Sally Latham examines the construction of identity through memory.
What makes this nothing less than profoundly problematic are all of the variables in our lives that we don’t even come close to having either a complete understanding of or control over. In particular, in regard to how, for years, others shaped and molded our understanding of ourselves in order to replicate themselves through us.What constitutes our personal identity over time has long been the subject of debate, but how much influence can we have over our own identity and self-perception?
Yeah, some of us will own up to that and acknowledge just how wide the gap is between who we think we are and how that was shaped by forces beyond our control. Some will accept in turn that much of their moral and political “self” is derived adventitiously from when they are born historically, or where they were brought up culturally.
But that still does not stop them from just shrugging these crucial factors off and insisting that they really and truly do know who they are. Anyway.
Just ask those who stormed the Capitol Building. None of what I note here has any real bearing at all on the behaviors they choose. They simply think themselves into believing that what they did they did because they were obligated to in order to be true to themselves.
Really, just ask some of the hardcore fulminating fanatics here.
The biological imperatives. The problem here though is that we all share the same biological scaffolding while interacting in a world in which the same physical, chemical, neurological etc., laws result in human interactions in which there are endless disputes over that which is said to constitute the most rational and ethical behaviors. Then come those who in embracing one or another alleged ontological and teleological font insist that even our value judgments can be oriented to an objective truth which binds together all, say, civilized human beings.The ‘memory criterion’ of identity is usually attributed to English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). This interpretation of Locke is the subject of debate, but nevertheless it is the most popular interpretation, and the one that will be adopted here. Locke distinguishes a ‘person’ from a ‘man’. The ‘man’ means the organism, an animal like any other, whose identity over time consists in its continuity of biological life. This means that although parts can be gained and lost (we grow and shed skin cells, for example) there must be continuity within this change for us to be talking about the same man.
Memories are just another manifestation of this. We all have the innate capacity to form memories. We all have the innate capacity to communicate to others what those memories are of and what they mean to us. But then come the inevitable conflicts regarding our reactions to them when those reactions precipitate moral and political agendas at odds.