About identities

Spent a good bit of yesterday watching Brave New World.  There was something that attracted my attention, it was their motto: Community, Identity, Stability.  I noted that people's identity tends to get associated with their tribe.

When Linda Lysenko got stranded with the savages, she never fit in and was never accepted.  Likewise, her son was never accepted, because he was somewhat different from the rest.  When John grew up and visited the "other place" his mother told him about, he found that he couldn't fit in nor be accepted there either.  He had no identity that could fit in and be accepted in either place.  Lysenko could never understand nor fit in with the savages.  But John did come to understand the people in the other place, which is the Brave New World that John couldn't fit into.  Why do you suppose John could not fit into the Brave New World?

This made me think of something.  Could identities be changed?  This was the experiment that John was subjected to.  John couldn't change, or could he?  He decided not to try, as Mustafa Mond was attempting to get him to change, but he wouldn't.  The key point to me is that he decided not to try.  There is the implication here that identity can be changed.

What about the real world?  An example of someone who changed identities was Patty Hearst.  She changed into Tanya, who then became a member of the group that had kidnapped her.

So, nobody can ever change?  She certainly did, and then she changed back into her former identity when she got away from the group.

In that case, changing identities can happen.  But what about sexual identities?  Certainly, it can happen in the case of trans-sexuals.  They can change from one sex to another and that is accepted without question, it seems.  But in the case of homosexuality, it does appear to be questioned.  It seems that once someone is homosexual, they are always homosexual.  Or so we are told.  There have been some who have changed their sexual identities from homosexual to straight, but this is met with skepticism.

Or it was with Bill Maher, in his movie, Religulous.  He interviewed a guy who had turned from homosexual to straight, but he certainly didn't believe it.  He makes little doubt of his skepticism there.  For him, it was simply impossible to change from homosexual to straight.  The entire movie is on Vimeo, by the way.

Maher doesn't seem to notice that he is being trapped into his own belief system.  It seems that he is a bit like Linda Lysenko.  He won't change because his identity is so wrapped up in his tribe that he can't exist apart from it.

That's one thing that I noticed.  People are going to believe something, it doesn't matter what it is, it is still a belief.  A belief is what you choose.  You aren't subject to it, you choose it.  So, here's Maher denying belief, while trying to get those who watch his movie to change theirs.  Maher decides to reject belief while at the same time, he's ensnared by it.

What you believe is also your identity, don't you think?  It's what you are as much as anything else.  What you believe determines what you do, and what you do certainly makes you known for who you are.  You can certainly decide on what to believe, and in turn, this will determine what you do, and what your identity shall be.

There is a free will, after all.  John the Savage could not fit in because he decided that he could not be the same way that they were.  He could not fit in with the savages because he could not be accepted as the outsider.  John was different because of what he decided to think about his situation, and he would not adapt himself to it.  It amounted to what John believed and what he did in response to his belief.  All of this was subject to his will.