3/ Step 1: temporarily drop/suspend all the labels you apply to yourself: liberal, conservative, alt-right, NRx, bleeding heart hippie...
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Replying to @vgr
4/ Step 2: WRITE DOWN the story of your life in terms of events that shaped your political consciousness. Mine: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/11/10/king-ruinous-and-the-city-of-darkness/ …
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Replying to @vgr
5/ That's 14,000 words that you will not be able to reduce into a simple position or set of labels. That's what happens when you unbundle.
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Replying to @vgr
6/ Trust me, it's a hugely cathartic thing and it will make you realize that you're not as one-dimensional as you think.
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Replying to @vgr
7/ That story, whether it is 500 words or 14000 words like mine, or a painting or whatever, is not your real identity either but...
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Replying to @vgr
8/ It is the "source code" of your social identity model rather than the social identity "UI" that you present to others.
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9/ I guarantee you will find big things you share with people your labels "otherize" and things you don't with people you share labels with
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Replying to @vgr
10/ Does this mean we're all complex, precious snowflake people knowable only by our life stories? No, this story is your wave function.
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Replying to @vgr
11/ Pragmatism demands that you collapse that wave function into labels that inform the praxis of your political life.
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Replying to @vgr
12/ You may very well return from this exercise with *hardened* identity as "hard left" or "hard alt-right" and that's actually okay
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13/ Key is to not mistake "map" of your social identity defined by your labels for the "territory" of that identity defined by your story
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Replying to @vgr
14/ If you are (say) a Moldbug-fan alt-righter based on just reading essays with no introspection, I won't take your self-model seriously
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Replying to @vgr
15/ But if it's a result of a process of unbundling/rebundling I described, I will take your performed identity as a good faith one
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End of conversation
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