Fair. I think I shouldn’t have used the word “lie” because it seems to have primed you into a direction other than the one I was headed, but I don’t know a good substitute. One kind of lie I have in mind is things like explaining Newtonian physics to physics students instead of quantum mechanics or relativity. The implicit claim that Newtonian physics accurately models reality is in some sense a lie, but it’s a good enough approximation for many purposes and also useful for understanding what comes after.
An analogous kind of lie in interpersonal relationships is the following. Suppose I’m on OKCupid and it asks “are you a feminist?” Before a few months ago, my answer would have been an unhesitating “yes.” Now I’m not so sure. I’m trying to keep my identity small, and “feminist” is a term that comes with a lot of baggage. I don’t know if I want that baggage in my identity. I’d at least like to taboo “feminist” by default.
Nevertheless, very little has changed about how I actually treat women. I want people on OKCupid to know that. They’ll have a better understanding of me, or more precisely how I treat women, if I answer “yes” to this question than they will if I answer “no.”
One kind of lie I have in mind is things like explaining Newtonian physics to physics students instead of quantum mechanics or relativity.
I have heard this sort of thing referred to as “lies-to-children”. Your average junior school is full of them. (All numbers are on the number line! The atom is like a very tiny solar system!)
I’ve been thinking that “keep your identity emergent” or “keep your identity honest” might be better advice than “keep your identity small”. That is, people should let their identity emerge as a consequence of their individual object-level views, instead of deriving their individual object-level views from their identity. That reversal of causation seems to me the problem with identity, not identity in itself. So instead of deleting almost all of my identity (and how would I know which little bits to keep?), I should figure out my object-level beliefs first, and then summarize them as aspects of my identity.
Using feminism as an example, if I notice one day that I’m identifying as a feminist, I stop and ask myself about each of the individual object-level issues that feminism touches upon. If my views on those object-level issues really & truly align with those connoted by the “feminism” label, I might as well identify as a feminist; the identifier arises organically from the beliefs. If my views don’t align with it, then I should stop identifying as a feminist. (My views could of course change over time, in which case I adopt/drop the identification accordingly.)
Your comment shows one advantage to this approach: it’s less liable to mislead people than simply keeping one’s identity “small”. If I agree with the X-ist cluster of beliefs and behave accordingly, other people might well have a more accurate model of me if I self-identify as an X-ist than if I stoutly refuse to identify as such. (Of course, if I want to taboo “X-ism” in a conversation, it can make sense to avoid identifying as an X-ist. But doing so indiscriminately can increase confusion & exasperation rather than reduce them.)
people should let their identity emerge as a consequence of their individual object-level views, instead of deriving their individual object-level views from their identity. That reversal of causation seems to me the problem with identity, not identity in itself.
I’d expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep the causation one-way, even if you’re trying hard and are aware of all the consequences. In order for something to be promoted to conscious attention, it has to make it through a set of perceptual filters which include some coherence checks with your existing identity: it’s quite possible to believe earnestly that you’re taking into account all the data even as you silently drop half of it from your consideration.
To make matters worse, I’d also expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep identity criteria stable. For example, the kids in the famous Robber’s Cave experiment (Sherif et al., 1954) readily generated stereotypes for themselves, all to support a more or less fabricated image of a distinct identity group; and this certainly isn’t limited to the laboratory, as the behavior of whatever political group you like the least should demonstrate! The lesson seems to be that identities aren’t static classification functions; justifications and superstitions accrete around them like nacre in the guts of an irritated oyster, growing and feeding back into an increasingly tangled complex of beliefs.
I suspect that if identity is as sticky & accretive as you suggest, trying to purge my identity could prove at least as hard as wearing my identity loosely on my beliefs. But that is just a guess on my part — I ought to chew on what you’ve said for a bit.
One of the benefits I’ve found from keeping my identity small doesn’t seem to be reducible to keeping my object-level views honest. Namely, I’ve recently identified areas of my life in which my identity was preventing me from trying new things, e.g. I thought of myself as the kind of person who didn’t care about nutrition or exercise. I wasn’t mistaken about any property of the world but I was supplying myself with excuses for not expanding my comfort zone. (Edit: Academician describes this happening to him in this post which I think is a useful follow-up to Keep Your Identity Small.)
With the first sort of kinda-lie, there’s again little keeping-track needed. You have some particular not-quite-right theory that you’re putting forward; it’s basically coherent and matches the world reasonably well, because otherwise you wouldn’t be using it. And even if you slip up and mention some quantum or relativistic stuff to your students, no serious harm is done.
With the second sort, surely it’s universally understood that all you’re saying when you answer this sort of question is that “yes” is a less misleading answer than “no”. So again I don’t see any particular need for keeping-track on this account. If I were making an OKCupid profile and had to answer that question, I too would answer yes. If asked in a context that allowed for a more detailed answer, I would give one. No lying or other deception required. (Of course that might discourage possible partners who don’t like detailed answers, but that’s a feature, not a bug.)
I have encountered very few situations in interpersonal relationships where deliberate deception is required.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not claiming that I absolutely never lie. But not lying is my goal, I seldom deviate from it, I strongly suspect that most such deviations I make are actually not in my best interests, and I have not found it necessary to keep track of anything much about The Lies I Tell Others.
You may of course believe me or not, as you please :-).
Fair. I think I shouldn’t have used the word “lie” because it seems to have primed you into a direction other than the one I was headed, but I don’t know a good substitute. One kind of lie I have in mind is things like explaining Newtonian physics to physics students instead of quantum mechanics or relativity. The implicit claim that Newtonian physics accurately models reality is in some sense a lie, but it’s a good enough approximation for many purposes and also useful for understanding what comes after.
An analogous kind of lie in interpersonal relationships is the following. Suppose I’m on OKCupid and it asks “are you a feminist?” Before a few months ago, my answer would have been an unhesitating “yes.” Now I’m not so sure. I’m trying to keep my identity small, and “feminist” is a term that comes with a lot of baggage. I don’t know if I want that baggage in my identity. I’d at least like to taboo “feminist” by default.
Nevertheless, very little has changed about how I actually treat women. I want people on OKCupid to know that. They’ll have a better understanding of me, or more precisely how I treat women, if I answer “yes” to this question than they will if I answer “no.”
I have heard this sort of thing referred to as “lies-to-children”. Your average junior school is full of them. (All numbers are on the number line! The atom is like a very tiny solar system!)
Yes, so I guess what I’m saying is that I also don’t make a strong distinction between children and adults.
I’ve been thinking that “keep your identity emergent” or “keep your identity honest” might be better advice than “keep your identity small”. That is, people should let their identity emerge as a consequence of their individual object-level views, instead of deriving their individual object-level views from their identity. That reversal of causation seems to me the problem with identity, not identity in itself. So instead of deleting almost all of my identity (and how would I know which little bits to keep?), I should figure out my object-level beliefs first, and then summarize them as aspects of my identity.
Using feminism as an example, if I notice one day that I’m identifying as a feminist, I stop and ask myself about each of the individual object-level issues that feminism touches upon. If my views on those object-level issues really & truly align with those connoted by the “feminism” label, I might as well identify as a feminist; the identifier arises organically from the beliefs. If my views don’t align with it, then I should stop identifying as a feminist. (My views could of course change over time, in which case I adopt/drop the identification accordingly.)
Your comment shows one advantage to this approach: it’s less liable to mislead people than simply keeping one’s identity “small”. If I agree with the X-ist cluster of beliefs and behave accordingly, other people might well have a more accurate model of me if I self-identify as an X-ist than if I stoutly refuse to identify as such. (Of course, if I want to taboo “X-ism” in a conversation, it can make sense to avoid identifying as an X-ist. But doing so indiscriminately can increase confusion & exasperation rather than reduce them.)
I’d expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep the causation one-way, even if you’re trying hard and are aware of all the consequences. In order for something to be promoted to conscious attention, it has to make it through a set of perceptual filters which include some coherence checks with your existing identity: it’s quite possible to believe earnestly that you’re taking into account all the data even as you silently drop half of it from your consideration.
To make matters worse, I’d also expect it to be extraordinarily hard to keep identity criteria stable. For example, the kids in the famous Robber’s Cave experiment (Sherif et al., 1954) readily generated stereotypes for themselves, all to support a more or less fabricated image of a distinct identity group; and this certainly isn’t limited to the laboratory, as the behavior of whatever political group you like the least should demonstrate! The lesson seems to be that identities aren’t static classification functions; justifications and superstitions accrete around them like nacre in the guts of an irritated oyster, growing and feeding back into an increasingly tangled complex of beliefs.
You and Qiaochu_Yuan raise good points.
I suspect that if identity is as sticky & accretive as you suggest, trying to purge my identity could prove at least as hard as wearing my identity loosely on my beliefs. But that is just a guess on my part — I ought to chew on what you’ve said for a bit.
One of the benefits I’ve found from keeping my identity small doesn’t seem to be reducible to keeping my object-level views honest. Namely, I’ve recently identified areas of my life in which my identity was preventing me from trying new things, e.g. I thought of myself as the kind of person who didn’t care about nutrition or exercise. I wasn’t mistaken about any property of the world but I was supplying myself with excuses for not expanding my comfort zone. (Edit: Academician describes this happening to him in this post which I think is a useful follow-up to Keep Your Identity Small.)
With the first sort of kinda-lie, there’s again little keeping-track needed. You have some particular not-quite-right theory that you’re putting forward; it’s basically coherent and matches the world reasonably well, because otherwise you wouldn’t be using it. And even if you slip up and mention some quantum or relativistic stuff to your students, no serious harm is done.
With the second sort, surely it’s universally understood that all you’re saying when you answer this sort of question is that “yes” is a less misleading answer than “no”. So again I don’t see any particular need for keeping-track on this account. If I were making an OKCupid profile and had to answer that question, I too would answer yes. If asked in a context that allowed for a more detailed answer, I would give one. No lying or other deception required. (Of course that might discourage possible partners who don’t like detailed answers, but that’s a feature, not a bug.)
I have encountered very few situations in interpersonal relationships where deliberate deception is required.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not claiming that I absolutely never lie. But not lying is my goal, I seldom deviate from it, I strongly suspect that most such deviations I make are actually not in my best interests, and I have not found it necessary to keep track of anything much about The Lies I Tell Others.
You may of course believe me or not, as you please :-).