Issues of Identity in a Social Sea

Identity is a complex issue that entails the problem of personal identity/free will bound up within a social system that we depend upon for our survival. Culture has many strengths and weaknesses. Its primary strength is its capacity for change and adaptation. The psychological security that culture brings us is a strength and weakness, as anxiety around deviating from tradition can calcify it, rendering it obsolete and averse to necessary innovation. Orienting oneself in the sea of perception and social arbitration is a daunting task, but language offers a ray of sunlight into the stream that…