The Pitfalls of Identity, Morality, and the Subsequent Case for Unconditional Love
I see identity differently than most. For many people, identity is a way to express who they are to their most profound nature. Yet, I see identity in the exact opposite manner. I see identity as something that hides who a person truly is.
The way I see it, no one can have an identity; an identity can only have them. If one identifies as a Christian, they need to go to church, read the bible and defend their tribe at all costs. All of this takes energy that comes from the individual and goes to the group. They give their individuality to the more influential community in which they identify. When anyone questions Christianity, the individual feels personally attacked as their identity is so intertwined with something that is not theirs.
The same goes for sports teams or political causes.
If I identify as a Yankees fan, I now have to buy a bunch of gear and shit talk Red Sox fan’s from Boston. Identities take work to create and uphold if you wish to be accepted by others that share your identity. Acceptance is based upon conforming to the ideas and physical aspects (outfit, haircut, etc) commonly associated with the identity, not from expressing any unique element in one’s being. For example, if you identify as a progressive, you must know what today’s issue is and the political theory behind it; otherwise, you’ll look like an imposter.
Identities are excellent because they help build a sense of community, but the counter also creates an “evil other.”
As humans, when we put ourselves in these identity boxes, we can’t help but assign values to the groups. So we label particular identities as good and others as bad. As a result, some people are moral, and some people are evil, based on nothing more than identity.
Too often, those who complain about the evils and injustices of society don’t recognize the same darkness that resides within themselves.
Known as the actor-perceiver bias, we see others do something terrible and label them as evil or immoral. However, when we do the same thing, there is a context that justifies our behavior. A context that we couldn’t afford to the stranger when we witnessed them behave poorly. When other’s succeed, it is because of luck or an artificial boost. When we succeed, it is because of hard work and most definitely deserving.
We live in this world where we are good and others not so much. Those who similarly identify and share our beliefs are good. Everyone else is a question mark.
I’m amazed that we put such a focus on what we believe rather than how we act. I wonder if we can attribute this to Christian influence, where salvation is guaranteed to everyone regardless of their actions as long as they believed the right thing.
In the West, regardless of party, political criminals are quickly defended by those who share similar political beliefs. Rather than taking accountability for the darkness within their group, they claim past injustices justify their abhorrent behavior currently.
Many political movements fail because a moment comes when the campaign’s other intentions come to light. When motivations no longer come from a place of love, for all, or wanting to make a better world. But, instead, the motivation suddenly shifts to a place of anger, hate, or resentment. The moment comes when members of the groups are in such numbers that they know they can get away with whatever they do. Without strong leadership, the worst aspects of the group quickly take over.
People march down the street talking about how much injustice and evil society has inflicted upon them. Yet, the moment they know no one is watching, these people calling for a just society inflict the same violence and injustice upon others. These “moral” people will claim that they are only making things a little more just since they’ve been victimized to such a degree that it affords them the right to act unjustly.
For example, Trump supporters justified storming the capitol because they felt it was payback for having the election stolen from them. Likewise, Black Lives Matter justified the looting and riots last summer because it was payback for centuries of racism and slavery. We focus on the moments where we’ve been hurt and use it to justify hurting others, only continuing the cycle of injustice.
We don’t realize we are only proving the envious and power-hungry nature of all humans. We don’t realize we hurt the very causes we claim are so important. We say that our unjust actions are to bring attention to the cause and therefore justified. But everyone who ever committed a crime, evil, or unjust act could justify it in their mind. No one wakes up and goes, “Today, I will victimize others and act evil.” Everyone is the good guy in their story.
We punch back, get revenge, justice, or whatever we want to call it without realizing we are guilty of the exact things we despise. We are excellent at identifying the sinister aspects of others but not in ourselves. Unfortunately, a movement fueled by revenge and righting past wrongs is not a genuine movement of love.
We live in this world of good and evil without realizing they are two sides of the same coin. Good hates evil just as evil hates good. Both forces operate on hate and division because they are the same. Good can never transcend evil because I can’t be good unless other people are evil.
Love is the only force that goes beyond good and evil. I am not talking about conditional love that we often confuse for love. Almost like a contract, we hold back our love until we feel the other person earned it. The “she didn’t respond to my message immediately, so now I will ignore her, so she knows what it’s like” type of behavior. The “he forgot about date night, so now I will be distant.” Again, this is not loving behavior but instead emotional negotiating within the realm of good and evil.
The sort of love that transcends the value world of good and evil is unconditional love. Unconditional love is not easy as it requires one to love the unlovable. Unconditional love isn’t about changing someone but instead accepting them as they are. Love may not even be the right word. Unconditional acceptance may be more suitable.
Anyone can love those who love them back, share the same beliefs, and fall perfectly in line. That part is easy.
The mark of a truly great individual is someone who loves those who don’t love them back. Who is tolerant of and even loves those who stand in their utter opposition. Who accepts all without casting judgment.
Yet, we find ourselves trapped in the illusion of good versus evil. We see ourselves as ultimately good forces, distinct from a universe that is rot with evil. As the good force, we must eliminate everything evil. We don’t realize both forces are natural, within us, and not going anywhere. The good attempting to eliminate the evil is an evil act in and of itself; that’s the problem. It would be as though your evil left arm kept punching your stomach, so to protect your stomach, your good right arm chopped off the left arm. To solve one problem, we created ten more, becoming what we sought to destroy.
We fail to realize that eliminating what we despise is not virtuous; Yet, acceptance, tolerance, and loving the unlovable is.
I fear we struggle with acceptance due to our extreme focus on identity over the past decade, only propelled by social media. Division within America is at an all-time high as we see each other through the value lens of good or bad. You’re either good or evil, racist or not, black or white, republican or democrat, victim or oppressor. There appears to be no room for nuance or a gradient to the scale, you are either entirely on one side or the other, and the scale can flip fast. Everyone is putting each other in boxes and keeping tabs. Honestly, I am scared, and both sides appear only to use this division to grab more power.
The focus on identity scares me because it puts me in a box. I am 24 years old, have a penis, am a quarter Norwegian, half Puerto Rican, yet raised in California. One day I won’t be 24, and who knows, I could become trans later in life and lose the penis. Maybe I take a DNA test and discover I am more Cuban. I only went to Norway once when I was a baby. The point is, I don’t entirely identify with any of those things, nor do they define who I am.
Don’t get me wrong. I am proud of my Puerto Rican heritage. Every day I wear a necklace and a facemask with the Puerto Rican flag on it. I love to hear Bad Bunny on the radio and am so proud of my fellow Boricuans making waves in the music industry. I cook Arroz con gandules y tostones for my friends, and whenever I step foot on the island, I feel I am returning home. Yet, there is so much more to me than being a Puerto Rican. Going around constantly telling people about my Puerto Rican identity lets them lazily use stereotypes rather than get to know the real me.
Yet, I understand how being misidentified could hurt. I went to a white high school in California, and nobody even knew what a Puerto Rican was. 90% of the time, kids at my school would call me Mexican or ask if I was South American or Italian. But that doesn’t mean my peers were racist or mean, only ignorant or trying to be funny. I know they cared about me as a person but maybe not my labels or identities as much as I did at the time.
Now, what I identify with transcends identities or labels. Therefore, what I identify with can’t be put into words, and any attempt to label only denigrates the meaning with which I identify. “God” speaks in silence. Everything else is a poor translation.
I identify with a group of friends laughing so hard their bellies hurt. I identify with a young adult helping an older person in need. I identify with someone getting lost in their creative passion to the point that time loses meaning. I identify with someone wholeheartedly sharing an experience in another’s culture. I identify with the ecstasy of young love, and I identify with the sorrows of heartbreak. Finally, I identify with someone seeing something or somebody in a new light for the first time.
I don’t identify with this world of values — a world of good versus evil, where I can’t trust the other. I know within everyone, there is a potential for Hitler and a potential for the Buddha. Everybody has moments of greatness and moments when the worst in their nature shows.
As I stated earlier, The most dangerous people are not those who have darkness within themselves but those who have not come to terms with their darkness within. So they go around pretending to be a moral warrior while acting like the very greedy and immoral people they detest, claiming they are only getting justice and payback.
We struggle to realize that the utopia we are after doesn’t come from getting justice or retribution. But instead, through giving our unconditional love, which depends upon our acceptance, forgiveness, and letting go of all that we deeply despise.
I identify with unconditional love.
There are plenty of conservatives who take government welfare. Plenty of “anti-racists” judging people based on the color of their skin. Plenty of pious folks committing sins left and right. All because someone treated them unjustly first, taking the stance of, “if they can do it, so can I.”
We love to get behind an identity, feel victimized, and use perceived victimization to justify our abhorrent behavior. Examples are abundant. Your team loses; it was because the refs or the other team cheated, now my team gets to cheat next time around.
If we wish to see real change in our society, we must lose this us versus them mentality of good versus evil. For example, the civil rights movement of the 1960s succeeded because Martin Luther King Jr and the countless others behind the movement showed love, compassion, and patience in the face of absolute evil. Although they had every reason to act out in anger, frustration, or resentment, MLK didn’t let those forces take over the movement. Instead, MLK and the civil rights movement kept showing unconditional love, and eventually, those in opposition to MLK lost fuel and could no longer justify their abhorrent behavior.
One can make the same argument for Mahatma Gandhi in India.
Unconditional love takes away the fuel necessary for hate to thrive.
I do not doubt in my heart that one day we will live in a society that upholds everyone regardless of any distinguishable feature. Whether it be tomorrow or millennia from now, I don’t know. But a great society free from the trap of good versus evil will eventually come to exist. A society truly built on unconditional love.
I identify with the whole universe. I identify with Black Lives Matter, and I identify with their fascist counterparts because I know both elements reside within my nature. I am not good nor evil. I am in no place to cast judgment nor take the moral high ground.
I’m sure some of those who read this will misunderstand what I am saying. Some will perceive my argument as defending the worst within our society, probably because I am. Therefore, some will perceive my defense of evil as supporting evil, which is also not valid.
I am saying that the same evils that exist within society exist within every one of us. Therefore, rather than focusing on removing the evils of others, we should work on identifying and removing the evils and biases within ourselves. Going around constantly calling out the world’s sins while using it as an excuse to justify our crimes wreaks of hypocrisy.
Like everyone else, I’d love to live in a just and equal society built on love and unity. The only difference is I feel it will come from us not taking our identities so seriously and seeing them as what they indeed are. Much like the outfits we put on, our identities shift over time and never can define who we are. Unconditional love doesn’t care about identity.
Being a man today means something different today than it did 50 years ago, and it will mean something completely different in another 50. Likewise, being a Republican or Democrat means something different today than it did 50 years ago as well. Identities shift and change; they are not something to moor your boat to.
I am not saying identity is useless, nor am I saying that identity is entirely harmful. But I am saying that we can’t take ourselves or our identities too seriously, leading us to further division and pain.
I am entirely for celebrating who a person is and loving people of every race, gender, or any distinguishable factor. But, we must realize that there will always be people who won’t entirely accept us, and that’s okay. So, we don’t need to get upset and try to change their judgemental ways because trying to change them is proof that we don’t entirely accept them either.
Again, unconditional love loves the unlovable. Unconditional love is the hardest thing we can do but the only way to the society in which we all want to live. Unconditional love is the Jew that shared a laugh with the Nazi guard. The slave who took care of a sick “master” in his dying days. There is something so profound in moments like these, moments when true humanity shines through to overtake the dark, albeit momentarily.
My point is that everyone and I mean every single one of us, must take self-responsibility for how we treat each other if we want the world to improve. We can only control our actions. We can’t continue throwing rocks from our glasshouses and expecting the world to change. We must love the unlovable. We must meet injustice with love, not revenge. Loving your enemies is the mark of a genuinely powerful being; whether it be Jesus, the Buddha, or Martin Luther King Jr., they are all known for the attitude they took when faced with absolute injustice and evil. They didn’t seek revenge or even score like Hitler. Instead, they showed love to the unlovable.
In conclusion, I fear that we are too focused on form. In our heads, we give up the moment to live in this artificial realm of labels, values, and identities. A world where some things are us (with which we identify) and some things are not us (with which we don’t identify). Then, of course, we all identify with what we perceive as “good” and label anything and everyone in opposition to our “good” identity as evil.
We struggle to realize that although we have good intentions, we play into the same divisive cycle that manifests everything we detest. Just as the most potent form of love can be tough love, good intentions can have the opposite results. It could be that our desire for a perfect world is what makes this world so imperfect. Nevertheless, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I identify with unconditional love and acceptance for all.
