Using Identity to Promote Mutual Empathic Understanding and Forging Common Ground
August 29, 2022 Rather than dividing people, identity can be a source of empathy and common ground.
Hello It’s Complex Readers,
What are you up to this week? I hope the complexity of the week is manageable. This week’s newsletter puts a systems approach to identity to good use by relating identity to empathy and common ground. So often, identity is used as a way to divide people—as in us versus them. But it does not have to be that way. Identity can be a source of empathy and common ground.
Please keep telling anyone and everyone about It’s Complex. Thank you!
A Reminder for Familar Readers and an Orientation for New Readers
Here at It’s Complex we think about and deal with the world’s many complexities—from global issues to individual experiences. The world sure is a complex place, and it is easy to get overwhelmed. We end up glossing over complexity and postpone thinking about it. But much is at stake for humanity and for individuals. Let’s stop postponing; let’s embrace complexity and deal with it. At It’s Complex, we think about and deal with complexity from a holistic systems perspective. A system is a wider whole made up multiple, connected, and dynamic parts. So, we think about and deal with any complex issue in terms of multidimensionality (M), connectedness (C), and dynamics (D). I like to abbreviate them as MCD. Think MCD, be MCD!
Multidimensionality refers to how complex phenomena are made up of multiple parts.
Connectedness refers to the varied ways in which complex phenomena are connected or linked. Systems theory emphasizes interrelatedness, which refers to mutual and reciprocal connections between and among parts and wholes.
Dynamics refers to how system processes are ongoing and can be played out in stable ways, as well as in varied, changing, and sometimes unpredictable ways.
For further details (or as a refresher), check out some of the first newsletter posts.
Newsletter: Using Identity to Promote Mutual Empathic Understanding and Forging Common Ground
I believe that much good can come from thinking systemically about identity, including that it can promote empathic understanding and forging common ground. I am thus dismayed that identity has become a source of divisiveness in the world today. Divisiveness emerges when people of different identities understand themselves and others in terms of not only different, but also competing and opposing interests and goals. People start to identify themselves and others unidimensionally and statically as locked in endless opposition. Doing so contributes to making empathic understanding and forging common ground seem incredibly and increasingly elusive.
Fortunately, it does not have to be this way. It does not have to get divisive because identity is neither unidimensional nor static. As discussed in previous identity newsletters, identity is multidimensional and dynamic.
If you want to see those newsletters again or if you haven’t read them yet:
Understanding identity multidimensionally and dynamically provides a basis for mutual empathic understanding and forging common ground.
Multidimensional and Dynamic Identity Construction
Multidimensional identity construction enables people to see areas of identity overlap with others. People can go beyond asking themselves “Who am I?” to asking each other “Who are You?” When people respond in terms of multiple dimensions, they may just find that they share some identity dimensions with others. People can see that one cannot simply identify someone else as unidimensionally or globally other than oneself. As people see similar identity dimensions, others become less alien and there is space to forge empathic understanding and common ground.
Potential for empathic understanding and forging common ground also lies in the dynamics of identity construction. As people see areas of identity overlap, they can REconstruct and develop who they are in terms of common identity dimensions. Identity development can also include identifying oneself as someone who thinks about others multidimensionally and dynamically, as someone who strives to construct common ground, and as someone who cooperates with others to promote diverse goals and to treat people equally.
Shared Identity: Team Human Being
When people see identity similarity, they can go further and ask, “Who are WE?” To answer that question, we can CO-construct and develop new SHARED identities by articulating and defining ourselves in terms of a common good that is made up of common values, concerns, interests, and goals. Moreover, everyone—no matter their identities—can contribute to the common good. Doing so does not entail subordinating diverse identities. On the contrary, everyone can contribute to common goals in individualized ways. Diverse individuals and groups can mutually support each other’s particular goals and interests, while simultaneously pursuing a common good. It is not one or the other. Diversity and similarity can and do CO-occur because we are all unique blends of individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. People are BOTH different and similar. People can identify both differently and similarly.
We can also recall a point from a previous newsletter that people are systems too.
Understanding people as systems includes understanding any person as a sub-systemic part of the wider world that we all share. And that includes identifying oneself as a sub-systemic part of the wider world that we all share. It also includes identifying oneself in relation to others with whom one has direct and indirect contact. Defining oneself in relation to the wider world and in terms of valuing direct and indirect global connections could contribute to mutual empathic understanding and forging common ground. If people identify with the world and with others in general, they may be more inclined to engage with others and see others as similar in some ways. At the very least, they could see some merit in pursuing common goals to deal with worldwide issues—such as climate change or a pandemic.
I often have MSNBC on when I exercise on my indoor bicycle. One morning in August 2021, a Judge Clay Jenkins from Dallas County, Texas was a guest on Morning Joe, and he talked about how he and other county officials were requiring masks in schools and businesses in some Texas counties where infections and hospitalizations were rising, especially among children. He explained that it was a battle between human kind and the virus, not between Democrats and Republicans. He also hoped that the (Republican) Governor of Texas “would join our side,” namely the side of human kind. He recognized that if some people feel that they are on one “team,” they cannot wear a mask or get a vaccine. He pointed out that there are not “two teams,” just one: “Team Human Being,” and that the enemy is not each other. The enemy is the virus. https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/dallas-county-judge-sounds-alarm-for-children-due-to-coronavirus-118771269955 To me, it was a call to identify as a sub-systemic part of the wider world. Of course, this judge is not the only person who made this point. From pundits and politicians to Dr. Fauci, there were calls to understand that the pandemic is not an individual rights issue or a political identity issue; it is a public health and medical issue that affects everyone. And it affects everyone because we are all sub-systemic parts of one wider global system.
Us versus Them Is NOT Inevitable
A few years ago, I gave a presentation to a group of psychologists about identity. I made many of the points that I am making here and in other newsletters, including that promoting empathic understanding and forging common ground among diverse individuals and groups are possible if we embrace complexity by understanding ourselves and each other in terms of multiple, interrelated, and dynamic identity dimensions. It seemed to go over well and there was a lively and positive discussion about advancing the cause.
But then, someone in the back of the room called out that what I was saying is all very nice, but ultimately it is unlikely that people will ever see themselves and others in terms of common values and goals, or common identity dimensions, because it is just not how people are. He said that it is just too hard to get people to think beyond their own unidimensional identity groups. He continued that it is simply inevitable that people identify themselves and others in “us versus them” terms, and that doing so actually promotes individual wellbeing. He said, “I’m sorry, but that’s just how people are. We are hardwired that way.” I wanted to scream, but I smiled politely as he spoke and I thought about how to respond.
First, it may be hard, but that does not mean it is impossible. Just because an undertaking is hard (and complex!), it does not mean that we should abandon it or worse, not even start it. Such defeatist thinking is an easy way out of even trying to address the complex challenges of today’s divisiveness and conflict among identity groups.
Second, appeals to hardwiring are problematic. Actually, they really get my goat. I find appeals to hardwiring problematic because they are not systems based. In particular, they assume that phenomena are static rather than dynamic. They are also unidimensional because they assume that there is a single cause of human functioning. Claiming that some aspect of human functioning is hardwired means that it is taken to be caused by genetically preset and permanent features of the human brain. It implies that the brain is the single, rock bottom cause of human functioning. When applied to identity, it connotes finality and promotes a static view of people and identity. People are understood in terms of permanent characteristics that are biologically given and neurologically set. Certainly, a human brain is central to all human functioning, including human identity construction, and I am not denying the importance of the brain. However, it is not the whole story. In the newsletter on why people do what they do, we saw how human functioning is constituted by multiple, interrelated, and dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes.
We have also seen how identity is constituted by multiple, interrelated, and dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. Moreover, in contrast to hardwiring, neuroscience today emphasizes neural plasticity and flexibility. It is now understood that neural connections in the brain are not necessarily set in stone (just as stones are not set in stone). Rather (and in keeping with a systems perspective), the brain is flexible and dynamic, and neural connections can and do change throughout the lifespan. I am thus immediately skeptical of static ways of talking about the brain and of linking such claims about the brain to identity construction. Or to any mode of human functioning for that matter.
Third, yes, some studies in psychology show that identifying with a particular group is associated with wellbeing because it promotes a sense of belonging and because seeing one’s group excel promotes individual self-esteem. However, identifying with a group does not have to entail denigrating other groups, and one group’s success does not have to come at the expense of another. The audience at the presentation really responded to this issue. People started talking at the same time and numerous side conversations started. They said they respected different groups. Someone said, “I’m not competing with other groups.” Someone else said that she was not raised to look down on others. They were saying that it does not have to be “us versus them.” It could be “us and them,” or “us with them,” or maybe even “we.”
I agree that it does not have to be “us versus them.” That is surely not the only way to promote well-being through social identity. Thinking about identity in terms of “us versus them” also really got my goat because I think that it too reflects a unidimensional and static view of identity. As such, it overlooks the complexities of identity multidimensionality and dynamics. So, of course I got agitated. It is unidimensional rather than multidimensional because it implies that people identify themselves primarily in terms of one group that is itself defined unidimensionally in opposition to another unidimensional group. It is static rather than dynamic because it implies that people permanently belong to and identify with a particular group that stands permanently in opposition to another permanent group. However, as already discussed, research shows that people define themselves multidimensionally and that identity changes and develops.
And so once again, we come back to where we started, namely thinking systemically about the complexities of identity construction. We come back to thinking about identity as a system made up of multiple, interrelated, and dynamic parts. How useful and consequential that is!
Some Questions to Think and Comment About
What do you think? What interested you, what surprised you, what struck you?
How can you apply any of this? How can you start to understand and engage with someone who identifies differently than you do? Ask them: Who are you?
How can you construct shared identity with others? Ask: Who are we?
What questions do you have about any of this?