Right but part of identity is our relationships to other people. If I get Alzheimerās disease and forget who my mother is, sheās still my mother even though I no longer remember her.
Right but part of identity is our relationships to other people. If I get Alzheimerās disease and forget who my mother is, sheās still my mother even though I no longer remember her.
damnedfurry@lemmy.world āØ3ā© āØweeksā© ago
I wouldnāt agree, simply because I consider relationships as existing between people, not within them individually, and more as āfacts of the matterā, as opposed to immutable aspects of individuals themselves. But again, this is simply a disagreement on the definition of āidentityā. Iām not saying your definition is wrong, but it obviously is different.
A familial connection is a fact about someoneās lineage, but it is no more a part of someoneās identity than to the extent that that individual chooses to make it so. If I was adopted and have never met the woman who birthed me, then yes, sheās still my mother even though I never knew her. But that being a fact has no inherent relationship to my identity. The same is true if I was raised by my birth mother but am now estranged, and she has no part of/in my lifeāsheāll always literally be my mother, but in this case, her existence is no part of my identity any longer.
Nonconsensual trauma that alters oneās sense of self against oneās will is the only thing that muddies this water at all, I think, but even in a case like that, it is only from within that whatever degree (whether zero or nonzero) those events shape oneās identity, can change.