A few weeks ago I wrote in the phlog "Split" that an identity
detached from the four dimensional experience causes people to
convulse uncontrollably. I focused on the compression of temporal
identity through modern technology, but failed to see that there
is another, older technology that has an apparently similar effect.
Let's take a person who is proud of their nation. They will extend
their identity over the nation in order to attach their story into
the historical successes of the nation. This is a compression of
physicality as well as temporality. Now you are personally
embodying your nation and it's past centuries. Of course it is
an act of imagination, and the technology that can do this is
called a story, or a myth.
I assume this example didn't raise an eyebrow if you have read
the other phlog post. It has wider ripples, though. For example,
I hear quite often something like "We killed the native
population in this country". I'm not talking about any particular
country at the moment. There are quite a few versions of this
phrase: We drove them off, we took their land, we shipped them
off, we spread diseases. And so on.
But, to say this is as ridiculous as "being proud of your
country". You did not kill anyone (i hope). You didn't ship anyone
anywhere against their will. It is a nationalistic guilt you are
embodying. By vacuuming in the nation's history into your abstract
identity you are making it harder to live a harmonious existance
at the moment because you are feeling a guilt that has nothing
to do with your own actions.
I have mentioned that I feel sort of chronic guilt about things.
My guilt is for not being able to help in matters that I feel are
important. I don't feel guilty for what my ancestors might have
done or not done, but there is quite enough to feel guilty about
in the things I have personally not done, and some things I
have done, although, they really dwarf compared to the universes
of things not done.
I think the guilt for not doing something is more "actionable"
than feeling guilty about some other people living in some past
centuries. You can actually stop feeling guilty by starting to
do something to help people who are alive right here and now.
At the same time, the extension of the identity to feel guilty
about the wasted possibilities is probably unhealthy to a degree.
It is an abstraction, but being abstraction about future, it is
more malleable than the past, which is set in stone.
Also, the "here and now" that you can help in is a lot larger
than it might seem at first glance. You can have a real effect
on poverty stricken people around the world, while you cannot do
anything about even your own fathers past sins.
