[MD] Many Avatars, Many Selves

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ian]
We agree "identity" is important, (because 
trust is important ?), but VERY important.

[Arlo]
I'd go one step further. I'd say that "identity" 
IS "value". It is not "important", it is 
"importance". If that makes sense. And, I'd say, 
this "importance" derives from the value we hold 
in social relationships. "Identity" only has 
meaning in a social context, and this context 
includes the broad cultural milieu into which 
"we" emerge, as well as the micro-genetic context 
of "this situation, right here and right now".

[Ian]
(Some) people are confusing identity 
(patterns) with names (symbolic identifiers) IMHO.

[Arlo]
I think this is very true, and goes way back to 
the start of this conversation when said that a 
"name" is only what we agree to call me, nothing 
more. If I propose the name "Bill" and you accept 
"Bill", then "Bill" is my name. Society gives us, 
for purposes of law, a "legal" name (which we can 
change, of course) by which to track our 
movements and hold "the ball" accountable for any 
act perpetrated by a "piece of string". But that 
convention has nothing to do with the emergent 
nature of value-relations in social contexts. I 
am "Arlo" here, and "Jim" with my biker friends, 
and "Aenea" in Warcraft, and ALL are "my real 
names" within those contexts. No context has, 
ultimately, reality or precedence or primary-ness 
over another. The "names" are negotiated, not 
"real". They are "real" within those context 
because they have "meaning" within those 
contexts. It is the meaning, within the social 
world, that gives the identity its "realness".

And I think this holds true for other 
characteristics we've learned to lump onto the 
"self". One such characteristic is "gender", but 
I'd say it holds true for all physiological 
characteristics of the body. The cliche "you are 
only as old as you feel" touches on that. Of 
course our physiological body ages, and of course 
the maturity of the self is a function (to a 
large degree) of the experiential time-span bound 
this body, but ultimately who "we" are is not 
determined by the age of our bones or the sex 
organs of our body. This I think is an S/O view 
that can only see the "self" as inherently 
nothing more than a function of the body. It 
confuses, to use Pirsig's analogy, the hardware 
and the software as being one-in-the-same (or at 
the least have a direct, deterministic relationship).

There is a statement I have hanging on my door 
from a 1997 web-article out of Western Buddhist 
Review. "Buddhist ethics and soteriology do 
indeed require a significant integrity or 
coherence of personal identity, yet that identity 
or individuality of the self is seen as a dynamic 
karmic continuity rather than as an essential 
ontological substantiality—as an ongoing process 
rather than an underlying thing." (Sponberg, 1997).

I'd like to think that captures the core of what 
I am saying. From this same article 
(http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol2/ecological_self.html), 
the author goes on to say that the Buddha 
rejected "the notion of an essential, enduring, 
and immutable "self" (aatman or jiiva) lying at 
the core of personal identity". This is all I am 
really saying here as well. There is no "real 
self", no "aatman", that wears masks and pretends 
to be something while "really" being something else.

This article (since I am rereading it now) 
mentions the Buddha's notion of "karmic 
continuity" in response to his critics who argued 
(interestingly, as Ron does) that without this 
core "aatman", the individual could not be held 
accountable in this world or karmically in the 
next for his actions, "And not only was any 
theory of ethical justice, of karmic reward and 
retribution, at stake- without a secure basis for 
karma, the whole soteric enterprise would be meaningless as well."

The Campbellian in me loves how we replicate the 
dialogues of the past, how our voices sing the 
same songs sung by generations past, as if we are 
the first to sing those beautiful notes. But I digress. Moving on.

The Buddha rejected this and as described by the 
author professed that "the integrity of personal 
identity and of ethical efficacy, required not 
some substantial permanence, he asserted, but 
only the continuity of the karmic conditioning 
itself." "What then constitutes "personal 
identity," if not some essential self or aatman? 
In the Buddhist view, the self is nothing more or 
less than the dynamic aggregation of a bundle of 
interrelated causal processes."

Way back I stressed the value of long-term social 
relationships that leads us to create threads of 
continuity both temporally (over time) and 
spatially (across contexts). The article mentions 
this as "the latent or unconscious tendencies 
(biija or vaasanaa) laid down as patterns of 
habituation through the performance of action 
(karman), actions not just of the body, but of speech and mind as well."

So this is where I start from in my view on the 
selfs. There is "no self", no aatman, only 
"patterns of habituation" we reproduce as have 
value to us within those contexts. Our western 
world, I argue, continues to cause us to be blind 
to this, to need to give the "self" or "aatman" 
some primary reality apart from the patterns of 
habituation our social activity reveals. There is 
much more in this article, I'd encourage anyone 
interested in Buddhist notions of "self" to read.

[Ian]
Try this - How do you get a "handle" on the 
"value" of what someone is saying ? Discuss. (A 
very common problem everywhere BTW. Chill folks.)

[Arlo]
I am chilled, Ian, if a little tired of dealing 
with repeated, unfounded accusations of what I 
"seem to be saying" (despite what I actually do 
say), or insinuations of dishonesty, deceit and 
deception, or perpetrating an multiple-identity 
hoax on the list, or of saying "identity is 
meaningless" (which has been from day one the 
opposite of everything I've said, thanks for 
reading). And I'm tired of the snide remarks and 
name calling that replace offering anything of 
value in return. I'm tired of saying "Arlo is not 
SA or Krimel". I'm tired of saying "yes, Ron, for 
the umpteenth bajillion time, I agree that social 
law must hold the ball accountable" only to get 
yet another "you seem to be saying anything goes" 
bullshit post. And I'm miffed at bringing up the 
Bradford thing on-list, being open and genuine in 
discussing it off-list (even passing on Loggins' 
website, for fuck's sake), only to be told that I 
get "pissy" when its mentioned? What the fuck is 
that? And yes I'm a little miffed at being told 
that because I've only seen a person I was in 
love with raped, only dealt with that and her 
pain and her suffering and her recovery, only 
watched in abject horror at the torment eating 
away at someone I loved, that I am a cocksucker 
and blowhard for having an opinion about that 
very experience, and opinion rooted in the 
healing process I was a part of. Yeah, Ron, you 
suffered. I get it. And I'm sorry. But you're not 
the only one. So grow the fuck up.

And while I am unfortunately moved to anger.. 
Marsha.. listen carefully...  I AM NOT KRIMEL OR 
SA. I HAVE NO OTHER IDENTITIES IN THIS FORUM, NOR 
HAVE I EVER HAD OTHER IDENTITIES IN THIS FORUM. 
NONE. ZERO. GO ASK HORSE IF YOU FIND THAT SO 
FUCKING HARD TO BELIEVE. That is the last time I am going to say it. Period.

Sigh. And now where to from here? Hell, apparently.