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The Identity Game

If you’ve ever studied the art of argument, you’ll know that there are very specific ways we get it wrong when we engage in an argument. There are specific ways that our logic becomes, all of a sudden, not so logical. Among these are the fallacies of ad hominem (or being a jerk and name calling), straw man (mischaracterizing the opposite side), slippery slope (assuming that one thing will necessarily lead to another and another), circular argument (this one baffles me in that it seems to ignore all logic), or the red herring tactic (What I like to call the “Squirrel!” tactic. It’s the art of distraction from the issue at hand by drawing attention to something else.) There are many of these, but the one I see most often in society has not been articulated clearly enough in my opinion. You could make the case that one of the other 6-15 fallacies covers it, but for the sake of clarity, I suggest on giving this one a category all its own. 

I’m going to call this the “identity fallacy.” You may know where I’m going with this. You may have heard the phrase “identity politics.” It is mostly used by moderates and right leaning people to disparage what I think of as the identity fallacy. Even though people who are concerned about this have a right to be concerned, I think we have some work to do in defining the issue. We have a tendency in today’s culture to just slap a label on something when it feels out of bounds without using logic to underpin what we are doing. Not clearly defining terms allows us to maintain our hypocrisy because we cannot effectively judge ourselves by the same standards if we don’t know what those standards are. 

I see both people on the right and left and in between committing this identity fallacy. Let me explain now what I mean. 

In this new millennium, we are less focused on facts and figures and more and more interested in stories. This is not a bad thing altogether. It helps us understand each other in a more culturally diverse society. If you know the stories of another person, it’s a great way to quickly and effectively understand them. So, while this may be a good practice for enriching the fabric of society, it can cause a logical breakdown in our ability to reason and argue effectively. 

As our culture gets more interested in cultural differences, we can tend to judge everything that comes out of that persons mouth through the lens of their most obvious characteristic. After all, we are accustomed to reading the opinions of people we’ve never met over social media. Rather than chatting with the guy down the street and becoming familiar with his particular story, we have to make assumptions about people from what we see. The first thing we see is the color of someone’s skin or that person’s physical attributes. We see the type of clothing that they wear. We hear the type of language coming out of their mouths and the accent with which they speak. Then we make assumptions about his or her (or some androgynous “them”) based on all of these assumptions. I’ve written before on the caution against labels and assumptions, and I think we are all aware of those to one degree or another. But how do we break the wrongheaded cycle of assumption when we have no mechanism to catch ourselves in the fallacy of it? 

Let me first define the identity fallacy. Any time someone takes into account the personal attributes of the person who is making the statement to judge the validity of the statement, that is an identity fallacy. To be sure, The practice of jumping to conclusions about what a person says based on what we know about them is actually helpful in our everyday lives. I mean it’s natural and even wise not to put a lot of stock into what someone says if we don’t trust them or if they have less knowledge about a topic, etc. However, in a logical argument, the person’s background has nothing to do with the truth value of what they are saying. 

We pride ourselves on the pursuit of equity in our nation. Just think about how much the principles of logic contribute to this sense of equality. Any person (young/old, rich/poor, famous/unknown) should be able to come to the table of conversation with something valuable to offer. But these wonderful ideals begin to break down when we engage in the identity fallacy. 

Let me start with race. As of late, there have been some brave African American individuals who have said some things that have questioned the stereotypical views of their culture. We all are well aware that there are things that a black person can say that a white person cannot. The fact that this is true is evidence that we have an epidemic of this identity fallacy. 

Take sexual orientation or gender expression, or take income levels. We know that people who have a more traditional expression feel that they have very little voice to speak into issues of sexual identity. Those with more money feel that they cannot speak to issues of poverty (at least not out loud). We are finding ourselves with a soft cultural form of censorship. We are censoring ourselves out of fear of being disqualified and judged according to our outward identity. And by doing this, we are having weaker and fewer conversations. 

You’ve seen evidence of the identity fallacy on those “gotcha” videos in which statements from Hitler’s speeches were attributed to Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Depending on the person’s politics and who they thought said it, they would praise whatever was said without really stopping to consider the logic or thought process behind what was being said. 

On the right, people may be silenced for not knowing anything because of their youth or their lack of experience and so we stop listening. On the left, people are silenced because they are not a member of the oppressed population. On the right we stop listening to a person because they are “entrenched in politics.” On the left we stop listening because a person has been irrevocably labeled as some kind of “—phobe.” 

In days of old, our labels may have looked different. They may have been slave and freeman, aristocrat or commoner, clergy or layperson. We think we are more sophisticated now. Now we prize ourselves on a sophisticated web of terms that we lay one over the other, to describe one another. And as I said, these have some value. But when engaging in a logical argument, we need to work hard to put these aside. Laziness will cause us to always shift toward a more identity oriented approach, but this will lead us down a path that leads to more and more ignorance, fewer and fewer productive conversations, and ultimately toward less and less understanding. 

The easiest way to test how much you are being influenced by identity is to ask yourself, “What would I think if this argument/logic was coming out of another person’s mouth?” What type of person would have to say this in order to make me okay with this? If your answer changes based on the identity of the speaker, you need to question the way that you come to conclusions. You may have an identity paradigm that needs to shift. You never know when the wisest insight you need in the moment may come out of the mouth of a person that you may at first reject by simple virtue of their identity. 

What is more important to you, who said it or what is said? 

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The Rise of the Underarchy

It is part of the common human experience to feel rejected, to feel on the outside, to feel as if we don’t belong. Even, Jesus, the God-man had a very poignant experience of the rejection of people, even his closest friends and relatives. When we feel rejected, it becomes common to seek out others who understand our pain. We don’t want friends like Job who just say, “Get it together, man! There must be some hidden sin in you, which is why you are suffering so much.” No, in those moments of fierce rejection, we tend to find misfit companions just like us. Like the young David, running from his father in law, King Saul…who should come to him, but the outcast, dissatisfied and disenfranchised young men of his day. The knew that David could identify with their pain and so they ran to him. They fought for him. They were willing to risk their lives for him. It is natural and human to want to band together according to the common experiences of rejection that we share. 

But there is something that concerns me about the way modern society is choosing to band together. There has been much said in recent days about the merits and woes of what we have come to label “identity politics.” It’s this idea that we tend to frame our political conversations around the groups that we identify with. Most of these groups are characterized by their felt levels of disenfranchisement by mainstream culture. Examples of such groups can include: women, minority groups, LGBTQ individuals, etc. Because many people in these groups have felt rejected by the rest of society for different reasons, they feel that their identification with these groups gives them an authority in the conversation that others do not have. To a large extent, that is true. It’s hard to talk about a social experience that is not your own. Your group identity, especially if you appear noticeably different from your peers, gives you a unique voice. 

However, there is a subtle danger here that can shut down conversation and it can shut down the process of moving us in a positive and unifying direction as a culture. “Intersectionality” has been introduced as a fairly new concept on college campuses, though it was first coined in the 1980s. It describes the layers of societal barriers that arise when someone belongs to more than one of these disenfranchised groups. For example, a black American woman would presumably have more to contend with as far as barriers to her success than a white American woman. I understand the logic behind this concept completely. We are trying to figure out and grapple with what makes some people lag behind and other people more successful. We are trying to even the playing field as much as possible, which is very noble of us. 

The problem comes when we begin to view “The Hierarchy” as an inherent problem— that people in power, only by virtue of their power, are inherently the problem. Instead of having the burden of pointing out the specific ways in which the hierarchy has been a problem, we jump to the conclusion that the hierarchy is a problem just because they exist. Many people have risen to the higher ranks of society, not because they were a problem, but because they are actively solving problems. If we have no hierarchy at all, we have no values, we have nothing to do, and nothing to strive for— no goals to improve our current state of being.

We know that the problems of the hierarchy will always be something we need to guard against. We know that the human experience of absolute power has the risk of corruption, which is why we need to be watchful of people in power and to hold them accountable. At the same time, I see an equally suspicious class pop up, and that is what I’ll call the rise of the Underarchy. I am giving this group a name because we cannot notice something we do not name. 

The Underarchy are the people who so identify with the disenfranchisement of the groups to which they belong, that they wear their under-privilege as a badge of honor. The more stamps they can get on their  “underprivileged” card the more a sense of entitlement they feel. They use the word “privilege” as a byword to eliminate people from a conversation that they don’t want to engage in. 

There is something very dangerous about over-identifying yourself by your negative experiences alone. It causes your senses to become heightened to the negative experiences around you and you begin living a negative and learned helpless existence. You subtly begin to assume that only people who belong to your disenfranchised group can really understand you. It is very seductive because the wounds we have really do hurt, and the last thing we want to do is to open ourselves up again to someone who identifies with a group that corresponds with the last person who hurt us. It can be a real struggle. 

But in fact, history tells us the danger that this kind of thinking can lead to. In fact, it was the marked success of the Jews that were rising to the economic and academic hierarchy in Germany that first led the Germans to a feeling of jealousy, of rejection, and of disenfranchisement. They felt that in order to feel safe as “true Germans,” they had to push the power of their choice identity: white nationalism—something that the Jews could not fully claim. 

You know that you are in dangerous territory when you begin using your identity group to silence another person in a conversation, when you believe that your identity card allows you to play by different rules of morality and conduct.

These days, those who have more points of “intersectionality” or who have more points in the Underarchy can say things that those who have zero points, namely the white straight male, cannot. When this begins happening in a society, it is a sign that we are getting away from the whole “all men (and women) are created equal” thing. It means that we’ve unknowingly shifted the pendulum too far the other way. The Hierarchy can be corrupted for sure, but the Underarchy can be just as corrupt and can cause damage as well. Maybe the playing cards of the hierarchy are most often money, power, and professional opportunity, but the Underarchy can deal in social and political threat and can even incite violence. 

If you do find that you afford the “intersectionality points” because of the person you happen to be, realize you too have power and you too have influence. Please use your influence wisely and lovingly. Do not be deceived into thinking that you get to live by a different moral standard than others. Do not attempt to climb the ranks of the Underarchy so you can hold it over people’s heads. Do not use your group identity to silence, belittle, or to dismiss anyone who does not share that identity. If you do, you will become part of the problem you hoped to solve. All I ask is that you please, identify responsibly. 

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Why No One ever talks about Tolerance anymore

Do you remember years ago when the word “tolerance” made its way into the public discourse? There was a lot of controversy around that word I think it was around the time that Brad started dating Jennifer on “Home Improvement,” but don’t quote me on that. I remember a new book coming out at the time written by Dr. Dobson’s son, Ryan entitled, “Be Intolerant, because some things are just stupid.” Many conservatives worried that tolerance was a sneaky way for social liberals to gain a foothold. And so, they rejected the use of the word altogether, proclaiming that they would not tolerate tolerance when it came to things that were purely “intolerable.” Others embraced the word tolerance, Christians and others acceded that the true meaning of tolerance does in fact line up with the values that they hold dear, even biblical values. So what do we do with this loaded word? 

The word “tolerance” originally came from the idea of bearing up under a certain amount of suffering. Over the years it morphed into the biblical idea of “bearing with” those who were different from you in the way that they lived or the way that they believed, or the values they held. The operative meaning of the word was that it implied a clash, a suffering, a struggle, a gap to bridge. 

A society that values tolerance is a very western democratic sort of society. Tolerance becomes very valuable in a society that affirms the right of free speech, for example. Such a society assumes that the best ideas will rise to the surface in the crucible of honest and free thinking men and women who are willing to at least tolerate or entertain a point of view that is different from their own. 

In the gay rights movement, for example, the word was originally used to bridge the gap between those who did not agree with that particular lifestyle in an effort to help those people “tolerate” lifestyles that might be different from the ones they typically affirm. 

But over time, the word was subtly dropped from the narrative because we inherently realized that if we subscribe to the idea of tolerance, we will soon have no choice but to practice this value ourselves. And this is what we do with words—we discard them when they give us a standard by which we do not want to measure ourselves.

Consider the recent case of the baker (Jack Phillips) who went to the Supreme Court because he refused to customize a cake for a homosexual couple. Keep in mind that this man was willing to serve the couple another more generic cake or pastry item, but his conscience did not permit him to violate his conviction in such a way that blatantly affirmed a gay marriage that he did not agree with. 

In order to really see this issue clearly, I’d like to give you a hypothetical, which I call the practice of “moral mirroring.” To demonstrate moral mirroring, you flip the script and try the shoe on the other foot, so to speak. Here’s an example. Let’s flip the script on the Christian baker by considering the rights of an atheist who refuses to decorate a cake with a bible verse because it violates his beliefs. It is the same exact principle, even though in real life, the atheist is never the target of such litigation. Bigotry is refusing to serve someone or treat someone with respect based solely on perceived differences. Think of the bigot who says, “We don’t want her kind in here.” 

Most of the time we contrast bigotry with affirmation….someone who throws flowers and celebrates all that everyone is and all that everyone does. I can tell you that that person exists…nowhere. We think that affirmation is the opposite of bigotry, but it’s not. It’s easy to “allow” someone to be the way they are if you agree with them and celebrate their lifestyle. 

But tolerance is more brave than affirmation. It is more difficult because it is the choice to respect someone when and especially when you do not affirm what they do. Affirmation is easy, but tolerance takes character. It’s the willingness to stand in one’s own convictions enough to draw a line in the sand, but to make every effort to respect the line that another has drawn as well. That baker was practicing tolerance in that he was willing to serve the couple in many different ways. He only made a distinction where it clearly violated his convictions. 

The sad truth of our current society is that we’ve slipped from true tolerance to affirmation as its inferior substitute. This “affirmation culture” is alogical in nature because it doesn’t stand the test of moral integrity or moral mirroring. We cannot in good conscience affirm the choices of every individual on the planet merely because people want to be affirmed. The right to be affirmed is nowhere in the constitution. In the same way that we cannot demand everyone to affirm Christianity, we also cannot demand that someone affirm and celebrate homosexuality, atheism or white supremacy. 

If we want to bring back tolerance as a value, as I think we should, it has to apply to all people of all persuasions as long as bodily harm is not in question. (In the case of physical danger, that is a different conversation.)

So what does true tolerance really look like? How can we seek opportunities to show tolerance and how can we affirm those who do? Well, first we have to notice when we have a difference of opinion or different lifestyle choice from someone else. That’s easy enough. But the second step is harder. 

Next, we have to make the choice to move toward those people, not away. We need to engage in business, in dialogue with these people, always with a curious posture. But we must never succumb to the tyranny of an “affirmation culture,” feeling like we are pressured into affirming things we cannot in good conscience believe or affirm. Treating someone well while you simultaneously refuse to affirm all their life choices is the essence of true tolerance. 

Lastly, we need to notice and applaud people like Jack Phillips who do not necessarily affirm, but demonstrate tolerance toward groups of people that are different from themselves. We need to do the same for Muslims who bear with Christians and liberals who bear with conservatives. Such people serve where they can and graciously decline where (and only where) their convictions are in violation. 

It’s time for tolerance to make a comeback for real this time. It can be a true virtue, not merely a euphemism. We cannot effectively celebrate diversity without tolerance. We cannot effectively participate in a democracy without tolerance. If we make the mistake of replacing tolerance with affirmation, we will most certainly lose the power of personal conviction. The soul of democracy itself demands that we agree together that true tolerance will be a virtue we choose to practice, to cultivate, and to applaud in others. 

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What’s Up with Distancing Ourselves from People Who Don’t Agree?

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in society… one that goes pretty much without being questioned. It is one of those cultural practices that gets imbedded in to the fabric of society. I see it in the entertainment industry, among people of faith, and in the political realm.

It all starts with some kind of behavior or point of view that we consider unacceptable. Such behavior is not new, we have run into it throughout history. In the days of the Spanish inquisition it was what the church deemed as “heresy.” For the Salem witch trials, it was any behavior or suspicion of the practice of “witchcraft.” In the McCarthy era, it was anyone who could possibly be associated with “communism.” There was so much fear around these unacceptable ideas that people were blacklisted and treated as if they had a plague for even being associated with people who might be associated with such ideas.

They were ostracized and sometimes even killed, whether or not they truly were communists and witches or heretics. And so, because of the pandemic fear in larger society of certain brands of evil, we made grave mistakes. In an effort to uproot possible “monsters” of deception or harm, we in turn, became the monsters ourselves. Hot button words like “communist or heretic” would push those buttons of fear in people. When others were labeled with these words, the stain was hard to erase, no matter how true it was.

Today, we are passionate about certain issues, as many of them we should be. There is real truth that we desire to protect. Our hot button issues and buzzwords have changed. Now these might include words like, “racist, homophobic, and misogynist.” As much as we despise the viewpoints that some people with that label might have, ostracizing and blacklisting people is not going to solve the problem. It feels good and safer to distance ourselves from people that we deeply disagree with— the only problem is that when we distance ourselves, we unintentionally deepen the grooves of division and strife within our nation.

If we are not willing to engage in conversations with people that we think are “the problem” how will the problems we perceive ever be solved? Are we so weak minded that we are afraid that their racism or misogyny or homophobia will “get on” us as if it is a disease to be caught? If there was a word for the fear of being labeled as such, I’m sure it would apply here. If our ideals have any strength at all, they will surely stand even when tested in the crucible of brave conversations.

Yes, there is risk in reaching out to someone who is different from you. You may yourself be labeled as something you’re not. You may be considered a heretic, whatever heresy may mean in your circles. But I encourage you to ignore the labels and to keep engaging the “other side” intentionally and deliberately.

Facebook won’t show you how to do it. In fact, most social media platforms will lead you away from it. In a world of likes and affirming emojis, we prefer to only have conversations with people who are nodding their heads and giving us the thumbs up. But it’s the conversations where silence ensues and where there is a furrowed brow that really invoke change. There is pain in change. Change goes both ways. We have to invest in change, willing to be the first to change if we discover inconsistencies within ourselves. So today, I plead with you, stop distancing and start a purposeful, intentional, brave conversation.

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How Your Conversations Shape Your Life (bringing back the old-time salons)

Salons have not always been known as places that specialize in hair and beauty. Once upon a time, salons were important influencers in culture and politics. The Wikipedia definition of a Salon is “a gathering of people under a roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation.”

Influential women of the 1700s and in other periods of history would host these salons in their homes even when they had no votes and no formal power of any sort. They were inviting philosophers and artist and writers and other influencers of their time to have conversations. They would gather around food and drink and art and the host would suggest a topic to discuss. But the whole of the event centered around the beauty and transformative power of the Conversation. These women quietly, but effectively shifted culture around the intentional pursuit of powerful conversations.

The art of conversation has all but been lost in this generation. Instead of talking we are more familiar with watching passively. Instead of forming connections, we are accustomed to merely forming judgements. But people still crave the conversation. We still need it.

We don’t need just any conversation. We need to talk most about the things that scare us most. We need to come out from behind our labels and our personal branding and be honest about our struggles. We need to be open enough to utter the words, “I don’t know,” and, “Here is why I disagree with you.” Even more, we need to learn to master the art of asking great questions. Men need to get beyond the sports and shop talk and women need to go beyond wedding and baby showers. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with showers or sports, there’s just so much more.

I have a dream that having conversations would come back in style. That gathering around real issues, real stories, and real people would happen more often. I want to see modern day salons gathering not just in the homes of wealthy women as they did centuries ago, but in coffee shops and churches and regular living rooms.

Entering into a purposeful and inspiring conversation can have a transformative effect on our lives.

Here’s five things a Real Conversation can do:

1. Conversation connects.

Addictive behaviors stem from a lack of connection. Depression is born of a lack of connection. The reason Starbucks is what it is today is not because they offer coffee. It’s because they really are in the connection and conversation business. There is nothing our human souls crave more than a face to face conversation.

2. Conversation increases the value and dignity of human beings.

People need to be invited to a “table of conversation.” They need to know that their personal experiences, their viewpoints, their voice matters. In a real conversation there is as much listening a there is speaking. There is a validation of the human experience. Studies have shown that talking about a personal experience and sharing a struggle validates that experience like nothing else can. It does more to bring healing and wholeness than many drugs or other therapies.

3. Conversation increases intelligence.

We are much smarter when we consider the opinions and experiences of others alongside our own. We are exposed to ideas we’ve never before considered and as we immerse ourselves in the conversation experience, we become more informed and more aware.

4. Conversation challenges.

Along with new information and new ideas, we find ourselves challenged with the choice of adopting new paradigms. And here’s the rub: because most people want to have better connections and they want to be more intelligent, but most people don’t want to consider that the concepts they encounter might actually demand a response to live differently, to take responsibility for a new aspect of their lives. A person who never wants to grow and change will not come back for another brave conversation. But people who are looking for growth at every turn are hungry to have the conversations that few are willing to have.

5. Conversation shifts culture.

Certain cultural buzzwords and euphemisms may annoy you. But the reality is that the use of these words was initiated by people who were invested in the conversation. If you don’t like the way that our cultural conversation is being framed, then begin having your own conversations and begin using the words that you think will make a difference. Many think that talk is cheap, but it’s only cheap when we are having counterfeit conversations. For conversation to have meaning, it must be felt, fully entered into, and fully owned. Authentic conversations are not cheap. They come at the cost of vulnerability. But Authentic Conversations change the world.

What’s the next conversation you need to have?