The Wandering Who: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics by Gilad Atzmon Read Free Book Online

embarrassing fact that unmediated awareness is actually hard to conceive. Human beings, it appears, do ‘belong to language’. Language is out there before one comes to the world. Once one enters the realm of language, a separating wall made of symbolic linguistic bricks and cultural mortar blocks one’s access to any possible ‘unmediated awareness’. Can we think without applying language? Can we experience at all without the mediation of language?
    Admittedly, we are capable of feeling desire while dreaming or being overwhelmed by beauty, but then, as soon as we think it through, we find ourselves entangled in a process of naming. As soon as we name, the alleged ‘unmediated’ is lost forever. Once within the realm of language, our perception of the world is shaped by meanings and symbols that are not uniquely ours. It would seem that a comprehensive authentic awareness is unattainable. If this is indeed the case, there is no longer room to talk about identity in terms of a genuine expression of a ‘real-self’. As soon as we name, we surrender to language. Hence, looking into oneself can never reveal an authentic identity.
    Alternatively, we may be able to think of identity as a set of ideas, narratives, ‘thinking modes’ or behavioural code. But then rather than really talking in terms of a genuine ‘self-awareness’, we are proceeding into a new territory. Consequently we identify with ideas, narratives, thinking modes, certain worldviews, perceptions, physical identifiers and so on. But then we must also accept that ‘identity’ refers to ‘identification’. Instead of any form of true authentic ‘self seeking,’ we are engaged in some sort of affiliation. The notion of identity, which is so crucial for post-modernists, identity politics and marginal theoreticians, isnothing but a myth or a fantasy. When we refer to ‘marginal identity’, what we really mean is a form of identification. Thus, being homosexual is not enough to turn one into a ‘gay’. While being homosexual refers to sexual preference being a ‘gay’ is a form of (marginal) identification i.e. a powerful affinity to a group rather than to the self.
    Seemingly, the marginal subject cannot define itself by its own means. It is defined by negation. It is defined by an existing symbolic order. Rather than finding a ‘real self’, it is an exchange with the world, which brings identity politics to life. When talking about identity we refer to an axis of identification: at one pole we find the elusive notion of authenticity produced by a myth of unmediated self-awareness, at the other pole we find a state of estrangement that is achieved by identification (a conceptual or symbolic affinity). Thus, the search for one’s genuine identity should be associated with utter misery: the more one searches for one’s authentic self the more one is engaged in the process of identification that will eventually lead to complete alienation. Here I turn to Lacan’s subversive twist on Descartes’ cogito , in which ‘I think therefore I am’ becomes ‘You are where you do not think.’ If anything, thinking removes one from oneself.
    Identity Politics and Marginal Philosophies
    The statement: ‘I look into myself and see a Zionist, a gay, a woman, a nation, a watermelon,’ and so on, really means: I identify with Zionism, gays, women, certain politics and so on. Once we think, we are already defeated by the dictatorial power of language. Marginal communities and identity political discourses are generally very sensitive to the power of language, and this is probably the reason why a substantial amount of marginal political effort is dedicated to imposing lingual restrictions within the mainstream discourse (usually in the name of political correctness, liberalism and even tolerance).
    This is also likely to be why marginal communities are so creative in their use of language. The Zionists’ relationship with the resurrected Hebrew