A religious and a secular basis for society
Part 2: The modern concept of identity is used to escape responsibility and challenge
However, as those who promote the pernicious identity politics ideologies have raised the question about my identity, I will try and answer it, to show where my confidence comes from. Many people today are too afraid simply to say, “I am me”; they fear that is not enough. So, why am I so confident in being me?
If I am forced to express my identity – I say “forced” because I see no need to, but if I am challenged to justify on what grounds do I stand as a member of society, or what is at the very core of my self-understanding, then I can do that easily: I am a sinner, loved by God. That is who I am! This gives me an invincible confidence, inexhaustible hope and unconquerable optimism.
It sounds like it might suggest the opposite – “So, you’re a sinner are you?” Yes, though I prefer to say, for effect, that I am a “wretched sinner!”. However, this does not make me feel down, a failure, or inadequate. What it does do is allow me to freely accept my faults, limitations and mistakes. This is in total contrast to the ideologies of the identity politics movements where an utterly bizarre development has happened. Even though we are now in a secular society, however a person happens to have turned out – down to the tiniest detail – must be considered as though it was ordained by a higher power from all eternity that the person should be exactly like that. This is far more than simply the frailty of those who lack the personal resilience to cope with challenges or disagreements. It expresses the core principle that modern ideologies have adopted that they cannot bear the possibility that anything in their life is contingent rather than necessary.
A necessary thing is something that cannot be otherwise. If you claim everything about your life is necessary then you cannot possibly have got anything wrong, and there are no possible grounds for anyone to criticise you, for nothing about your life could possibly have been otherwise. There are, in reality, relatively few things in our lives that are necessary (being born and dying would be two examples), so this stringent assertion that absolutely everything in a person’s life is necessary is a terrible sign of the insecurity and lack of confidence that so many people today suffer from. In contrast, something that is contingent is something that happens to be the case but might easily have been otherwise. It could be an accidental cause that has had a significant influence on our life. We often say, “that’s just the way the cookie crumbled” to express our correct analysis that this is just the way things turned out. Other things in our lives are definitely down to our conscious choice – often due to passionate conviction – but they are still contingent or “accidental” – they might have been otherwise, except that we chose this course.
It is at the heart of secular identity politics ideologies to refuse to face up to this simple truth. Even while people are making revolutionary, bold choices – choices that they might wish to take credit for as a principled decision – they cannot accept that they have made a choice, because that would open them up to challenge that they could be mistaken. Yes, they feel such and such a thing strongly, but they may lose a reasoned argument with those who think differently. However, if they assert that however they happen to be has an objective, absolute reality to it, and is an intrinsic expression of who they necessarily are, then there are no grounds for questioning, challenge or rejection.
Having made this ideological commitment, it leaves people with nowhere to go. If others do now want to say, “I disagree with you” it is understood to be an ontological rejection of who the person inescapably is, rather than a questioning along the lines of, “Yes, this is how the cookie has crumbled for you, but I see things differently”.
Spiritual Devotion 