Day 58: Identity

Vegan Evening Meal:

• Lagavulin avec glaçon
• Carpaccio de betterave (option fromage de chevre)
• Falafel avec salade verte avec tomates, concombres, et oignons verts
• Chocolat noir Fauchon

As you can see from the above we had some guests this evening. One of Fianna's oldest friends from high school in the US who happens to be Vegan and Jewish (no link ... I think).  As often happens when confronted with different life choices our conversation took a philosophical turn around specific attitudes to religion in France or the US.  As I have already addressed the question of Religion in a previous blog (# 43), I thought I would say a few words about identity.  It seems that politics nowadays are increasingly about who we are rather than what we think, believe or discuss.  How does democracy and rational decision making work if at the end of day you believe that your ideas and beliefs are who you are.  I think we need to clarify things, Identity is not a useful or helpful concept other than being a convenient way to tell whether your asking Jack or Jill to pass you the salt.  The most interesting thing is that when people refer to the age of identity politics they seem to be referring to the opposite phenomenon.  Identity politics are actually group politics, groups of people define themselves as having a common identity which is usually in opposition to other groups.  Isn't the whole point of Identity, its uniqueness?  And uniqueness is something that every single human being is born with, in that sense we are all truly born equally unique, and whatever we do we cannot change that fact.

PS: Welcome back to Europe for Sasha and 2 points for having shared my fast yesterday.