What right does anybody have to coerce/force anybody into having an identity?
,This is an old question from the attic. Just now it randomly occurred to me to wipe the dust off and present it in this forum. The only previous discussion I have had of it was, oh, a few minutes as a passenger in a car on an interstate many, many years ago.
Anyway, as probably almost every resident of every place on the surface of the Earth knows, 99% of us, if not all of us, are from the moment we are born forced by governments to have have an official identity. I do not know what it is like in, say, Mozambique, but I suspect that it is not much different from what we in the United States experience: a birth certificate with our official legal name, our official legal date of birth, and other official information is produced and given the force of the law--without our consent.
You know the rest of the story. Social Security numbers, photo ID's, etc. are issued and are officially, legally you. You--your own self; your own body, soul, etc.--doesn't seem to get much recognition under the law. It is that official, legal identity that you are forced to take that is recognized under the law. All sorts of rights and privileges--operating a motor vehicle on public roads; voting in elections; entering into contracts; etc.--are granted to that identity. Not granted to you. Granted to that legal identity that you were given without your consent. If you do not have documentation of that identity with you, you do not get those rights and privileges in some or all cases.
It feels like--and maybe legally it is reality and not a feeling--loans are not made to people. Loans, it seems, are made to identities. Some of them are fake. Some of them are stolen. The latter seems to be a fast-growing crime.
What I just said about loans can probably be said about a lot of things.
And, as most people reading this probably know, if you want to change anything about this identity thing that you have been forced to embrace, such as wanting to change your legal name, it involves a few or even many fees and legal hoops to jump through.
I have never identified (no pun intended) or thought of myself as a libertarian or anything like that, but the act of forcing people--without their consent in the case of newborns--to have some kind of arbitrary identity has always struck me as morally/ethically wrong. It seems like the work of oppressive tyrants trying to control and dominate people, not something appropriate in a society that believes in liberty.
Sure, the practice has its benefits. Easier to enforce laws and convict and punish criminals if they have an identity that you can easily track.
Somebody is probably going to say something like, "It is part of the social contract. If you want the benefits of social membership you have to go along with the requirements--as long as those requirements do not violate your natural, God-given rights". So let me get this straight: a newborn can consent to a social contract?
But consent, social contracts, etc. aside, when the people with authority force us to have an identity and carry documentation of it, and when they create and enforce policies that make that identity and documentation a requirement for rights and privileges, it feels like you are being forced to submit to surveillance. Rather than "Innocent until proven guilty" it feels like "A threat that must be constantly monitored and accounted for".
Any newborns--extremely gifted newborns with the ability to read--reading this? What the authorities are saying is that you, simply by being born, are a threat to other people's safety, a threat to the stability of the state, and a threat to those who are in power. How's that for the dignity that you supposedly have by being born human?
How can forcing/coercing people into arbitrary identities be considered morally good/right? How can forcing/coercing people into arbitrary identities be considered ethical?
Anyway, as probably almost every resident of every place on the surface of the Earth knows, 99% of us, if not all of us, are from the moment we are born forced by governments to have have an official identity. I do not know what it is like in, say, Mozambique, but I suspect that it is not much different from what we in the United States experience: a birth certificate with our official legal name, our official legal date of birth, and other official information is produced and given the force of the law--without our consent.
You know the rest of the story. Social Security numbers, photo ID's, etc. are issued and are officially, legally you. You--your own self; your own body, soul, etc.--doesn't seem to get much recognition under the law. It is that official, legal identity that you are forced to take that is recognized under the law. All sorts of rights and privileges--operating a motor vehicle on public roads; voting in elections; entering into contracts; etc.--are granted to that identity. Not granted to you. Granted to that legal identity that you were given without your consent. If you do not have documentation of that identity with you, you do not get those rights and privileges in some or all cases.
It feels like--and maybe legally it is reality and not a feeling--loans are not made to people. Loans, it seems, are made to identities. Some of them are fake. Some of them are stolen. The latter seems to be a fast-growing crime.
What I just said about loans can probably be said about a lot of things.
And, as most people reading this probably know, if you want to change anything about this identity thing that you have been forced to embrace, such as wanting to change your legal name, it involves a few or even many fees and legal hoops to jump through.
I have never identified (no pun intended) or thought of myself as a libertarian or anything like that, but the act of forcing people--without their consent in the case of newborns--to have some kind of arbitrary identity has always struck me as morally/ethically wrong. It seems like the work of oppressive tyrants trying to control and dominate people, not something appropriate in a society that believes in liberty.
Sure, the practice has its benefits. Easier to enforce laws and convict and punish criminals if they have an identity that you can easily track.
Somebody is probably going to say something like, "It is part of the social contract. If you want the benefits of social membership you have to go along with the requirements--as long as those requirements do not violate your natural, God-given rights". So let me get this straight: a newborn can consent to a social contract?
But consent, social contracts, etc. aside, when the people with authority force us to have an identity and carry documentation of it, and when they create and enforce policies that make that identity and documentation a requirement for rights and privileges, it feels like you are being forced to submit to surveillance. Rather than "Innocent until proven guilty" it feels like "A threat that must be constantly monitored and accounted for".
Any newborns--extremely gifted newborns with the ability to read--reading this? What the authorities are saying is that you, simply by being born, are a threat to other people's safety, a threat to the stability of the state, and a threat to those who are in power. How's that for the dignity that you supposedly have by being born human?
How can forcing/coercing people into arbitrary identities be considered morally good/right? How can forcing/coercing people into arbitrary identities be considered ethical?
Comments (18)
I think the ethical challenge is a bit of a softball though. Utilitarian ethics, for example, have no problem with this. The reality is that there is widespread coercion in social life - that's a big part of what society is.
I am hoping that this is the viewpoint of a very, very, very small minority in our population.
Regardless, though, the law is the law. Whether you feel it is wrong to identify you in a particular way makes little difference to its application. You either challenge it or change it or tolerate it.
And how else would you track everything that relates to you? "Here's my $1,000, Mr. Banker. I hope you remember my face when I come to get my money next year."
Like @Nils Loc said, the values of the parents and society are the potentially damaging aspects of identity, not the black and white pieces of identification that allow us to fairly participate in society.
Maybe we can do that in a community of 100 or 200. Once we expand communities beyond a few hundreds, our ability to remember names, faces, voices, gaits, social status, and so on fails.
It isn't having an identity that is problematic, it is tracking the actions of each person bearing a unique identity that is the problem. Governments do this, but this is done even more intensively by corporations.
Google, Bing, FaceBook, Twitter--all sorts of social media corporations track billions of us. Trans Union, Experian, Equifax and other credit reporting companies track billions of individuals; credit cards, email accounts, the unique number of your address on the internet, your cell phone, your social security number, your drivers license, your license plate, your trip through an airport--all enable intensive tracking, and many corporations track actions, if not the individual identity (but they could be connected if someone so desired).
What do they do with all this tracking data?
Mostly, it's used to facilitate commerce. XYZ Data Mining corporation isn't really all that interested in YOU, unless they are being paid to be interested in YOU, particularly. They gather data to move merchandise and services through the market. They want to extract every piece of loose change you've got. Hence, an infinity of banner and video ads, junk mail, robocalls, and more -- trying to get you to go buy, buy, buy. And, being suggestible, we do.
I find LLBean ads very seductive. Their stuff looks so good in their ads and on their web page. Some of it really is good, but one only needs so much stuff - good or not. But YOU, identity # 20934848390230498, need to get out there and buy it, or LLBean is just whistling in the wind -- and they don't like that.
Like others here mentioned, the gov't and especially corporations want to know every location and website you visit and every keystroke you type, practically. And if that is an exaggeration, it won't be for very much longer. It is almost accepted with a shrug. "Divide and conquer" is a perennial strategy. So is "define and control", which suggests that the first step to control someone or something is to name, label, categorize, and number it. To define is to limit. To feed personal data into a certain program, and it can map out someone's past, pinpoint their present reality, and very accurately predict their future better than any other method. But it all starts with the names and especially the numbers. Numbers are hard and scientific. There can be 90 John Brian Zanders, but only one with this particular social security number.
Imagine that you are alive back in the 1800s out on the American frontier. Your job is to help the gov't establish some control of the local Native tribe. You and your coworkers could just walk around with rifles drawn and try to control the tribe. Might be somewhat effective, if you knew exactly what you wanted to happen and how to communicate that. Or you could get out your pencil and paper and start counting. You act like a census taker and count everything and everyone. Getting names and assigning numbers. And so on. In a relatively short time, that tribe which was a complete mystery is now a known quantity. They have been counted, measured, and named. They have begun to be under control...
They don't.
They simply say, "We will call you..."
They do not say, "You will be identified as..."
Quoting Nils Loc
I have never heard of any parent saying to his/her child, "If you want to be a member of this household you will be identified as...and you will have documentation of it".
Quoting Nils Loc
It might be difficult enforcing a contract if one or more of the parties does not have an identity that can be tracked, but lack of identify does not necessarily mean that a person cannot enter a contract.
Furthermore, if I enter a contract with you and then destroy every documentation of my identity, is the contract then voided?
None of that answers the question: What right does anybody have to coerce/force anybody into having an identity?
What right does anybody have to create something, assign it to you without your consent, require you to possess documentation of it even if it is against your will, use it to monitor your behavior without your consent, hold you responsible for any transaction made with it by any person even if you did not consent to the transaction, and make you pay fees and jump through legal hoops if you want to change it?
Nobody is saying that official, legal identities should not exist. Such identities can be accepted voluntarily. The question is what right does anybody have to force anybody to involuntarily have an identity.
[b]"Middle Girl: Hi!
Professor: (jumping backwards) Aah!
Middle Girl: What's your name?
Professor: Oh, um, my name? My name is Professor! Professor Utonium! (he bows) Hello!
Girls (All): Hello, Professor Utonium! It's very nice to meet you!
Professor: It's very nice to meet you too! Umm.. what are your names?
Middle Girl: Well, you made us, so shouldn't you also name us?
Professor: Umm, okay! Ohh.. this is so cool! (kneeling down, hand on chin, gesturing to the middle girl.)
Well, now let's see ... because of your directness and opening right up to me, I think I'll call you ... Blossom!
[Blossom seems pleased, smiling brightly and holding her arms out in front of her. The blonde girl erupts in peals of giggles as the other two look at her in puzzlement.]
Professor: Well, aren't you all cute and bubbly! That's it! You'll be my little Bubbles! So, we have Blossom, Bubbles, and...
[Focus on the third girl, eager faced and blinking excitedly in anticipation of her christening.]
Professor: Mmm ... Buttercup! Because ... it also begins with a B!
[The eager smile evaporates into a dour frown, as Buttercup crosses her arms in front of her.]..."[/b]
Does that sound like a parent coercing a child into having an impersonal identity?
People don't consent to the social contract; it's an "as if" thing.
On the other hand, I used to be fascinated how in old movies like The Postman Always Rings Twice, John Garfield can just come walking up dusty from the road and get a job and a place to stay and there are no forms, no cards, no papers, no nothing. That kind of anonymity has mostly disappeared. Presumably it lives on in the underground and illegal economies, and can reappear sporadically in carnival circumstances, but not for us normies.
I don't know about personal identity such as "I think of myself as heterosexual". But with respect to impersonal identities, such as a Social Security number, an alternative is:
1.) They are always taken voluntarily.
2.) In the case of public things such as Social Security, those who voluntarily take an identity and those who do not are always treated equally. If you do not want to take an identity such as a 9-digit number and your face is not enough for the government to work with, they can use your fingerprints to identify you. The latter is not creating something arbitrary and assigning it to you. Meanwhile, I suppose that somebody could find a way to replicate your fingerprints and commit fraud, but surely it would not be nearly as easy as stealing a 9-digit number.
Quoting Roke
But people living in liberal democracies set limits. People in the U.S. are upset that the Affordable Care Act forces them to purchase a commodity, health insurance, from the marketplace, and feel like it violates their constitutional rights.
I am saying that I think that a government telling you, without your consent, "You will from this point forward be identified as...", is overreach just like some people feel that the ACA individual mandate is overreach.
Privacy often provides the space where crimes are committed.
The irony is that it is likely people in those informal economies / black markets who are doing most of the stealing of the identities that governments create and force us to have.
Oh yeah. In fact stealing and using or selling an identity is criminal as such, I assume.
That's really interesting, how the system creates the opportunity for violating some of its terms by following others.
Do we have a right not to identify ourselves? I don't remember anything about that. Even if we do, it may in a given case be outweighed by another social interest. (I'm just talking legally.)
They do not say, "You will be identified as..."[/quote]
I guess your are invoking some likely average (normal) parental conduct in affluent Western countries. Whose parents are you talking about specifically? Yours? Do any parents actually let their children pick their names?
In old societies a name might indicate and perpetuate status or social class. What might you think of a new born child whose first name is Trump? Might it provide a clue about his parents. Is there injustice in the mere accidental associations of a name.
Just like kids (peers) on the playground say, 'we will call you fag' as opposed to 'you will be identified as fag'. I can see the latter in this context is worse if it sets up enduring discrimination based on institutional or tribal lines, as if there were some Lord of the Flies like emergent hierarchy. If for instance my peers tattooed or branded 'fag' on my body or forced me to wear a t shirt that said 'fag' on it, this is an even greater injustice if other kids can't form their own opinions about my character.
There was a kid at school with the name, Gaman. His parents said, we will call you Gaman, properly pronounced like "gay man." He got a lot of flak for this and ended up using a different pronunciation when introducing himself.