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The Challenge of Identity

August 6th, 2011
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a baby's eye

Eye See You (peasap)

Professor Michael Wesch (The Machine is Us/ing Us) wrote a thoughtful post in which he reflects on where we’ve been over the last 20 years and where we are now. In reflecting on familiar themes over time, he noted  “authenticity” is the core challenge that we continue to struggle with. “The ethic of authenticity was born in the late 18th century and persists to this day. Being “authentic” requires us to “find ourselves,” “get in touch with our inner lives,” and act from our “core,” says Wesch. Our world, our culture, and our technologies are not yet rising to assist with this challenge. He continues,

But there are tensions at work within this quest for identity and recognition. Authenticity demands an entirely original creation – which frequently involves opposition to society. Yet at the same time our creations cannot be meaningful without being open to the meaning systems created and sustained by society. We never quite feel like we have “found ourselves.” Just when we think we know who we are the doubts start to creep in: Is this really the real me? Or have I been duped by society? Or we find ourselves so on the margins that we feel a loss of meaning and purpose. Most of us sway between these poles, always struggling to find who we really are. The “technologies of saturation” only amplify these issues by providing us with countless options, so that each self we portray or become “cries out for an alternative, points to a missed potential, or mocks the chosen action for its triviality … the postmodern being is a restless nomad” (Gergen).

The road ahead is no less fraught with mysterious and confounding perils. The “user-driven” movement that I am an active supporter of will, possibly by necessity, start out as a not-yet-meaningful collection of data bits, evidence of our connections and directions. We will still need to find a way to step back and take it in, as we do a striking piece of art. The reverberance, our inner feelings and priorities, are not a common language between us or even secretly to ourselves.

Coaching moment: What’s the most important thing that you want people to know about you? What are your top five? List them on a piece of paper. Tomorrow, review your list. Think about ways in which you support or undermine these messages. Think about ways in which technology supports or undermines your messages. What could be different, and how?

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Finding Yourself

July 15th, 2009
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This is Michael Wesch’s keynote talk from the second day of Personal Democracy Forum 2009. Wesch is a professor of anthropology at Kansas State University, and was the author of “The Machine is Us(ing) Us,” a video about how the internet is changing society.

Wesch talks about “a core ethic of our society: a search for identity and recognition; in a society that does not automatically give identity and recognition. You have to create your own.” Wesch points out that we face two threats: 1) self-centered modes of self-fulfillment, which leads to civic and social disengagement, and 2) negation of all horizons of significance, which leads to divergent views, fragmentation, and “special interest sound bite politics.” He continues with why this matters, and why it matters deeply.

It’s an interesting talk. Wesch raises important questions.

Coaching moment: There are really two parts to your identity: 1) who you think you are and who you want to be, and 2) all of the external parts of your identity. The two parts reflect how you want to appear and interact with the world (inside looking out), and how you’re seen by the world (outside looking at you). You have more control over who you want to be.

Sometimes we feel a disconnect when we learn that our external artifacts paint a picture of who we are that’s very different from how we see ourselves. The evidence is there. Is it being misinterpreted, or does it reveal something about us that makes us uncomfortable? Often we find that it’s a little of both. What if you could change that, even just a little?

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