{"id":748,"date":"2010-06-05T17:16:56","date_gmt":"2010-06-05T21:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/05\/defined-by-who-youre-not\/"},"modified":"2010-06-05T17:16:56","modified_gmt":"2010-06-05T21:16:56","slug":"defined-by-who-youre-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/05\/defined-by-who-youre-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Defined by who you're not"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading the Israel Derangement Syndrome II<\/a> article and got to thinking.\u00a0 I don\u2019t often speak up publicly about my feelings about US-Israeli relations, mostly because I feel like the minute I open my mouth, I\u2019m gonna get slapped with an anti-Semitic label before I get to outline how I feel.\u00a0 I encourage you to read the article before you go on with reading what I have to say, as he does comment rather succinctly on some things.<\/p>\n

But, I actually want to pull another thread — how we identify ourselves and with what subset of humanity.<\/p>\n

I do it.\u00a0 I\u2019ll identify as a Virginian pretty quickly, even if in the 21st<\/sup> century, one would think that identifying by nationality would be the important thing.\u00a0 There\u2019s even some historical precedent.\u00a0 If Bob Lee hadn\u2019t identified as a Virginian first and an American second, there\u2019s no way in hell the Civil War would have lasted as long as it did.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s kind of the point.\u00a0 I think we sub-identify too much.\u00a0 Sure, sure, having your tribe feels good.\u00a0 I enjoy going to parties full of geeks with similar tastes and viewpoints to my own.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice<\/em> not to feel like an alien.\u00a0 I like going to family gatherings for a similar reason.\u00a0 The shared experiences, the shared viewpoint and history is a powerfully bonding experience and it satisfies our monkey brains on a deep level.<\/p>\n

What I wonder is if it is possible, without some sort of outside reference, to have that sense of identity with being a human being and denizen of the Planet Earth.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, really.\u00a0 Science fiction is loaded with examples of authors postulating that a shared alien enemy will be the driving force to unite human beings.<\/p>\n

Me?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know that I like the idea of being defined in terms of what one is against or what one is not.\u00a0 The problem is that I wonder if this oppositional behavior and viewpoint is necessary for in-group bonding, and without it, we\u2019re lost in a floating sea of aloneness.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to think not, but I have to wonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading the Israel Derangement Syndrome II article and got to thinking.\u00a0 I don\u2019t often speak up publicly about my feelings about US-Israeli relations, mostly because I feel like the minute I open my mouth, I\u2019m gonna get slapped with an anti-Semitic label before I get to outline how I feel.\u00a0 I encourage you … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Defined by who you're not”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}