No Identity

 

The other day was when someone I trust and respect shared with me a remarkable insight into people, one which I would like to expand on a bit.

This person said persons who are pure followers, whose whole life is the group, these people lack personal identity. This is common and true, and it indicates such persons are soulless, no sense of self, no developed self-attributed sense of identity as a separate person from all others, special, unique, developed, ambitious and self-realizing.

This is close to being the definition of Ayn Rand’s attribution of a first-hander, the rational individual who develops herself, and her identity is patent, powerful, positive and impactful.

Rand would define a second-hander as someone lacking a substantive, conscious sense of self, not accompanied by merited self-esteeming, because that person has not done the heavy lifting, and is not an individual of accomplishment and strong personal identity.

The second-hander exists only as an avatar of some whimsical, ethereal assumed copy of the group-identity of the group he slavishly follows and mimics, and sometimes does so very skillfully. The second-hander has no personal identity, for he has willingly settled for adopting the actual or putative group-identity idealized (Idealized group-identity is not ideal for being happy individual, leading a moral, productive life.) by the leaders of his group, for all followers to imitate and take on as their persona. The more nonindividuating, groupist and popular a joiner is, the less he exists as an individualist with his self-assigned personal identity.