Closed Identities

The recent mass shootings have hit me kind of hard. We are averaging over one per day. And there is absolute refusal by our lawmakers to do anything about it. But they seem to have no problem acting on other so-called “threats” to children — like banning books, drag shows, and who knows what else. And it’s not just lawmakers who fall into this — there are regular people too who take this approach to events. The complete disregard for actual danger to children’s lives, but an intense attention on other things that are not a danger to children.

Rational arguments go no where. That’s because we aren’t dealing with rationality. We’re at a deeper level. We’re dealing with emotional and identity issues. These don’t have to make sense. They don’t have to be congruent. They don’t have to be logical at all. In fact, most of the time they aren’t.

Identity is something that people have that helps them understand who they are in the world and how they interact with the world around them. That’s my definition anyway. Some people have pretty healthy identities and others are not so healthy.

Some of these unhealthy identities are what I call closed identities. These are people who have determined that their identity is such that it needs extra protection from the rest of the world. These folks are not open to listening, considering, or growth. They aren’t interested and see no value and sometimes don’t have the capacity to do critical thinking or self-examination. They know what they know and have no desire to change that. They have built a…