The Loss of Identity

I grew up before television, computers and a host of modern time occupying technological conveniences. Washing machines had wringers on the side. They did not go through cycles, they just sat there and swished. The real work was done by the housewife who attended them. The ice man came every other day and you put a card in the window to indicate if you needed some ice for your icebox. The milk man came daily also, but he passed by our house because we had a cow. Come to think about it, he passed by many of our neighbors also, for old Bessie made enough milk for us and much of the neighborhood.

We played games as kids. Some were well known but many we just made up as we went along. For we boys, there were the radio program heroes to emulate in our play. Yes, all the boys had guns and played cowboys and Indians. Sammy, down the street was always Tonto and I was always The Lone Ranger.

As you can see, I grew up with certain stereotypical assumptions about life. Boys and girls were different and our roles in life were assumed to be different. Sorry for the gender identity assumptions Mr. Modern Psychologist, but you’ll also have to forgive me for observing that the criminal statistics and lack of personal identity issues of our day might just show that our assumptions protected us from a lot of conflict and trouble.

So we played and assimilated certain values from the heroes of the day, like truthfulness, honor, moral high ground and so forth. It was all there in the pictures the radio painted for the images in our imagination.

Of course, all that has change. Today’s most popular icons of our young people are tainted, conflicted, in-your-face freaks, who live on the edge of sanity and invite their followers to join in the daring quest to destroy the morality of the past, reframe the ethics of goodness and discover by experimentation the joys of rehabilitation and insanity.

And we wonder why it is that today’s youth are confused, wayward, and without a sense of who they are and where they are going…

Let’s stop here on our journey and look back, not just to the world I grew up in but before that. Our world has changed as has our view of reality. Just 100 or so years ago, 97% of our population was busy in the enterprise of agriculture. OK, let’s look at the world before that…

Although human social structures have not always been stereotypical, sociologists propose a picture of human progress as starting with the Hunter-Gatherer. These neo-caveman figures spent all of their time foraging for food, gathering what they could and then moving on to new ground to do the same. 100% of their time was given to the tasks of survival and the gathering of food.

Somewhere along the way, some wise guy observed that some places brought forth more food than others. This wise guy, or wise girl, as the case may be, observed that plants grew from seeds and the more seeds that were planted, the more plants grew. They also observed that more plants attracted more animals, and life was good for the Hunter-Gatherer when such a place was found.

This shift of world view was monumental. When it was accepted, everything changed. Instead of moving from place to place to find food, the tribe found the best land they could and started planting and growing rather than traveling and gathering. The age of agriculture was born. It also meant that the roles people played in life changed. The men began the regular work of cultivating rather than hunting as a singular focus. Boys spent their time with Dad in the fields and of necessity, Mom and the girls were at home preparing and preserving that which was being grown. It was better and easier than was life on the move.

The family also changed. From being a tribe of related generations, the social group became the nuclear family, with mother, father, and the children born to their union. Their relationships were close, of necessity, for they were together all the time. The boys were in the field with dad and the girls were around the house and barn with mom.

Let’s stop here and take a look at this social structure more closely. Joe, short for Joseph, is the oldest of the six boys. And Jane is the oldest of the six girls. OK, there were probably more girls than boys as is the nature of birth statistics, but for the sake of our story, we will simply divide them evenly. Twelve children? Why yes, of course.  You see, 100 years ago or more, there were no contraceptives and no televisions or computers, so mom and dad were together every evening with nothing more to do than make babies. Besides, with the work of the farm, and more helping hands available, the more work could be done and the more crops and animals could be produced.

So families were large and of the 20 people in this family – Ah, yes, 20! Let’s count them. Mom and dad make 2, + the twelve children make 14, plus grandma & grandpa make 16. They have to have somewhere to live, for they are already in their mid-50’s and they may not last much longer. Grandpa fell a couple of years back and broke his hip and it didn’t heal right and there is no such thing as a hip replacement. And Grandma? Well, she forgets things a lot and there are no social services or government programs to put her in a home somewhere, so she stays also.

But that’s only 16! How did we get to 20? Well don’t forget Aunt Edith and her two children. They had to go somewhere when Uncle Elmer died in the Indian raid years ago. The Indians, you see, did not take to the agricultural lifestyle easily, for their traditions and heritage were firmly rooted in the hunter-gatherer world. So, when they came to take the calf from the farm for food, they thought they were finding available food and Uncle Elmer thought they were thieves. So he went out to stop them and they, being hungry and all, just killed him and rode away.

So we have 16 people in the house with grandma and grandpa, plus Aunt Edith and her two children, and, oh yes, we almost forgot, there is Uncle Elmer’s mother who was living with them and she has to have a place to live also. So there we are – 20 people.

But how do you feed 20 people in one house? Not really a problem. Everyone has their tasks, depending on their age and ability and it is still pretty much a matter of survival. You work, you raise, you harvest, you preserve the fruits and vegetables for the winter food, and you have no leisure time for TV, computers, organized sports or other things. It is just as well, for the modern means of entertainment that we enjoy today did not exist anyway. Al Gore had not invented the internet yet nor man- made global warming. The issues of life were simple; work and eat and sleep and get up at dawn and do it again.

Identity? Who am I? I might suggest here that the question never came to mind. That issue came with TV and computers. Before our modern age of technology and the industrial revolution, the answer was assumed from birth so it never became an issue in the teen years. 93% of the population was engaged in the task of agriculture and almost 100% of that was the family farm. So the question of identity was a given. The boys were going to grow up, find a pretty young girl within the 20 to 30 girls that they met in their teen years and get married. The choices for a wife, by today’s standards will be limited to a half dozen girls in the community school house that are anywhere near Joe’s age, plus a few in the community church and the few that might come from the other community over the mountain to the county fair.

Joe and his new wife will stake out some plot of ground in the valley that looked good for farming or take a section (640 acres) from mom’s and dad’s farm and it would all start over again. Joe will be a farmer, have a wife and a dozen children and ultimately take care of mom and dad and any other strays that came along with the family history.

But why doesn’t Aunt Edith and grandpa and grandma go on welfare or social security or Obama Care? For the same reason that the family does not watch much TV or socialize with their friends on their iPhone – There isn’t any!

So the available choices of identity are very limited. One, or possibly two of the 12 children will escape the farm and move to the city where the other 7% of the population reside and will try their hand at being a merchant, a blacksmith, a sheriff or some other related, equally difficult task. Life is simple, work is hard and identity is provided – it is not chosen.

Let me say that again. Identity is provided – it is not chosen. What you are and will be is not questioned. You work or you don’t eat. If you do not carry your load, no one will carry it for you. Is this a hard harsh conservative Republican setting? No, politics has little to do with it. It is a matter of social structures and survival. Everyone works of necessity and identity is in the work. Personal responsibility is not a choice, it is an essential element of survival. You either take responsibility for your place on the farm or 19 other people will be watching, waiting and will see to it that you function.

Today, identity is a crucial issue. Schools provide testing to determine aptitudes and skills while colleges are so diverse in programming that you can choose a thousand majors from tons of different school. The doors of opportunity are wide open, yet the conflicts of uncertainty are equally open. Personal freedom takes on a whole new dimension in our modern world.

This is a wonderful thing and yet a terrible thing, for it also comes with the loss of the values and expectations of the modular family. It is not bad that our choices are expanded, but it may be that we have lost the relational base from which to make choices that are long term and fulfilling. College students change majors like babies change diapers and sometimes as often. The greater the expansion of choices, the greater the insecurities and fear of the future.

This phenomenon of change when coupled with the changes of philosophy and movement from the relational world to the official world, may leave us floundering with too many choices. We not only have to choose a major, and career path but how to manage our sexual activities, abortions, sexual identity, gender identity, social identity, cultural identity, religious identity, philosophical identity, economic beliefs, political affiliation, and a thousand other personal identity issues that simply did not exist 100 or more years ago.

It may be that we are forced to make far more decisions than at any other time in history when we have lost the foundations from which to do so.  Is it any wonder that the typical youth of today, stick their nose in their iPhone and do not come up for air for days? It is safe in the illusions of reality when the greater world of reality demands so much.