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Who am I?

Without getting philosophical (that's for later)--

Ok never mind, I need to get philosophical.

When one asks the question "who are you?" you start with your name. In many cultures, names contain oftentimes profound meaning. For example, in the Chinese language, each word is signified by an individual character. In English, this is less so. My name "Luc" was given primarily because my Dad would not go for anything else. Also, Luke is the name of one of the four Gospel writers. I believe Luke Skywalker also influenced my naming. 

For many in the West, names are chosen based off familiarity or the desire to pass something down: a grandparent's name, a famous American hero, or, as with my Dad, simply because that's all he'd go for. 

In the East, traditional morals and ethics have survived to a larger degree than in the West. In Japan, for example, the younger bows to his/her elder, such as a parent or grandparent. Even an aunt or uncle! Roles of the family are clearly laid out, even as modernization still sweeps the nations of the East just as the West. I could find a bunch of data and graphs, but for the sake of this argument, let's assume that the common sense notion of "the East is more traditional than the West" stands true.

Why is family relevant here? Your parents give your name. This begs a question: to what extent to Western parents think, or care, or are merely ignorant of, naming? How about a better question: does the West value the family?

What does family mean? Forget Merriam-Webster's definition: the family is the unit containing the role of parent(s) and child(ren). The family is the unit in which a parent-child relationship exists. Sun Myung Moon, after meditating on the essence of the universe, came to the conclusion that "the fundamental essence of the universe is the parent-child relationship."

The starting point of identity is one's name (here, we're talking about the answer given by the average person, not the philosopher who writes volumes on the existential question of identity). Parents, by definition, are those who produce a child. It makes sense that the parents give the child the first marker of their identity. This reveals another aspect to the answer of "who am I": I am the product of my parents. That's a technical definition. A child is made up of entirely the substance of his/her parents (mostly the mother, to be fair). 

Who I am is tied to my parents, my family. Now, if my name is not significant, do I have value? Of course! But do we, as a collective West, value family?

The father away from family the West goes, "who am I" becomes that more difficult to answer.

We see it all around us. Since the 1960s, when the Nuclear Family ceased to be so commonplace, more and more babies are put up for adoption, more babies are aborted, more babies have a baby-daddy or mommy rather than a Father and Mother. What about babies born out of teenage pregnancy? Are those children, and families, valued as they should be by their creators? Doesn't seem like it. And, so, these children's names are given arbitrarily, and their value in the West far less than it should be.

Who am I? My victimhood. My sexuality. My race (the arbitrary category given by racist European explorers). My career. My body count. None of these answers are working!

But we know identity based on the parent-child relationship worked. 

Despite all the problems of the past, the one thing our ancestors, despite the intense racism, sexism, war, poverty, starvation, and disease that constituted their problems, the one thing people in the past did not struggle with nearly as much was the question "who am I." To them, who am I meant family, culture, religion, and nation. All things beyond the individual.

Now, all these problems are being addressed actively. But the problem of identity is getting worse. How to we solve this growing problem?

Return to the family. Make your name mean something beyond yourself. When you go beyond yourself, you begin to serve others, live for others.

I am Luc Jean, of the Jean family, an American Unificationist seeking Truth by studying history, religion, and philosophy. I hope you enjoy these posts, and hope you leave your comments, agreements, and disagreements.