Identity Crisis

In the United States, and I would surmise this is true anywhere else, elections are big business.  Campaign managers are professional electioneers, not necessarily working for a set of ideals or an influential candidate, but more for the professional success that can come with winning elections.  Campaign workers use a bevy of statistics, psychological analysis, opinion polls, and a host of other tools in order to shepherd an electorate towards their candidate.  They are the people, along with hyper-reactive analysts that create the politically correct world in which we all must live.

These people identify us using specifications that we probably would never use for ourselves (White, Black, Latino, Male, Female, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Gay, Young, Old, Conservative, Liberal, etc) outside of the politically correct world.   They entice us into supporting their candidate because that candidate will do something that might benefit the group that they told us we’re apart of. 

 A lot of people don’t really like political correctness when we talk about an issue as being politically correct.  However, these same people reverse their view when it’s an issue that they’ve been told to care about(i.e. Latinos should care about immigration policy because they are immigrants).  The front page opinion article of the New York Times online website embodies this idea:  “In a Divided America, It’s Old vs. Young” --David Leonhardt.  The author produces a bevy of statistically supported ideas based around the idea that young people are significantly more liberal than older people.  The ideas are based on mostly-scientifically conducted polls where a pollster will question random people about their age and their view on a certain issue.

When we read the article, we automatically identify with the one of the categories that that Leonhardt presents.  We become either young or old.  We could be somewhere in the middle, but when we are presented with the choice we choose the identifier that most resembles our view of ourself.  From then on, we have decided that we are either young or old. The suggestion plants the identifiers that analysts, politicians and their organizations use to drive voters to their ticket.  We respond to them as much or more than they respond to us.

So, how to we prevent ourselves from becoming victims of identifier planting? We must know who we are.  And if you don’t really know who you are, pick some identifiers that you think you can relate to.  Evaluate them and refine your own identity in the politically correct world before succumbing to the campaign/analyst-identifiers of who you are.  Don’t participate in political arguments, supporting an idea that you’ve been told to support.  Find the ideas that you truly espouse and fight for them.  We can only fight the analysts and campaigners by being individuals, not their groups.