"There can only be one winner."

Said with faux regret fifty times a week on a gameshow near you. If dignity is a zero sum game, then humiliation is how the dignity one is self-evidently born with is taken from one. Distinguished quite clearly from the self-deprecating humility adopted voluntarily by 'we' philosophers, white-men, winners; adopted proudly - I am so fucking cool, I don't mind making a fool of myself. Another humiliation for the peasants.

What you do not need if you have it, you will die and kill for when it is taken away. This is identity as the absolute meaning of life, the sine qua non of existence itself. Identity is tribe. We are the champions.

What you do not need if you have it, you will die and kill for when it is taken away. This is identity as the absolute meaning of life, the sine qua non of existence itself. Identity is tribe. We are the champions. — unenlightened

I'm glad you added the second post. This is a pretty interesting thread, however far it goes. Identity. Hmm. You've given a kind of negative definition of it, but a difficulty of such is that they're usually not prescriptive. Sine qua non: without which not: lead us a little further, so that in our effort to respond we can tee the subject up a little higher for a better drive: for present purpose, what do you say identity is?

If dignity is a zero sum game, then humiliation is how the dignity one is self-evidently born with is taken from one. — unenlightened

Then equality is a pipe-dream for we can only increase our freedom by taking other's away? If that is the case, then it's survival of the fittest.

It isn't a zero sum game. I don't believe it is because I can talk highly of myself without bringing others down, and if others feel threatened by me talking about myself in a positive light, then that isn't my problem, but a problem with their own self-image. There is this thing called "jealousy" that throws a wrench into your idea. Many people like to be the center of attention and any attention others might get takes away from their perceived rightful amount of attention. It seems to me that we can all treat each other with dignity and respect at first and then change our minds when that person shows that they didn't deserve it in the first place.

This is what identity means to me and I think identity is a good and normal thing to have.

One's identity is the core "who I am" which we start building early in life. Large parts of it remain stable throughout life, and some parts may change, but it remains the core self which lasts a lifetime. Who we are is a compound of genetics, experience, family, and community. A secure identity is a component of a healthy personality.

Maybe a dozen components, give or take a few, make up one's identity. Sex, sexual orientation, and Christian are three major parts of my identity. I grew up in a rural community and longed to leave it. When I landed in Boston at 22, I knew that "urban dweller" had been a missing part of my identity. "gay" and "male" became much more important without displacing other parts of my identity.

I identify as a midwestern American. I have given myself several different political party names over the years, but what I really believe is that politics are possible, important, and matter.

I identify as a descendent of Europeans. They were the people that populated my family, my town, my county, 90% of my state, and at least 90% of the region of the country I grew up in. They were the people who were by far the most prominent in media, education, government, business, religion, and culture of my first 22 years.

I have, most of my life, been involved with media, education, government, business, religion, culture, and personal social life where descendants of Europeans are most prominent. Some of my best friends have not been black, Asian, South American, or aboriginal North Americans. They have all been descendants of Europeans. Most of them, further more, have been gay men. (Some of my worst enemies have also been gay men -- crass homosexuals, in fact.)

Some people here will take this as the confession of a white racist. It isn't, and I am not. I am white and I like who I am. That's all. I hope blacks, asians, hispanics, American Indians, et all like who they are, as well. There is nothing wrong with racial pride, any more than there is something wrong with personal pride in being a great cabinet maker or a barber.

We are the champions. — unenlightened

There's no point winning against a lesser foe is there? If the opponent is equal or greater the better the taste of victory and in that case there's no humiliation for the loser too.

I am white and I like who I am... There is nothing wrong with racial pride, any more than there is something wrong with personal pride in being a great cabinet maker or a barber. — Bitter Crank

You made your own skin? Well, I think you did a great job. Well done. :D

I don't personally think it's necessarily racist to be proud of one's race. And in cases where a race has been historically denigrated and oppressed, it seems an appropriate balancing response to socially and politically coordinated attempts to inflict shame. In other cases, it ranges from benign to nefarious depending on the associated beliefs.

@unenlightened

To humiliate is to undermine social power, normally in a way that causes emotional pain. It's justified or not depending on the type of social power being undermined and the type being elevated. You are right that it can sometimes be counterproductive. It depends on the context. Anyway, your focus on identity is spot on and humiliation in the broader sense of an eliding of identity (especially in a background institutional sense) deserves attention.

I don't really get the idea of using one's race, sex, or orientation as a major part of one's identity, or being proud of these things. These are things in which we are just born with and have no control over or choice in the matter. It is what we do that defines us. I thought we wanted to get away from identifying people based on these attributes in which they have no control over, and look more at how they behave and treat others. To be proud of something you didn't accomplish yourself but were just born with seems unnecessarily divisive, racist, sexist.

My identity has changed quite a bit over my life. My first identity was son, and then I was a brother. I eventually became a friend, best friend, boyfriend, and eventually a husband and father, with all of these identities being cumulative. I was a Christian, but now I'm an atheist. I'm a Systems Administrator, student and coach, among other things. My race, sex and orientation are just minor parts of my identities. Out of all of these identities, I'm the most proud of being a husband and father.

what do you say identity is? — tim wood

I write a lot about identity. Most of my threads are about various aspects. And this is, I think one of the best ways of discovering it. This is why I included that little moment from the banning thread in the op. If you have ever been enraged your own behalf, if you have ever felt the pain of humiliation, then you have begun to notice your identity. It is always personal, always a sensitivity, and always a status, always social.

I'm not looking for personal anecdotes here, butI think it s safe to assume that everyone has them, and probably as humiliator as well as humiliated. So I think this thread especially of mine will have a visceral clarity for everyone.

A secure identity is a component of a healthy personality.

Maybe a dozen components, give or take a few, make up one's identity. — Bitter Crank

Allow me to probe a little with this scalpel; it won't humiliate a bit.You are someone who has been much humiliated, and has built up many layers of armour, which you call a 'healthy personality'. Bluff, genial, self-deprecating, man-of the world, BC is the sock puppet who can afford to be honest because he is unreal and therefore invulnerable. He is a suit of armour of many components marvelously articulated and probably worn even in bed. He is a mechanical man made of components and cannot be hurt. Of the real vulnerable person beneath the armour, not much can be said beyond hurting, frightened, lonely.

I don't personally think it's necessarily racist to be proud of one's race. — Baden

No one is proud of having five fingers; no one is humiliated by having five fingers; no one identifies as five-fingered. But one's skin, one's size, one's hair, one's nose, lips, specs, t-shirt, can become targets of pride and humiliation, and matters of identity. This is what white privilege is - not to have a racial identity, and this is why it is a hateful humiliation to have it pointed out that white is a racial identity, and this is what talk about whiteness does; it call into question and creates a vulnerability.

I don't really get the idea of using one's race, sex, or orientation as a major part of one's identity, or being proud of these things. — Harry Hindu

It is odd that you mention son, brother, father, husband, the latter two as sources of pride, yet don't get sex or orientation as part of identity. Perhaps you can understand this sort of thing in terms of the defaults on an identity profile. White, male, heterosexual, five-fingered, they go without saying, and only 'deviations' need to be mentioned. I always thought of you as a woman.

It is odd that you mention son, brother, father, husband, the latter two as sources of pride, yet don't get sex or orientation as part of identity. — unenlightened

Read what I wrote again.
I said that I don't get making it a major part of one's identity, like some have stated in this thread. I never said that it wasn't part of one's identity. You are conflating some physical characteristic with identity. Sex and orientation are only part of these identities. They aren't identities themselves. You seem to get this because you are saying the same thing as I am in this regard. The identities are what are important as they encompass all of these characteristics. An identity is an amalgam of characteristics, not just one, or even two. I also pointed out that you have no control over your sex or orientation so that it would be ridiculous to be proud of something you have no control over.

Perhaps you can understand this sort of thing in terms of the defaults on an identity profile. White, male, heterosexual, five-fingered, they go without saying, and only 'deviations' need to be mentioned. I always thought of you as a woman. — unenlightened

What this shows is that sex (NOT their identity) is really, really important to you, and that you are a sexist, as if somehow you could glean someone's sex from posts on the internet - as if all women post the same. How sexist.

What this shows is that sex (NOT their identity) is really, really important to you, and that you are a sexist, as if somehow you could glean someone's sex from posts on the internet - as if all women post the same. How sexist. — Harry Hindu

Very quick with the insults there. Have I offended you?

Y'all might like to consider humiliation in relation to status.

To humiliate is to undermine social power, normally in a way that causes emotional pain. — Baden

Consider two humiliating scenarios. The first is being overtaken by an inferior, for example, the 5-year-old that thrashes you at chess, when you think you're a reasonably strong player. The second is rejection by a superior, for example, the moderator deletes your pearls of wisdom.

Note that a change of world view can enable one to avoid the humiliation. 'Chess is a silly game anyway, I never took much interest in it, and it would be an embarrassment to be any good at it, like admitting to liking Star Wars.' or 'It's a pathetic site anyway, the moderators are all biased, stupid, already my inferiors, and it was a mistake on my part ever to have posted.'

Perhaps one can see a connection here with the operation of jealousy - the status value of a trophy wife is greatly reduced if she is unfaithful. To lose status is humiliation...

I didn't take your thread title, "Humiliation" to be about personal psychohistory. I could go into the details of my personal "someone who has been much humiliated". I am not going to do that, but I do know a thing or two about being humiliated. Who doesn't? And yes, one grows a thicker skin in response. A thicker skin is adaptive. One could do worse.

Bluff, genial, self-deprecating, man-of the world, BC is the sock puppet who can afford to be honest because he is unreal and therefore invulnerable. — unenlightened

Not only do we write under pseudonyms here, we project edited, constructed public selves which may or may not be much like our in-the-flesh public self. This isn't a nude beach where we expose all as the price of admission. You can like my sock puppet or not, fuck you very much.

He is a suit of armour of many components marvelously articulated and probably worn even in bed. He is a mechanical man made of components and cannot be hurt. Of the real vulnerable person beneath the armour, not much can be said beyond hurting, frightened, lonely. — unenlightened

This is just your hostility bubbling up to the surface.

As any halfway decent troll knows, the main targets to aim for are intelligence, morality, or social status. Publicly trashing any of these characteristics is sure to drop anyones serotonin level.

This is what white privilege is - not to have a racial identity, and this is why it is a hateful humiliation to have it pointed out that white is a racial identity, and this is what talk about whiteness does; it call into question and creates a vulnerability — unenlightened

There is something screwy and knotted up about the way you process the topic of race. I just don't see how "white" is not a racial identity, how identifying as white is a hateful humiliation, how having a racial identity and talking about whiteness as an identity creates a vulnerability and so on.

The "privilege of being white" (if one gets any of those privileges) derives from economic factors, political power, and social control. If whites are running things, there is a white privilege. I would imagine that there is a Han Chinese privilege in China.

I just don't see how "white" is not a racial identity, how identifying as white is a hateful humiliation, how having a racial identity and talking about whiteness as an identity creates a vulnerability and so on. — Bitter Crank

As a New England wasp of a certain age, I get it. My identity is sui generis, everyone else's one of many. To be reminded that I too am one of many is a reminder I quickly forget, and acknowledge only as a matter of noblesse oblige. I meet with so few people who are as excellent in all things as I am - that goes with the territory.

I would imagine that there is a Han Chinese privilege in China. — Bitter Crank

I imagine too, and similarly around the world. As you might guess from above, though, I reckon my brand of superiority superior to any other, to the degree there is not even a second place. But on those occasions when I do encounter reality, I am gratified to see that most of the rest of the world is doing as well as it is.

As a New England wasp of a certain age — tim wood

Tim Wood speaks only to the Lowells, the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God.

There is something screwy and knotted up about the way you process the topic of race. I just don't see how "white" is not a racial identity, how identifying as white is a hateful humiliation, how having a racial identity and talking about whiteness as an identity creates a vulnerability and so on. — Bitter Crank

Yes, it is screwy and knotted, how could it be otherwise? You surely don't expect race to have any legitimate significance, beyond the arbitrary social meanings imposed upon it? Indeed "white" is a social identity, very much so, and it has all the importance that has been projected on it. Here in the UK, it is almost considered racist to mention race, and people prefer to talk about 'ethnic minorities', and even on occasion 'ethnics'. And in another breath, there will be talk of 'British' or 'English' ethnicity and nationality become codes for race.

But when someone says, for example, "I don't really get the idea of using one's race, sex, or orientation as a major part of one's identity...", one has to wonder in all screwy knottiness, what it is they do not get, and why. And I don't have any difficulty understanding it, personally. I don't think of myself as "able-bodied", I take it for granted.

This taking for granted is the normality of identity.'We the people'. The position of maximum comfort is never to think of one's own identity; to be able to say without irony, "identity politics is divisive". As though only others have an identity.

And his is why I am identified as troll as hostile, as sexist. Because I always insist that there is an other to every identity, and every identification is an othering. Because I never allow the discussion to be only about them and not about us.

One stray thought, or a parallel lens on the matter: You could consider power, in some sense, as the ability not to have to justify ones actions to those over whom you have power. Lacking absolute power, you'll have to give an account of yourself or actions to someone else, in a language they recognize. Which strengthens their power, by reinforcing the map by which they recognize the world. Denying identity in this regard would be refusing to yield to anothers 'map', to deny others the request to explicitly situate yourself in relation to their world.

Authenticity plays a funny role here, since it, too, seems to avoid being mapped by others.

There is a critique of identity politics along these lines that is leftist, rathee than xenophobic.

Nicely put. Just to complicate matters on a more micro level (not regarding identity politics per se but just identity), my experience in systems of hierarchy in professional environments is that what draws power and effaces identity is less individuals re their particular positions in relation to each other, but the amount of commitment to its systems the organisation in which the hierarchy is instituted demands, and this tends to correlate positively with hierarchical level. There's kind of an exchange of power then, system power for personal identity power, which makes being on the bottom in some sense the best place re retaining authenticity.

Another way to put it would be the mapping both facilitates power and absorbs it both intra- and interpersonally. And the intrapersonal absorption happens slowly and perniciously. (Thinking of my experience working at a university here).

And his is why I am identified as troll as hostile, as sexist. Because I always insist that there is an other to every identity, and every identification is an othering. Because I never allow the discussion to be only about them and not about us. — unenlightened

And it's uncomfortable taking about us. Naturally enough. I know I'd rather you'd just let me get on with banning people without having to think about the power differentials and their significance. And humiliation. Shudder. But I'll get over it.

Another way to put it would be the mapping both facilitates power and absorbs it both intra- and interpersonally. — Baden

Definitely, I've noticed it even in the hierarchical chains of a call center. But it seems less insidious there, where there's little pretense of being neutral purveyors of knowledge.

Because I always insist that there is an other to every identity, and every identification is an othering. — unenlightened

On whom does the benefit of this brave insistence devolve?

If some people in Great Britain identify as Scot, Irish, Indian, Kenyan, or Polish, how does that "othering" affect you? If you identify as a Welsh man, you have othered that much larger part of the world that isn't Welsh, which makes what difference to whom? In what way are you affected by the identity of people in Arizona, Peru, Bali, Timbuktu, or the semi-detached house next door?

The group identity of people in Peru is a matter for Peruvians. Ditto for those of Arizona, Bali, or Timbuktu. It doesn't concern you or me, and visa versa.

On whom does the benefit of this brave insistence devolve? — Bitter Crank

On the brave contributors to this thread, especially the ones I have humiliated.
All those other chaps you have mentioned can go about their business in contented contradiction. Except these:

The group identity of people in Peru is a matter for Peruvians. — Bitter Crank

This is obviously bollocks. If I am a Peruvian, then it is a matter for me, and I decide to be a Peruvian. Therefore I am a Peruvian. Try that at the next border crossing and see how it goes.

There's kind of an exchange of power then, system power for personal identity power, which makes being on the bottom in some sense the best place re retaining authenticity. — Baden

I'm not sure where you and @csalisbury are going with this. My first suspicion is that it is a purely mechanical effect - "the system" empowers and alienates, because the power is not authentically owned in the first place. 'Moderator' is not a property of a poster but a software category. I cannot imagine what an 'authentic moderator' would be like. One gains the power of the machine by becoming a cog (or a sub-routine).

Also, I'm not at all sure that 'personal identity power' ( do you mean something like charisma?) is necessarily authentic in the first place.

One gains the power of the machine by becoming a cog (or a sub-routine). — unenlightened

Yes, and voluntarily so. That’s the exchange. So, within an organisation, when you exercise systemic power, you enforce the identity of the organization's system on yourself as well as on the person over whom you exercise the power. Personal identity power would be a more authentic potential exercised outside that context, one more expressive of your particular attributes, skills, inclinations, beliefs etc. Of course, we are always in some context, so it's more complicated (I think you can generalize outwards from organizations into society as a whole and how it exercises, maintains, and reproduces its systemic power), but it's to point out that the powerful can become effaced of identity in the exercise of their power. And that that’s a different kind of humiliation that's harder to see because it's presented as a reward, a conditional status . So, “Success” as humiliation, but where the humiliation is sublated by the system and belief in its value. And this relies on a view of identity whereby it's constructed both of the past and the depth and breadth of future possibilities reflected into the present, becoming effaced as these possibilities lose their volume and density, with long-term engagement with systems a major means of this paring down.

So,

Consider two humiliating scenarios. — unenlightened

1) A supervisor disciplining a lower-level employee not because the employee did anything he/she considers morally or ethically wrong but because the employee broke a company rule (let’s say an unreasonable or ill-thought out one). The supervisor goes by the book and enforces a punishment he/she doesn’t believe is merited.

2) An employee being disciplined by a supervisor when he/she has done nothing morally or ethically wrong.

Who is more humiliated here? At least the employee can retain their sense of contempt for the rule. The supervisor though has made it part of his/her identity by enforcing it even though he/she doesn’t believe in it.

And:

Note that a change of world view can enable one to avoid the humiliation. — unenlightened

This can work for the employee, but not so much for the supervisor for whom a change of worldview is in some way enforced and is the humiliation.

I earlier said:

To humiliate is to undermine social power — Baden

But it’s not the full picture because the social takes many forms (e.g. the workplace as hierarchical system vs the workplace as broader social system) and humiliations may advance some forms of social power while simultaneously undermining others. And they may be acute and explicit or chronic and implicit.

Getting back to this:

What you do not need if you have it, you will die and kill for when it is taken away. This is identity as the absolute meaning of life, the sine qua non of existence itself. Identity is tribe. We are the champions. — unenlightened

I agree, but I’m claiming that humiliation can and does interpose at both ends of the power dynamic. For the “losers” identity is threatened explicitly and acutely. For the “winners”, it can be a chronic and implicit loss.

Who is more humiliated here? — Baden

That's a wrong question.

humiliation can and does interpose at both ends of the power dynamic. — Baden

Agreed. and I think this is where authenticity can be invoked. In your example, the supervisor is not doing the job, the job is doing him, and so the bubble of imagined power makes him vulnerable. It's the same as my chess-player, who is vulnerable to a five-year-old if he's not as good as he thinks he is.

I think one has to be a bit careful though; the judge that sentences an innocent man, I suppose in some god's eye view one could say that the innocent can maintain his dignity, but in merely human terms, his authentic innocence does nothing for him. You get sold into slavery, you can be as virtuous and authentic as anything, you still get whipped and worked, and chained, and it would be invidious to make a comparison with any possible humiliation of the slave-owner.

You get sold into slavery, you can be as virtuous and authentic as anything, you still get whipped and worked, and chained, and it would be invidious to make a comparison with any possible humiliation of the slave-owner. — unenlightened

We may be heading in to Hegelian territory with that :) But yes, I'm probably stretching the meaning of "humiliation" here.

That's a wrong question. — unenlightened

Sorry 'bout that, boss. ;)