Q&A: Shaping Identity
Shaping Identity
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Why, really, should every nation be subject to its own historical identity?
In ancient times, when every nation and every region lived in its own world, that makes sense, since a person had nothing else to live by if he gave up his native identity. But when there is an option to move to another nation, then identity can be melted down and reshaped (at least over the course of future generations). And nowadays, when the world has become so small, a global village, why shouldn’t identities melt together and people gather from all of them the best historical experience, culture, morality, wisdom, and thought? This involves no erasing of the past, because it would be preserved in books, stories, museums, heritage sites, historical organizations, and so on, and then everyone would gain enormously.
Why oppose the creation of a universal nation? Why not have one human identity, but one that is extremely rich in the world of identity it contains? Why narrow ourselves?
Thank you
Answer
Who said one has to oppose it? If it’s possible to create a universal identity, that may be a good thing. I’m not at all sure that it’s possible. Beyond that, even if a person simply wants to change identity, and not necessarily to a universal identity, that’s also fine. I don’t assume that a person must be enslaved to an identity dictated to him by the collective into which he was born.
Discussion on Answer
Who said it has value? Identity is a psychological fact (a sentiment), not a value.
And what does the Torah mean by the seventy nations and languages? Doesn’t the Torah see a principled value in the concept of “identity”? Isn’t native belonging to a certain world (of thought, morality, technology, science, narrative, etc.) something principled? Shouldn’t preserving historical identity be encouraged?
Where does the Torah speak about seventy nations? And even if it does, why would that mean that national identity is a value rather than a psychological fact?
I don’t know what it means to say that identity is principled. It’s simply a fact.
The Sages speak about the fact that the seventy festival bulls on Sukkot, which decrease each day, correspond to the seventy nations of the world.
The Torah sees a specific, essential differentiation, even though already in its own time there were certainly many more sub-nations throughout the world. The view of the nations as divided into seventy seems to be something of value and not merely a psychological fact.
That’s not the Torah but the Sages. And I’ll repeat again that there is no hint here whatsoever that this is a value rather than a fact. I think we’re done.
So what value does identity have at all, if it’s as fluid as water?