldn't tell who we are.

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      ( 8:15 AM )  

Thinking About Who We Are

Editing Never Stops

So when those of us with Augustinian pasts acknowledge some of the adventures by way of which we grew up, we don't need either excuse nor excoriate what went before. That's where forgiveness re-enters the picture: honesty about things we've done wrong doesn't make them go away, nor make us cosmic villains. To wax scriptural, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." That's plainly evident all around us--nobody's perfect. We can acknowledge ("confess," in the older sense of the word preserved in the theological usage "confession of faith") candidly what we have done wrong, and can identify some of our actions as wrong, as unwise choices--and if we believe in forgiveness, we need not flinch from our offenses, nor inflate them, nor mitigate them, nor write them off as "youthful indiscretions" (a la Henry Hyde, whose youth conveniently extended into his 40's). We narrate them as part of the larger whole of our lives, and let them stand as they are. If we feel the need further to comment on past wrongs one way or another, we can do it by the way we live forward into the rest of our lives.

Complexity and Simplicity

Academic Affairs

Forgiveness (slight return)

First, over at Wealth Bondage, the Happy Tutor has issued a reminder about penance and mortification, topics which were among those that first jogged my mind to blog about forgiveness (thus an appropriate occasion for my returning to this beginning of my reflections at their end). To what extent does someone need to make good her or his regret as an aspect of seeking forgiveness?

It's a general moral intuition that if one has wronged another, one must do something to help redress of the offense. That's why I buy Margaret flowers along with restocking the supply of pepper. It's why some offenders mutilate themselves or inflict voluntary discomfort on themselves as a sign of their contrition. It's why some theological traditions have underlined the importance of acts of contrition, of penances, and other such demonstrations of one's earnest desire for reconciliation; if you're unwilling to make some manifest sacrifice as an element of your plea for forgiveness, we may doubt that you seriously desire forgiveness (rather than, say, a "get out of trouble free" card from the Chance pile).

The importance of explicit contrition seems so obvious a human phenomenon, and so thoroughly hallowed by theological traditions, that any dissent may ring false from the start. Nonetheless, if I was right in my earlier blogs, then gratuity marks true forgiveness--and any requirement whatsoever of a quid pro quo undermines the gratuity of forgiveness. Forgiveness comes as a gift, and can't be deserved; we can construct no way of defining "contrition" that effects a bulwark against "bribery" seeping into the picture. "Bribery" can't constitute a part of forgiveness, though, since that would allot to the wealthy (the Tutor's clients) a greater chare of forgiveness, while depriving the impoverished of the hope for forgiveness even for the most light transgressions. Forgiveness can't depend on recompense, or self-abasement, or acts that demonstrate the scale of the offender's penitence, without establishing a differential scale of "who can be forgiven." Even if the scale slides depending on the material or physical capacities of the penitent, this sort of act confuses forgiveness with payback, a sort of reverse vengeance--I propitiate Margaret (or God) by making an offering of my generosity or suffering instead of Margaret (or God) exacting vengeance by making me suffer.

Compensatory offerings do indeed cohere with claims about "what can be forgiven"--that's what gives such claims force. What could compensate someone who endures a rape for the suffering that the rapist inflicted? What could compensate for genocide? The very thought nauseates me.

But if the issue concerns forgiveness rather than compensation, again, the immeasurable magnitude of suffering can be met by a forgiveness that itself defies mensuration. That's the forgiveness I'm talking about.

Ought we not, then, ask anything at all of offenders? Not if we can't separate the gratuity of forgiveness from the (possibly fair enough) expectation for redress. If forgiveness proceeds unequivocally from grace, then we may honestly and soundly request that I reassess my pepper-shaking habits in deference to my demonstrated proclivity to disregard Margaret's breakfast needs--perhaps even to the extent of asking me to buy a generous supply of pepper to which Margaret might have exclusive access, so that she runs no risk of doing without. Or expecting that I walk to the corner market on Margaret's request, whether it's convenient or not, on the premise that by so doing I make myself available to ensure the pepper supply. Even in these instances, though, the forgiveness must be freely granted apart from any reparative prescriptions. Otherwise, you're buying a pardon again, and that ain't forgiveness (as I've been outlining it).

So acts of contrition that come from the offender's heart as a gesture to communicate her profound sorrow at wronging another, or that proceed from a community's shared sense of how to protect both offender and aggrieved from further such wrongs, these gestures can be appropriate accompaniments to forgiveness--but for everyone's sake, we need to distinguish free forgiveness from any compensatory reconciliation.

Second provocation: a long time ago, Jeneane told about a time in her teenage years when she used to shoplift as an exciting diversion. That brought to mind the situation I've encountered a number of times: what do we say about actions we once did, that we no longer do, that seem not to have marred permanently our moral character? (Consumer sanity warning: the following paragraphs take particular ethical positions as examples not because I suppose we all share them, but because I have to takesomething for granted. If you disagree with the particular sorts of behavior I specify, please substitute more congenial examples.)

The most familiar responses offer a choice between censorious scolding and indulgent disregard. In my imagination I hear a point-counterpoint argument that runs somewhat like this:

Scold: A law is a law, and AKMA (or whomever) should make a clean breast of his transgressions to an appropriate legal authority if he wants anyone ever to trust him again.
Softy: Oh, come on. Kids will be kids, no one was hurt, and look what he's made of himself [exercise your imagination here].
Scold: But people were hurt; retailers had to raise their prices, or police had to patrol the two-lane back road extra vigilantly so that taxpayers coughed up extra dollars (or so that the police had less time to work on solving local crimes, or something). Every offense hurts others. And there's always the risk that someone be even more seriously hurt by illegal activity.
Softy: But everyone cuts a corner, breaks the speed limit, commits some act of mischief, has premarital sex, cheats on taxes, crosses some legal line or another. Cut the guy a break!
Scold: I don't. Even if I did, that doesn't mean we should tolerate scofflaws.

Both Scold and Softy have points here. A common offense is not less of an offense--it's just more common. Speeding isn't legal just because so many people do it. Using illegal drugs isn't okay just because both of our last two presidents may have done it. On the other hand, as the Bard says, "use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?" The presidencies of Clinton and George II seem not to have been drastically influenced by their pharmaceutical adventures. Jeneane eventually became a sophisticated security guard where she once was a youthful lifter, and later still became an exemplary mainstay of the blogging community.

These alternatives often come up in theological discussions of sexual ethics. If you don't try to stamp out teen sex (for one example), you're a libertine. If you try to stamp out teen sex, you're an unsympathetic prude. If you don't try to stamp out teen sex, you're abandoning the gospel. If you do try to stamp out teen sex, you're out of touch with reality.

I don't want to bust Jeneane's chops for her misdemeanors at K-Mart more than twenty-five years ago. On the other hand, those years aren't insignificant; they haven't been wiped out of her memories, and they evidently shape her sense of who she is now, as she explicitly identifies herself as a non-shoplifter. The people whom she could apprehend more effectively because she herself had stolen merchandise are not unaffected by her experience.

We make lives for ourselves through what we do (including what we write, for as we all know, "we're writing ourselves into existence"). Are we better people for having taken part in illicit activities? I doubt it; or--to the extent that I sympathize with the sense that a little seasoning helps round out the youthful personality--I don't want to wind up in a position where I'm parsing degrees of "harmlessness," or saying that someone who didn't steal hubcaps is somehow a less fully human character than someone who did. Springsteen's lines from "Prove It All Night"

You hear their voices tell you not to go;
they made their choices and they'll never know
what it's like to steal, to cheat, to lie,
what it's like to live and die...

(Note to Jeneane: I'm not casting stones--I'm talking through your story of your experience because you so bravely put it out there for us. For all I know, that was bio-fiction, as was Michael Barrish/Oblivio's much-bruited semi-autobiographical fiction (or "fictional semi-autobiography," or whatever) from earlier this year.)

Would I recommend my past as a way of getting to places like this one, where I now find myself? No, I think not. There were precious and exhilarating dimensions to those years, but they came at a risk to my own and others' well-being that I can't commend to anyone else. Some of my friends came out of those years with unwarranted burdens, some scarred, and some didn't come out at all. That's too high a cost for "experience" and "growing up."

So when those of us with Augustinian pasts acknowledge some of the adventures by way of which we grew up, we don't need either excuse nor excoriate what went before. If we feel the need to take a stand one way or another, we can do it by the way we live forward into the rest of our lives.
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