Who Do You Permit to Define You?

Most of us have heard some version of the adage, "Show me your company and I'll tell you who you are" whose elusive roots have been attributed to sources as diverse as the Bible and Vladimir Lenin.  In America, prior to the end of the 20th century the "who you are" mostly concerned one's moral standing.  Interlocutors wanted to know who could and could not be trusted, for instance.  In your great-grandparents' day, average citizens rarely were interested in details regarding minutiae of your sexuality or politics. That did not seem important to most of them.  By default, people passively were accepted as having some complex qualities and preferences that were "nobody else's business."

That attitude promoted cultural norms that encouraged accepting people as they were in the here-and-now.  A new acquaintance need not pass some overarching litmus test that incorporated a host of criteria about irrelevant personal preferences, such as gender beliefs or political affiliation. Individuals were free to isolate their gender and political ideas to the interactions with the few people in the few places where those issues were relevant and timely. Accordingly, Americans were comfortable in the company of persons with whom they chose to interact because they presumed that they did not need to pass a comprehensive, generic personality test in order to be accepted as a “good person.”  You could disclose to others what you wanted to, and keep private that which you did not want to disclose. No one feature of your being defined the totality of you.

Sadly, the freedom to be yourself in all your complexity increasingly has been under assault; no doubt in large part due to the internet in general and to social media in particular.  Few people today are willing and/or able to avoid deliberately or inadvertently revealing aspects of their identity that some powerful person or group will condemn.  The condemnation often is due to one small feature of your being that causes you to be saddled with a negative, global stereotype.

Some social psychologists refer to the problem as the attributing of a negative "mega-identity."  Your mega-identity was not your sole, autonomous creation.  It was crafted by adherence to rules dictated by so-called influencers, such as politicians, actors, or sports figures.  Mega-identity defines you not only by your attitudes toward political parties and gender but also such factors as race, religion, geographic location, and more.  Once you are labeled, some people will condemn or support you, regardless of the totality of your being; “your company” will define you in ways your great-grandparents never could have imagined.