Identity of Possession

A while back, I wrote about the fabric of identity, and if insufficiently authentic, how it can unravel. In our consumer society, identity is closely associated with possession, and as millions become dispossessed, their identity crumbles. Losing one’s possessions in a culture of imbeciles (a term used here to indicate political illiteracy) can make one vulnerable to recruitment by all sorts of ideologues, and this can lead to pathological behavior. And in a state where access to quality counseling often depends on a measure of possessions, the dispossessed are adrift.

We may indeed witness a return of active domestic terrorism in the form of Christian Patriot militias, but unlike the farm crisis of the 1980s and the millenarian mania of the 1990s, this time around, the social context of economic panic and religious hysteria is more widespread. Sociopathic conduct short of murder could become the norm.

Keeping calm amid hyperventilating media won’t be easy, but then, it never is.