Let us imagine a scenario. Dorian Gray faces a wall. On the left
hand side is the portrait of Dorian Gray himself, disfigured by the
ravages of life and time and on the right hand side, a mirror
reflecting his beautiful pristine face. Dorian Gray slashes the portrait
in self disgust with the same weapon he used to murder its creator,
the artist. At that point the position is reversed. The corpse takes on
the visage of the portrait and the portrait returns to the unblemished
image. Where does identity lie? In the observing Dorian Gray? In
the portrait? In the mirror image? In the corpse? In the mind of the
artist? The reader? The scene raises many the common questions
about the nature of identity . What does it take to
persist from one time to another? What is necessary and sufficient for
some past or future being to be you or I? What does it take or mean to
be you or I? When did we begin? What will happen when we die?
Most of the major figures in philosophy have discussed these
issues which can be partitioned as follows; arising from time, change
and impermanence; from concern with uniqueness or separateness - can we
sensibly speak of a single observing being; concern with authenticity,
when identity, is represented and reproduced as in the Dorian Gray
scenario; concern with the extent to which it is manufactured, altered
or manipulated in society. Such a list of issues is immensely
intimidating: so much so that to attempt to tackle them in an essay such
as this, invites parody; attempting a thumbnail sketch of the meaning
of life.
The essay is not concerned with problems of being identified
with but with the identity in relation to being itself.
Identity in the sense of gender, class, nationality or race is being identified
with something else: nor is it concerned with collective identity
and its construction, but with identity in the sense of being.
Identity in the sense of being, that is,the existence of an
observing consciousness, is taken for granted. Yet as Heidegger points
out, the history of philosophy is the history of the forgetfulness
of being (Heidegger, 1996). Being is like nothing, an empty
category, the copula is. Identity in the sense of being identified
with (with something else), is in contradiction to identity as being.
Iago interprets identity through a conundrum, I am what I am:
an affirmation. Iago the trickster could equally have said I am
not what I am.
The paper continues, in section 2, by developing the
relationship between two streams of thought, first postmodernism or
post structuralism and second mysticism through the respective
processes of deconstruction and unveiling or using the sufi term
tajalli . Their approaches to the
problem of identity in the sense of being (rather than being
identified with), are surprisingly similar. Both are
related to the concept of multiple planes (or levels) of being. In
deconstruction, as in mysticism, planes of being are planes of
understanding. Section 3 follows the idea of multiple levels of being
through to the concept of synchronicity in Jung and Swedenborg’s notion of correspondences:
understanding of both hangs on the existence representations of one
level of being in another. Deconstruction and tajalli are concerned
with uncovering implicit hierarchies, or organizing principles rooted
in representations on one plane of being that condition and distort
understanding of correspondences with other planes and the existence of
synchronistic relationships between planes of being. In section 4 we
outline the context of the essay, Kronos capitalism . Facing the dilemma of
its own dynamism and success capitalism, as a self adaptive system, has
evolved a system of manufacturing identity in the form of signs and
symbols designed to ensure that endless stream production and
reproduction is consumed or devoured: hence Kronos capitalism. Kronos
capitalism is itself a correspondence. Manufacturing identity confronts
us with the problem of loss of identity: a sense that Havel (1996)
describes as going through a transitional period, when it seems
that something is on the way out and something is on the way in,
a cusp or critical point which he describes a postmodernism.
Section 5 concludes the paper.
The conundrum, the affirmation/negation of identity is
approached in the context of evolutionary capitalism. The evolution of
societies, organizations and science has progressed further than
evolution within the person. One of the themes of the paper is that
this has become an urgent issue. Mystical disciplines have well
developed methodologies that address personal evolution by
deconstructing or unveiling identity by revealing different levels or
planes of being: a process summarised by know yourself. It
is appropriate to introduce these methodologies into the study of
organizations and business.
One of the objectives of this paper is to point to the
contribution of mystical sciences to understanding identity in modern
capitalism which we term Kronos capitalism. Capitalism suffers from
the dilemma of its own success. Driven by and driving science and
technological change in a self adaptive or self reinforcing mechanism,
it is constantly challenged by the threat of over production.
Capitalism has responded in the manner we might expect from a self
adaptive system, by the manufacture of identity, for its own purposes:
conspicuous consumption and demonstration effects; being identified with
status and position in society (Veblen, 1899). Capitalism has evolved
from production of use and exchange value through to mechanical
reproduction and the performance of formerly purely cognitive tasks by
information technology and eventually to the manufacture of signs and
symbols in order to forge an unbreakable link between consumption and
production. A new version of Says law of markets emerges in which
demand is identified with supply. Symbols and signs are jointly
produced with objects, symbols which signify a mix of anxiety and
eroticism, supplying need which is satiated by devouring the objects:
satiated, that is temporarily, until a new set of objects and symbols
emerge. Identity is manufactured in the marriage of consumption and
production; a modern conjunctio in which birth (production and
reproduction), and death (consumption) are united in marriage (of
production and consumption). Thus we have the phenomenon of Kronos
capitalism; emerging from the need of capitalism, like Kronos, to devour
its own reproductions in order to survive.
The Dorian Gray scenario or text is an illustration of the lack
of a single identity; across space, time and planes of being. The
scenario also illustrates that the many representations of identity
disguise identity which exists at some other level of being.
Postmodernity or perhaps we should say poststructuralism and the
process of deconstruction, in the denial of meta narratives, uncover the
lack of a single identity. The foundations of mystical traditions are
that what we habitually perceive as reality, including the reality of a
unique and separate identity, is an illusion and that knowledge of
reality is brought about by abandoning the structures and hierarchies
of thought that condition perception. There are many different
techniques for achieving this. In Sufism the technique is known as
tajalli, or unveiling: structures and hierarchies of thought in fact
veil reality. Tajalli or unveiling is a process in mysticism closely
corresponding to deconstruction.
