Philosophy -- Society and Identity Is There

Philosophy -- Society and Identity

Is there such a thing as true identity? To what extent does our concern about how people perceive us affect our identity? Do you feel the society brands you as a man, a woman, a teenager, a college student, an Asian, a Middle Eastern, an American, etc. And places expectations on you accordingly? Is it possible to discover the real us? How? While pondering, look around you. Your room, your clothes, your belonging, how much of it represents you, and how much represents the current style?

There is such a thing as a "true" identity, but it can be very hard to differentiate that from our superficial identity, mainly because so much of what the average person's identity is a function of social conditioning and all of the external influences that shape who we are in our communities and societies. Much of the typical person's identity reflects what we hope to project to others and the way we hope other people will perceive us. For example, we choose clothing substantially for the audience of other people who we expect to encounter and we develop tastes in entertainment media, such as music, in particular, largely as a result of who our friends and peers are, and more so for those reasons than for the intrinsic elements of the music we choose to listen to. We form personal identities that reflect the norms, values, and expectations of our families, communities, cultures of origin, and our societies. To a large extent, these elements of our individual identities are arbitrary and would have been entirely different if we happened to have been born into and raised in a different social environment. In that sense, they are dictated by external elements rather than anything that is necessarily about "us." Therefore, the parts of "us" that are most meaningfully about us instead of just reflections of our external social environments are our beliefs and our values. However, even our beliefs and values also reflect external influences. That is why studying sociology and psychology can help us discover our true selves: because the more we understand how we come to develop as individuals, the more we can discover who we really are apart from external influences of that nature.