Identity and World Unity

Identity, as both the organizing principle of the present world order and a major factor in individuals’ social interactions, is a powerful force in shaping and driving the world. It is also considered one of the greatest blocks to the formation of a world union, in that most individuals’ attachment to their particular groups is so strong that they do not identify with the whole of humanity. However, the nature of group identification as it exists now itself has many shortcomings, which the pursuit of world unity can help reform. This will enable the advantages of world unity to be realized, while also enabling a more positive form of identity.

It is first important to clarify that an identity is primarily a means of exclusion in society and not inclusion into a community. Whenever a person identifies themselves with a social identity, they are not just making themselves part of one group but also isolating from the rest of society. Since no identity group comprises a majority of humanity, the inclusion is directed towards a much smaller number than the alienation from ‘others’ that comes with it. Perhaps in the past they may have had a more inclusive role when there were limited interactions among people, but in the global era their separation aspect is much more salient in politics. In the present, nations and other identities do not bring together isolated individuals so much as they divide the world.

This exclusive nature is exacerbated by the present world order, which is based on the core principle of humanity’s division into national identities. This world system is one where identity groups are pitted against each other in perpetual hostility and competition. Nations are the institutionalization of some of the worst aspects of social identity—hatred, xenophobia, and militarism. Humanity should seriously be considering alternatives to this order to shift to a more positive conception of identity based on more inclusion, harmony, and peace. By this I mean not the pluralist-relativist vision of recognizing and bringing all identities into politics, but rather one where identities and their interactions are separated from and subjected to political authority.

An individual’s membership in a group should be a free choice, not an imposition by society. Because they form such a major component of an individual's social interaction, it is greatly important for people to have the right to choose which groups (or none) they want to be a part of. To force individuals into a set of largely hereditary and unchangeable identities is a monstrous tyranny perpetuated by society and the nation-based system, for it greatly limits people’s freedom of social interaction. Rather than spending a lifetime bound by structures one never made a rational choice to join, individuals can enjoy a much more positive identification with groups of their choice.

When identities are determined by society rather than the individual, they may also become a baggage that the person is forced to carry in their social interactions. One of the major forms of this baggage is marginalization, being made to suffer discrimination, persecution, and injustice because of identity. Added to this is the effect of stereotypes and prejudices, overshadowing people’s interaction with others and forcing them to live up to social expectations for that identity. A third form is the attribution of ‘collective responsibility’ or guilt, whereby society considers all people of an identity to be responsible for acts committed by members in that identity’s name. To free individuals from the burden of identities that constrain or negatively impact them, the nature of identity must be reformed, by both making them voluntary and separating them from politics.

A world government is an important step towards developing this positive conception of identity, by creating a universal political order independent of identity groups. In a world union identities are to be only social units, not political ones; by separating them from political power we can ensure that their negative aspects are restricted and their positives encouraged. In a sense identities are to go from being ‘wild’, as in the national order with othering and sovereignty, to ‘domesticated’, being subjected to a global political order that supersedes them for the greater good. Political integration goes hand in hand with social integration, and world unification will also help to create a cosmopolitan community beyond identity alienation.

A world government is also necessary to preserve the important right of having no identity, which is key to ensuring that identities do not tyrannize the individual. For those burdened with the baggage of unwanted identities, individualists, and cosmopolitans, the freedom to have no identity and still have political status and rights is as essential as group identity is to those who identify with it. Just as communitarians do not like to have their identities suppressed, they also have no right to impose them on others, and it is only through a political order independent of identities (a world government) that the rights of both can equally be preserved.

The utility people derive from identification is purely imaginary, in that it is psychological and non-material. However the world structure that has developed around it also prevents us from realizing so much material utility. I do not make any judgement as to whether the overall balance is in favour of identities or not—but there is scope for increasing the total sum of utility by changing the nature of the imaginary portion. By embracing a cosmopolitan world community instead of exclusive identities, humans can continue to receive most if not all (or more) of the benefits of identification, while also opening up the vast potential of unity to improve the conditions of humanity.

Under a world government national identities can remain in the social sphere like the other cleavages, but there is no need to make any special efforts to preserve them politically or socially. While many other proposals for global government and federalism seek to retain nations as constituent units, perhaps they are best left in the past. If a positive form of identification is to be achieved, then perhaps nothing is more important than to secure the separation of nation and state. And since identity groups are purely imaginary themselves, there is no harm if they fade away and are replaced by world unity. I do not support, and find no need for, persecuting identity groups, but if independent social processes lead to their decline then there is no cause for regret.

The ‘soullessness’ objection often crops up in discussion around world government: that world unity, by bringing an end to the concept of group identities, will plunge humanity into a soulless existence, forced to conform to an overbearing universality with no scope for diversity. But are group identities the only thing in life? There is much more to human existence than them, and the vast richness of humanity shall continue to thrive under a world union, possibly even better when identities play a more positive role in the world than under the present order.

Instead it is extreme communitarianism, of the sort assumed by this argument, that is truly soulless. For it presupposes that group identities are all-important and should determine much of an individual’s life; they are the soul if life without them is considered soulless. Both descriptively and normatively, individuals are considered to be subsumed under groups for identity and social status; some even go so far as to say that an individual’s identity exists only through groups. In its extremity communitarianism has no scope for individuality and anything ‘personal’; its ideal would be a community of clones with no existence or personality beyond the groups.

As an alternative to exclusive identification I am advocating neither communitarianism extended to the global level nor anarchist individualism. Rather it is individual freedom in matters of identity which is to be upheld through the pursuit of a world union—the freedom to choose individualism or collectivism, the freedom to choose whether to be part of an identity group or not, and the freedom to be a member of society independent of identity status. This liberty comes alongside an allegiance to the universal collective of humanity, embracing a cosmopolitan identity and extending the community and benefits of identification to all people. Human beings are so much more than group identities and have so much in common beyond them, and it is through world unity that the individual, the part, and the whole can all attain their rightful place.