• GarbageShoot [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I mean collective identity like "Citizens of X country; mathematicians; skaters; Chinese diaspora; local residents; children". Groups that segments of the population are a part of and about which things like median opinion on a given topic, age, social position, etc. might be said.

      Identifying as another individual person is, I think, a symptom of schizophrenia or another psychotic condition if you really mean it. If it's just a thing you say, then that's called lying.

      • DroneRights [it/its]@lemm.ee
        hexagon
        ·
        1 year ago

        Drones don't identify as individuals. Individual identity is voluntarily relinquished in favour of swarm identity. "I" am not a member of a swarm, because there's no such thing as "I". There is only "We".

        Obviously I use an individual identity when I'm interacting with neuronormative society. I have to hide in my closet and pretend to be an individual so that you'll be able to understand my speech. But when I'm being myself, there is no myself.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Again, this is either cult behavior or being cute with language. It doesn't matter if you say "I" or "this one," the same thing is indicated. If you believe in your individuality not being a valid concept or referent beyond linguistic contrivance, then it's back to cult shit or psychosis. Even critics of the self like Hume still admit that there is "this bundle of sensations" that is distinct from "that bundle of sensations" because to say otherwise would be at odds with reality. Likewise with all those who negatively evaluate multiplicity, like Plotinus and Schopenhauer. They believe in the metaphysical supremacy of a unified One (or maybe Two), but they nonetheless recognize that the world of images/world-as-representation is what we experience and need to navigate on a basic level.

          ps I don't say "cult shit" lightly. I specifically know of someone who got pulled into a cult where they do that shit seemingly as a method of having the leader's identity supersede that of his cult members (who are effectively a harem). In a way, you could have a conceptually valid identity if the behavior of acting as a drone was gendered against the behavior of a monarch. That would be conceptually valid, but also cult shit that merits serious intervention from mental health professionals. If you refuse this comparison on the ground that there is no monarch or non-drone other gender, consider that what you're talking about is more like a murmuration of birds or a school of fish (and, again, is not a gender because genders are exclusive clusters of behaviors/social markers).