The phrase keep your identity small is a good thing to tell yourself when your identity is trivial and superficial. It is a harmful, insensitive thing to tell a discriminated-against minority when you are a member of the majority.
I think the ideal would be the majority (or the powerful, capable of doing the discriminating) keeps their identity small AND the minority (or the less powerful, the target of the discriminating) keeps their identity small (without said discrimination, there then would be lowered need for defensive identity-forming). Thus, making people super individualistic.
After all in some sense, it’s because the majority doesn’t keep their identity small but enlarges it to be the normative “norm” that the minority suffers. It’s those who don’t realize they’re not keeping their identity small at all (seeing oneself as default is not humility or keeping one’s identity small). If the minority’s traits were seen as just as neutral (neither more good or more bad than the majority’s) just as the majority’s traits were neutral, there wouldn’t be a problem with either one’s identity being kept small or large.
But absent that, it’s riskier for groups targeted based on some identity to keep their identity small I agree. I think a lot of the problem with the whole identity discourse is people fail to distinguish between voluntary vs. involuntary identities (glossing over problems with wording like “self-identify as”). Voluntary identities you can keep large or small based on your own will. Involuntary ones forced upon you force you to be reactive.
I think the ideal would be the majority (or the powerful, capable of doing the discriminating) keeps their identity small AND the minority (or the less powerful, the target of the discriminating) keeps their identity small (without said discrimination, there then would be lowered need for defensive identity-forming). Thus, making people super individualistic.
After all in some sense, it’s because the majority doesn’t keep their identity small but enlarges it to be the normative “norm” that the minority suffers. It’s those who don’t realize they’re not keeping their identity small at all (seeing oneself as default is not humility or keeping one’s identity small). If the minority’s traits were seen as just as neutral (neither more good or more bad than the majority’s) just as the majority’s traits were neutral, there wouldn’t be a problem with either one’s identity being kept small or large.
But absent that, it’s riskier for groups targeted based on some identity to keep their identity small I agree. I think a lot of the problem with the whole identity discourse is people fail to distinguish between voluntary vs. involuntary identities (glossing over problems with wording like “self-identify as”). Voluntary identities you can keep large or small based on your own will. Involuntary ones forced upon you force you to be reactive.