Essay

Comment

Identity

Politics

10 October 2023

7 min read

Outsourcing our identities: the corrosive effect of political tribalism

Political identities need to connect with core identities, Andy Flannagan reflects on how political disagreement can distort the lives of participants.

Andy Flannagan

Andy Flannagan is an author, organiser and musician.

Across the heads of a roadside crowd, men wearing orange sashes and military band uniforms march along.

An Orange parade in Larkhall, Scotland.

Ross Goodman, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

I spent the first 24 years of my life in Northern Ireland. I am incredibly proud to say that it is my homeland. I am still a regular visitor. I love it. I love the people. However, that doesn’t change the fact that my beautiful, yet broken home provides a disturbing case study in what can happen when two communities live in the same space, but separately.

That is sadly what is happening in the USA right now, and increasingly what is happening in the UK too. What is at the root of an inability to co-exist with those with whom we disagree? There are many answers to that question. I am not saying that what follows is the only answer, but that perhaps some ancient realities underly our present-day struggles.

When we hold too tight to an identity and someone pokes it, we get angry. But what shifts us from holding something healthily to grasping it with a clenched fist?

It is difficult to have an academic discussion about where the border (if any) should be in Ireland. The hurt and history go deep. Reactions are visceral. You only have to note the violent responses to a green, white and gold flag flying on a civic building, or an unwelcome red, white and blue kerbstone appearing overnight to realise that something deeper is being triggered. Similar to the ‘culture war’ issues that plague our present, these coloured symbols illicit emotional reactions because they challenge our very identity.

When we hold too tight to an identity and someone pokes it, we get angry. But what shifts us from holding something healthily to grasping it with a clenched fist? In the political realm these tribal identities may be conservative, progressive, brexiteer, remainer, Democrat, Republican, or many others.

We all need what I would call these ‘secondary identities’ to survive and get things done in this world. We need a sense of belonging to a tribe. But without a strong primary identity, we cling to these secondary identities so tightly that we are unable to engage healthily when someone challenges them. I’ll put my cards on the table. I believe that the primary identity of every human (whether we believe in a deity or not) is that we are made in the image of God. We have divine DNA in us. It’s the common thread of our humanity, designed to represent (or image) the kind, just leadership of God to the world.

This is our core identity. This is the thing that people should see if they bite into us like a stick of rock. But if we lose connection with that core, we will still find our identity elsewhere. Our God-given desire to get a sense of who we are and where we fit in continues to operate.

The problem with idols is that once you give your primary allegiance to them they exact an increasingly large price from you, without you even noticing it.

The ancient scriptures also give us a useful language for what happens when we give over too much of our identity to a cause or group. The nation of Israel were experts at doing this. In their bones they wanted to worship something or someone, but rather than the hard yards of a mystical journey with a God who was often playful or invisible, they chose the more tangible, internet-speed version and created an idol from what they already had and what they already knew. Cue golden calves and strange statues.

This grasping for simplicity, and tangible immediacy, helps to explain why Brexit or wokeness have become an idol. And why Trump has become an idol too. In Northern Ireland, the Irish flag has become an idol, as has the Union Jack. And the problem with idols is that once you give your primary allegiance to them they exact an increasingly large price from you, without you even noticing it.

We often talk about shifts in culture without recognising that the word culture is derived from the same root as the word cult. ‘Culture’ provides invisible, uncontested leadership – it is that which we presume to be true, without stopping to question it, as we would not question a cult leader.

This is about avoiding the outsourcing of our identity to things that may be good, but that shouldn’t control us.

In my work with Christians in Politics, bringing Christians together from across the political spectrum, I have become fairly good at spotting when folks start to lose touch with their primary identity. You notice it from the visceral, speedy reactions on social media, subliminally prioritising their immediate emotional state above the emotions of others.

Sadly, this accelerated during the COVID lockdowns, when it was all too easy to spot the radicalisation of previously fairly centred people. More time than usual on social media, more fear than usual from living through the global pandemic, all leading to them spending more time down algorithm-induced rabbit holes.

This is not about the elimination of emotion. Nor producing an anodyne, academic, rational public square. After all, many who believe that they are made in the image of God also follow the human who they believe perfected that image, and he spent plenty of time raging against injustice and turning over tables.

This is about avoiding the outsourcing of our identity to things that may be good, but that shouldn’t control us. Such things should influence us, but they shouldn’t forge us.

The term idol is useful as it is now in popular usage thanks to TV shows like American Idol. Something in us knows that such here-one-minute-gone-the-next celebrity is not exactly bad for us, but also that such celebrity does not exist without a large number of people giving inappropriate amounts of time and attention (proportional to their talent) to these celebrity lives.

There is a reason people try to keep religion and politics away from polite dinner table discussions.

The challenge is that the most toxic idols are often actually really good things. Money. Food. Sex. These are good things. But as many of us know, if they start to control us rather than serve us, our happiness, waistlines, and marriages may be in trouble. With this understanding we can affirm someone’s political activism and enthusiasm as a good thing. We can affirm a political ideology as broadly helpful, but critique it when it has clearly become an idol in someone’s life, commanding time, energy and in real senses – worship.

There is a visceral quality to our present debates that goes far beyond the discussion of policies. The enraged offence and wild language thrown at the other side speak of a deep and unhealthy suffusion of our identities to these tribes.

The reactions we see on social media are the reactions of a child when their iPad is taken away. It is primal. Bearing in mind the toxicity of the social media-scape, it is easy to see how tribes are needed for protection, but if our responses to every situation are the knee-jerk reaction of our tribe, then we leave no space for breath, reflection or even prayer. And there is certainly no time to consult some ancient wisdom. There is a reason people try to keep religion and politics away from polite dinner table discussions. Nobody likes their identity being questioned. But rather than avoid these subjects, could we instead be so rooted in our primary identity that a disagreement doesn't have to lead to the end of fellowship and embrace?

Tom Wright often points out that in life we will always need progressive (things need to change) moments but at times we also need conservative (things need to stay the same) moments. History is littered with both being significant. To pretend that one is always more important than the other is intellectually vacuous.

Our 'othering' of them renders them less human in our eyes and we are then able to countenance appalling things happening to them,

The same is true of parenting. There are times when a progressive response is required (okay you can start eating solid food now) and times when a conservative response is required (no, we still don't pour milk on the laptop). On a more serious note, discussions around parenting styles that sit on a spectrum between earth-motherly co-sleeping and Gina Ford military drilling are another good example of when disagreements within and between families get visceral. Again, it is because we don't just feel that this is a theoretical discussion. So much of our identity is unhealthily tied up in our insecurities around parenting that we feel that our very person is being attacked. The political and parenting spectra are eerily similar.

Failing to remember that we are all made in the image of God and all part of the one human family also leaves the door open to the next level of ugliness – it leaves us able to dismiss' those we disagree with. They become people who are easy to label, mock, and dismiss. Our 'othering' of them renders them less human in our eyes and we are then able to countenance appalling things happening to them. They may become people we would rather see removed from proceedings than have reconciled to us. We forget the words of theologian Vinoth Ramachandrara, who said that:

"when you stand face to face with another human being, made in the image of God, you are standing in the presence of a vehicle of the divine".

Yes we need to be part of earthly tribes, but we also mustn't lose our identity to the tribe.

Article

Change

Politics

Psychology

5 November 2024

5 min read

How to be a wise diplomat about the election result

It’s not just American citizens weighing-up and trading-off.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

An ambassador presents credential to President Trump

President Trump accepts credentials from Indonesian ambassador M. Lutfi.

White House via Wikimedia Commons.

The American election result, whatever the case, is a landmark event in geopolitics. And here, it is unclear which result is better for the world in the long-term, given the ambiguous motives, interests and intentions of its main characters.

Whereas the Biden Administration led by the Democrats has been fraught with war, the Trump Administration was comparatively peaceful, with breakthroughs such as the historic Abraham Accords. Yet, the rhetoric of President Trump is aggressive and divisive.

Despite mainstream media assertions focused on the clear best choice in the election, a balanced perspective is necessary involving consideration of trade-offs between what the parties and their leaders each offer. This balance, however, is difficult to achieve as polarisation encourages retrenchment into simple views.

As the American election approaches, it is worth considering what a diplomatic approach to an election transition might entail. Here we can look to the example of Henry Kissinger, whose diplomatic mindset is illustrated in Barry Gewen’s The Inevitability of Tragedy. Gewen eloquently illustrates the Kissingerian – even if often cold-hearted – approach to the consideration of trade-offs in diplomacy.

Gewen traces the early-life experience of Kissinger, a German Jew forced to flee Nazi persecution, both serving in the US Army and attending Harvard. Unlike his American peers, Kissinger understood through personal experience that authoritarianism could rise through democratic means, Adolph Hitler the primary example.

It is partly for this reason that Kissinger was willing as US Secretary of State to intervene in the affairs of foreign states to halt dictators emerging through democratic processes. The trade-off was here between respect of democratic process and the possibility of dictatorship, a trade-off which Americans without German-Nazi experience would never understand and which they saw as deeply unsettling.

Kissinger is the archetypal diplomat. His example is worth reflecting on in the wake of the American elections. Kissinger approached geopolitics with little emotion, instead considering what course of action in a particular situation served as the least worst evil available.

He engaged across a wide variety of networks, talking with individuals who would not speak with each other. And he maintained a considerable sense of calm throughout his career as both an actor and commentator, responding to events as they developed.

An initial consideration in emerging from the American elections is that too much emotionality – amplified by political polarization – will expose politicians, diplomats and the public to risk. Emotion colours careful, strategic calculation of various scenarios and actions across potential scenarios.

‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’

An effective diplomatic (or strategist) will carefully consider what might happen and think through potential steps in case these realities actually transpire, while recognising that too much anticipation risks cascading into fantasy. Too much emotion impedes this careful process of reflection and deliberation as part of the development of strategy.

A second element of effective diplomacy and strategy is to consider people as they are, rather than rely on superficial descriptions in the media, biased second-hand accounts or who or what one hopes another person is. People’s motives, intentions and interests are not easily discernible at first glance, instead requiring careful probing and questioning.

At the same time, there are few more accurate sayings than ‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’ conveying that counterparts are always providing information as to who they are, few careful or disciplined enough to mask their real thinking.

An effective diplomat might consider the early upbringing – much like that of Kissinger – that shapes a person’s character and behaviour, if not their worldview informing action.

Consider Donald J. Trump, learning right from wrong on the streets of New York City via the mentorship of lawyer Roy Cohn, who served as Chief Counsel to Joseph McCarthy while McCarthy prosecuted potential American communist sympathisers.

Cohn’s rules of life, work and play were as follows (these summarized by a friend well-acquainted with Cohn and his colleagues): ‘One, attack, attack, attack! Two, deny everything! Three, always claim victory!’ The logic of these three rules of life are readily understandable when considering the harsh New York realities within which Cohn and later Trump operated.

These considerations are overlooked, however, amid the onslaught of media which fails to consider what really shapes the character of a man or woman.

Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action.

A wise diplomat would pay particular attention to these pivotal factors – such as the influence of a long-standing mentor or advisor – as they might manifest in the present. This requires an intellectually honest and serious consideration of the worldview that shapes a counterpart, rather than considering superficial media commentary.

Third, a wise diplomat will maintain relations across a wide variety of networks, understanding that it is fine to talk with two or multiple individuals whose own relations are fractured (in fact, these strains in relations can be beneficial within diplomacy, the diplomat in this case able to play broker as he or she needs or wishes).

The maintenance of broad networks is vital, because this enables action under a wide array of potential circumstances, understanding that anything can happen (we are here reminded of Harold MacMillan’s saying “Events, dear boy, events!”) And a key lesson in diplomacy and in the cultivation of strategy is that, once crises unfold, it is the preparatory work in developing networks and alliances that counts; little new network-formation is possible afterwards.

The previous two points suggest that a wise diplomat will not pay too much attention to what is in the media, but will instead consider their own learning gleaned through in-person interactions with others, as well as the perspective of their most trusted contacts. Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action, and what can in turn be done to shape action in accordance with interests.

Finally, an effective diplomat will not try to play God, serving as the arbiter of right or wrong, adopting instead a more considered approach anticipating and responding to circumstances as they gradually or quickly evolve. Effective strategy requires an aloof approach (caring – but not caring too much), removing the self from a given situation so as not to allow natural human vices such as presumptiveness, arrogance or short-term self-interest to affect judgment.

And the American election bring with them a number of trade-offs, these to be weighed carefully by American citizens, as well as by diplomats and strategists in other countries. These trade-offs will be considered most effectively if approached with calmness – the aloof, even if cold-hearted, approach personified by Henry Kissinger.

In an age of catastrophising, emphasing emotion, it is easy to descend rapidly into despair, rather than consider action from a long-term perspective. Diplomacy and strategy require the latter, which will be a key to success for those who emerge effective in advancing their interests in the wake of the American elections.