- Number of English-language books with ‘identity’ in the title, catalogued in the Library of
Congress.
Sameness and difference, this is what identity is all about. It should be simple,
but it isn’t. For ‘identity’ means different things to different people and in
different scientific disciplines. Identities are both things that must be explained
and things that are invoked to explain. Its protean character allows the notion to
adjust with ease to psychological, social, political, cultural, and many other
contexts. Some people use it to refer to their personal values, others to designate
attachments to ethnic groups, religious communities, or nations. Literary critics’
associations with identity differ from those of law enforcement officers.
Premordialists believe identity to be fixed, constructivists see it as a work in
progress, and interactionists fuse elements of both.
Contributing to the identity wave that has engulfed us is the inflation of ‘identity
crises’. Goldman Sachs suffers an identity crisis, at least according to the
Financial Times. No need to feel too sorry for him, for Goldman is not a nervous
wreck who should be referred to a shrink, but one of the largest banks in the
world. The term was once reserved for teenagers stumbling over their own toes,
but nowadays anything and everything can be attributed an identity crisis. If
someone/something has an identity, then, presumably, they can also have an
identity crisis.