Buddhist Perspectives on Identity:
The Toxicity of 'Who I Am'"
with Stephen Walker
Kibbitznest Liberal Arts Discussions are a collaboration with
The University of Chicago Graham School
to host presentations and discussions of original research.
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Contemporary Americans inhabit a culture that is fascinated by the individual—by the claims that I can make on others, and that others can make on me, simply in virtue of each person’s being who and what they are. Our moral debates presuppose that individual rights are the basis of politics, our social worlds encourage us to present ourselves as distinctive personalities who express their unique points of view and preferences, and we seldom think that punishing someone for “who they are” is appropriate. “Who or what I am” commands a kind of instantaneous respect: it’s my best protection and my deepest resource.
From a classical Buddhist perspective, this preoccupation with selfhood and identity marks our culture as intensely pathological. Buddhist theorists argue that the question of “who or what I am” is ultimately incoherent, and they’d draw attention to the relentless anxiety and breakdowns in personal connection that go hand-in-hand with our futile attempts at answering it. The quest to be a stable and commanding self, for this perspective, is an understandable but deeply mistaken response to the all-pervasive fact of suffering; like more commonly recognized addictions, it makes that suffering worse instead of better. Tonight we’ll explore the distinctively Buddhist idea that, in order to relieve suffering intelligently, we need to forget all about “whose” suffering it is—that we should help people not because “they are” a certain way that commands some kind of respect, but simply because (as we already know) suffering is horrible.
STEPHEN WALKER:
STEPHEN C. WALKER holds a PhD in the Philosophy of Religions from the University of Chicago Divinity School. His research focuses on classical Chinese thought—particularly Daoism and the Zhuangzi—and explores the relationship between skeptical, relativistic, and anti-realist theoretical claims and the practical consequences of taking such claims seriously. He has also worked extensively with Sanskrit materials, particularly those reflecting the classical heritage of exacting interreligious debate. Interests that inform his writing and teaching include the personal and social contexts for philosophical work, the ambiguity and malleability of concepts, and the importance of learning to appreciate both insider and outsider perspectives on texts and traditions.
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