There has never been a more important time to think about how we identify ourselves, how our self-identifications affect us, and the extent to which we should maintain or release an “us” versus “them” mindset.
The instant you were born, labels got attached to you. You got a family name. You became a Hindu or a Catholic. You became an American or a German. A whole history got plopped onto your back: resentment against the Japanese, because they invaded your China in World War II; resentment against the Turks, because of the Armenian genocide; resentment against Northern Irish Catholics or Northern Irish Protestants, depending on the clan into which you were born.
These labels and identifications are tremendously powerful. We know intellectually that those values that we hold dear, among them freedom, justice, fairness, and human rights, are harder to hold the more we see the world as “us” versus “them”—but we have been “us” versus “them” since birth! It takes great maturity, fortitude, and moral energy to come at an issue from the place of “human being” and not from the place of Armenian or Irish Catholic or American or Muslim or Jew.
And is it even safe and sensible to let go of such self-identifications, when the world is identifying you? If it is unsafe to be a woman, or African-American, or Jewish in a Muslim country, or Muslim in an American neighborhood, or an atheist in a Christian country, or a progressive Democrat in a red town, mustn’t you keep your guard up and retain that self-protective “me” versus “them” mentality? Wouldn’t it be foolish and dangerous to let down your guard?
The horns of this dilemma are very sharp. Self-identifications limit us. Self-identifications also protect us. The kirist answer to this dilemma is to make use of a key kirist self-awareness tactic, the tactic of “taking a step to the side.” This “step to the side” provides you with enough mind space to make decisions mindfully rather than reflexively. Faced with any issue—whether to side with an Israeli action because you are a Jew or whether to look at the matter as a citizen of the world; whether to side with a group because it is made up of women or whether to look at their ideology and not their gender—you step to the side and say the equivalent of, “How do I want to come at this?”
This is real work, always stepping to the side and always evaluating situations mindfully. Nor is it a perfect solution, since very often there are powerful internal arguments on both sides of the matter. But although it makes work and although it is an imperfect solution, it is a much better way of proceeding than always reflexively coming from some limiting, self-protective self-identification or always coming from a too-generous, too-humane place that is downright dangerous.
The answer isn’t to hate and the answer isn’t to love. The answer—the part-answer—is to take a step to the side and think. Do you want to keep being a son to your bullying father—or not? Do you want to make nice with your political opponents—or not? Do you want to skip reading yet another book on the horrors of slavery, the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the world oligarchs—or not? These are not idle decisions and these are not easy decisions. But you are capable of stepping to the side, thinking, and deciding.
You had a birth identity, presented to you by circumstance. You acquired other self-identifications over the years: engineer, father, veteran. And who you are today? Maybe a kirist who is able to step to the side, modulate and calibrate your “us” versus “them” feelings, and be the person you most want to be.
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Eric Maisel is the author of 50+ books. You can learn more about him at www.ericmaisel.com, subscribe to all of his blog posts at https://authory.com/ericmaisel, learn more about kirism here, and write him at [email protected]
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