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The Sense of Identity and the American Character
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18015 |
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Section : |
EDITORIAL
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| Issue
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5 / 1990 |
1,547 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
The change in the American character - in particular, the loss of a sense of responsibility and community - is discussed in Currents in Modern Thought in this issue. Although the authors of the featured articles ascribe the change to such factors as a developing inner directedness or narcissism, it is related, in my opinion, to weakened sense of identity is not dependent upon inner-directedness, although it is likely that inner-directed individuals would have a strong sense of identity.
Although many other-directed individuals in our society lack a strong sense of identity, this relationship is highly problematic. The Japanese culture, for instance, is a shame- or other-directed culture. Yet, at least until recently, the Japanese would behave with a strong sense of responsibility and in accordance with traditional values while within the Japanese environment. Because controls behavior was external, however, the Japanese who surrendered in war, unlike their Western counterparts, would adapt to the rules of the new environment without internal conflict.
If the foregoing hypotheses are correct, we must search for the factors in American society that have helped to produce not merely other-directedness but a weakened sense of identity within American culture. Although, as Forrest McDonald points out, the Anglo-Saxon or even the Anglo-German population was never numerically predominant in the United States, WASP cultural norms did characterized the American system. This cultural dominance permitted and supported a strong sense of identity in the individual. Work was fulfilling. Divorce was bad. Mothers were nurturing home builders.
Without a strong sense of identity - that is, without recognizable character - behavior becomes problematic, for there no longer is personality whose structure and content provide a cohesive rationale for behavior. Why should a professor pass a student he detests unless his concept of the role requires this? Why should a craftsman labor to produce an excellent violin when most buyers could not tell the difference, unless he were impelled by aspects of character Continuity through time and relatedness to community are dependent upon a sense of identity, for, in its absence, no standards are available to adjudicate choices related to these factors.
The particular relationship of the sense of identity to nineteenth-century American culture, however, invoked some of the more disagreeable aspects of the culture. The Irish, Italians, Jews, and Slavs dressed and behaved differently from the members of the
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