Ideas, Narratives and the Age of Behavior

Thaz shared a "quote" from a post by Maria that came from this TED Talk by Maajid Nawaz. The quote, wasn't actually a quote, but appears to be Maria's summarization of the first part of Maajid's talk. The statement was as follows:

Regardless of it being a quote or a note, and my liking a lot of what Mr. Nawaz had to say, I don't agree with this notion of identity definition or the term for our current era as "the age of behavior."

Ideas and narratives have always been a part of our identity construction and communication, and our behaviors have always reflected our beliefs about ourselves and the world. What's true throughout time is that our beliefs about these things shape our identities. The change lies in how much information is available to us for our identity constructions today vs. the past and how the exposure to that information has changed our belief structures over time.

In the past (when religion and ethnicity more easily defined our identities), our exposure to new information was tightly controlled and the experiences that shaped us were limited to the geography we lived in and could relatively easily travel around in. At this time, there were fewer expressions of the main religions of the world and people's ethnic make-up was far less diverse. Because of these factors, it was easy to quickly understand someone's identity based on these simple factors.

With the advent of the printing press and new forms of transportation, those boundaries expanded and have continued to expand at a faster and faster rate ever since. As new forms of information distribution and transportation have come to be, our exposure to new and diverse beliefs, values, ideals, etc, have expanded and we have adopted things we liked from other cultures, religions, and the like. 

Because of this, the number of expressions of the major religions of the world is far greater today than in the past, as is the ethnic make-up of the world's population. This has made it nearly impossible to define identity by religion and ethnicity alone. Because of how diverse the world's population has become, now we have to rely on people's actions (behaviors) to be the primary communicator of their identity more so than we did in the past. 

So, let's not call this the "age of behavior" as behavior has always been a key form of communication, including expressing one's identity; and let's not say that it's a new thing to have identity defined by ideas and narratives.

We're living in the Information Age, which is to say that we are living in an era where we are instantly, continuously and globally connected to different ideas and narratives. Through this, our beliefs can evolve at a far more rapid pace than ever before. This also means that our identities can evolve faster—if we're open to it. But that's another subject all together.

Comments

[Mary]

I'm not 100% clear with what I think you're saying so I want to clarify to be sure - are you saying that you believe prior to the information age we had a very limited and condensed scope of information available and as a result behavior, while always an identifier and thus not unique, was less controversial because like minded colonies mimicked each other? And that now, with the availability of and exposure to as many different behaviors as technology has facilitated, as always we are influenced by information but are adjusting as rapidly as it is received giving only the appearance of authenticity (i.e. individual behavior)? What?

[paul isakson]

Hi Mary,

Good question.

I'm saying it has become far more difficult over time to have a good understanding of someone's identity simply by knowing their religion and ethnic make-up.

I'm saying the reason this is true is because of how information has continued to spread at a faster and faster rate over time and because of people spreading out from all over the world to new parts of the world over time.

I'm saying that behavior has always been a signal that indicates one's identity, so we can't say that this is unique to today. But, today it is much more important than in the past because your religion, ethnic background and other factors that were once more predictive of one's identity have decreased in their abilities to do so over time.

I'm not saying it has anything to do with authenticity. I'm simply saying identity is much more fluid today than it was in the past and can change easier due to the amount and speed at which information is available.

[peggy]

one could also argue that religion (and even ethnicity) is just a narrative. i agree with the points you make in your post.

regarding the ted talk: hope deferred maketh the heart sick. majority muslim country or not. how people respond to this depends on the framework they live in.

[Sofia-marketing digital]

It's clearly difficult to enumerate what our identity is constituate of.
But i do agree with your post anyway.