How do you self-identify? That is, who do you think you are? Most accurately, What do you think you are?
I generally exile such questions to the land of Politically Correct Psycho-Babble. While such a temptation is strong, at Dartmouth we are forced to pay attention to such questions. Why do we find it so important to be something?
The answer to questions of self identity is generally along the lines of black, white, gay, straight, American or foreign. You'd better pick at least one, because at Dartmouth it makes all the difference in the world.
The day we walk in the door we start choosing our social groups. The ritual is refined. No one introduces himself, "Hi, I'm Larry. I self-identify as a gay black man."
Or do we?
There's always a lot of talk about the "Dartmouth Community." "Dartmouth Community" is the kind of term that should always appear surrounded by quotation marks because just as surely as we are all members of that community, we all know it is a complete farce.
The truth is that "Dartmouth Community" is actually just a euphemism for "a bunch of little, highly separated communities that interact on certain special occasions."
We don't do it consciously, but by senior year one looks around and realizes that he has surrounded himself with people whose "self identity" matches his own. Some people pick an identity first and friends second. Many, however, operate in the other direction: they enter college without an identity, find a group of friends, and adopt their identity.
The easiest (but by no means the only) place to notice this phenomenon is in the fraternity system. How many of the best men on this campus are the ones who joined a house with a solid sense of themselves? These are the guys whom you remark on, three years later, "He's the same great guy I knew freshman year."
Then there are the guys who you come to despise. Frequently, we remark that they have "changed." These are the men, initially lacking an identity, who found that a house provided a ready made identity.
However we come up with a "self identity," once formed it plays an overriding role in our life at the College. We cannot act without being tied to a particular community. "Are you speaking as an International Student or a black person?" "What do people back in your community think about this issue?"
Dartmouth's never ending assault on the individual makes this process of creating small communities necessary for survival. Almost anything that qualifies as a "community" on this campus would be more accurately described as a "support group."
In order to get by we need to surround ourselves with like-minded supportive people. Otherwise we are eaten alive by the masses.
Unfortunately this survival technique is also perfectly designed to ensure the ongoing existence of the very problem it is meant to solve. It is the Catch 22 that epitomizes Dartmouth: The broader community forces us into small groups, but in order to change anything about the broader community we must step above, or in many cases, reject that smaller support network.
Self-identity gives us a net to catch us when we fall. No one likes to work without a net, and yet any real change requires it. So how do you self-identify? Are you the kind of person who can work without a net?
