How Do Human Beings Communicate Their Identities To One Another

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How Do Human Beings Communicate Their Identities To One Another?

The New Humanities Reader is a book by Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer.

The book is an anthology that cuts across various disciplines. Within the book are readings on

challenging as well as important issues facing people in the contemporary society. It is a

compilation of articles and essays from various writers who address significant issues that are

global. The authors of the anthology establish the goal of The New Humanities Reader as “to

practice writing until it becomes clear what it means to use writing as a way of thinking new

thoughts.” Issues concerning identity can be deduced from the readings that are written by

Andrew Solomon, Oliver Sacks, and Azar Nafisi. These three writers in their various works

address aspects of identity including formation of identity, its development and representations.

Identity is a term that has no single overarching definition. The most general meaning of

identity is how an individual makes sense of themselves. Notably, different people have different

ways of communicating their identity. Communication of identity follows the construction of

that identity. Individuals construct their identities through various experiences, emotions,

connections, and rejections. Additionally, an individual may use a symbol or symbols in the

construction their identity. Symbolism is particularly fundamental in the construction of gender

identities as well as well as identity concerning one’s religion. In Azar Nafisi’s “Selections from

Reading Lolita in Tehran”, the use of symbols in the construction of identity is elucidated

through the students. Religious symbolism, as is seen in the dressing of the students in long robes

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and the covering of their heads with scarves plays a major role in the identity formation of the

students as part of Islam religion (Nafisi 280). For one of the students, Manna, color is a symbol

in the construction of her identity. Manna acknowledges that being in an Islamic country has

coarsened her taste for outrageous bright colors that she wishes to dress in (Nafisi 286).

An individual is able to communicate their identity through the performance of that

identity. Human beings perform their identities in varied ways such as through their general

appearance, dressing, and movements, how they talk, their facial expressions as well as how they

conduct themselves. In Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran, it is evident through the

students how individuals perform varied identities through their dressing, hairstyles, behavior

and their artistic preferences (Nafisi 280). Additionally, through varied performance of their

identity, they are able to communicate a different identity in private as compared to being in

public in an Islamic country.

Self-presentation is one of the main ways through which people communicate who they

are to others. This includes routine habitual behaviors that are exhibited by individuals

unconsciously. Manna, who is one of Nafisi’s students, is a withdrawn and private person. This

is a conclusion that is arrived at simply by looking at her in the photographs. Another of the

students, Mitra, is a calm individual. This particular attribute is registered in her artwork as is

seen in the pastel color of her paintings which are mostly pale. Lastly, is Nassrin who can be

described as a distant person because of her constant attempt to always stay hidden in all

photographs that are taken. These three students communicate their identity through how they

portray their self-image. Dressing has also been shown as a way through which a person can

portray their identity to others. The students together with Nafisi, also perform their identities

through their varied choice of dressing and hair color. Under their coverings and scarves, each of

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the students exhibits a splash of color in their choice of clothes as well as the varied length and

hair color. The varied performance in their identity is consistent with their variable individual

identities that they communicate in public and in private.

Over time, how an individual communicates who they are may change. This is because

identity is ever-changing and keeps developing. The development of identity or the self can be

thought of as either a reactive or a creative process. For example, through the story of John Hull,

Oliver Sacks has illuminated that the development of the self can be seen as both a reactive

process in response to a particular situation and a creative process which involves the use of

imagination or use of original ideas. As a consequence of losing their eyesight, blind individuals

always experience an intensity of auditory experience and the sharpening of all other senses

(Sacks 330). This particularly enabled a sense of intimacy between John Hull and nature. Also,

he was able to find a new focus, freedom, and identity after going blind. This particular point

supports the fact that development can be a reactive process. That is, as a response to being

blind, Hull experienced a sense of growth and began regarded himself as a new mode of human

being.

Hull’s experience also shows that the development of the self can also be considered a

creative process. After going blind, he was able to free himself from visual nostalgia and

reshaped himself to a new perceptual identity. Despite the complete obliteration of his visual

memory, he became more confident and bold both intellectually and spiritually. He also became

more fluent than he was before and he was able to write better and deeper and teach more (Sacks

330). According to Sacks, “Hull’s visual cortex even in adulthood had adapted to a loss of visual

input by taking over other sensory functions” (Sacks 331). John Hull’s peculiar experience after

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going blind shows that the development of the self can be a reactive process and most

importantly, a creative process.

Through the communication of identities, similarities and difference are apparent among

people. That is, some communicated identities are similar to others while others are not. This

establishes that identity can be based on either sameness or sometimes on otherness. Andrew

Solomon drives this fact through his explanation of horizontal and vertical identities. He talks

about vertical identities which are the identities passed down from one generation to the next

(Solomon 370). Vertical identities demonstrate that identity is dependent on sameness. For

instance, he points out that a child of color is born to a parent or parents of color, and a Greek-

speaking parent raises a child to speak Greek as well. In these two scenarios, color and language

are vertical identities that are passed down. Therefore, it can be concluded that an individual’s

identity emerges out of identification with others or having similarities with a particular group of

people.

Conversely, identity may also be based on otherness. This may be to an equal extent as

sameness. In some instances, identity requires a perception of difference from other individuals.

For example, as in the case of horizontal identities elaborated by Andrew Solomon, an individual

possessing an inherent or acquired trait that is different from that of the parents identifies with

that particular trait (Solomon 370). Therefore, for such an individual, their identity is based on

otherness. Solomon as a gay person is born to parents who are straight and expect their child to

be straight. However, due to preferences, Andrew Solomon identifies himself as a homosexual

instead of heterosexual. The concept of identity, therefore, has a double and contradictory

resonance. It can be based on sameness or otherness.

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For an individual to communicate an intended identity to other people, he or she must

know who they are. This mainly involves being aware of the fundamental overlapping categories

of identity to which they belong. These include gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic

group, social class and level of ability among others. Human beings are deeply driven by the

sense of who they are. As such, the need for a sense of identity is crucial. First, individual

identity is significant to have a sense of the self. This involves being able to define oneself with

little to no reference to other people. For instance, Andrew Solomon identifies himself as a

homosexual. He is able to communicate this to people because he is aware of his sexual

orientation and he has embraced his identity as being gay.

Through Andrew Solomon, group identity has also been shown as a way of one knowing

who they are. Solomon not only identifies with homosexuals like himself but he also identifies

with all other individuals with horizontal identities such as blind individuals and people with

dwarfism among others (Solomon 371). He is under the realization that he belongs to a group of

individuals who differ from the majority in one way or the other. Therefore, for an individual to

have a clear sense of themselves, it is important to know which of the basic categories one fits in

comfortably. It is also significant to be able to identify with a particular group such as a

particular race, religion or ethnic group and also be able to define oneself without referring to

other people.

In conclusion, people communicate their identities in various ways. How a person talks,

behaves, dresses and conducts themselves are all ways of performing identity through which they

can communicate their identity to others. How an individual conveys who they are may change

because identity is subject to development which can be thought of as either as a series of actions

that are reactive or creative. Being a concept that puts emphasizes on what is shared among

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individuals as well as the recognition of differences between people, identity appears to be a

concept that has a contradictory meaning. All in all, for an individual to clearly communicate

who they are to other people, a clear knowledge of their identity is paramount. This takes into

account communication of identity at an individual level as well as at a group level.

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Work Cited

Spellmeyer, Kurt, and Richard E. Miller. The New Humanities Reader. 5th ed.,

Cengage Learning, 2015.

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