A Disformative Identity

Abstract

The present article introduces and substantiates the notion of a “disformative identity” which is new for sciences of man. It discusses the etiology, the mecha­nism of origin and the development of the dysfunctional forms of identity. The most obvious feature of the disformative identification is that it is realized not within the holistic motivation but at the level of particular actions or even simple acts. Moreover, in all its alternatives, these are acts the meaning of which, by different means, realizes the significance of protection from fear and anomie that is not related to them directly. And a complex motivation of activity turns into a (not always coherent) chain of target within the structure of the satisfac­tion of not complex but archaic needs. Their distinctive features are following: the reduction of a multivalued motivation to simplified actions or operations, the instantaneity and simplicity of performance, the tendency to lose one’s per­sonal responsibility, and the illusion of an easy and convincing determination of one’s own stable position in the symbolic chronotope. It is principal that the emergence of the disformative forms of identification represents not only “inno­cent” diffuse and blurred forms of self-identification but also “hyperidentity”. The latter is intolerant, rigid and aggressive displays/manifestations: radicalism, fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism. The disformative identity is not a simple deficient version of the normal identity but a sophisticated adaptive structure embodied through the building of compensatory forms of identifica­tion. Types of the disformative identity are distinguished and described. Gene­ralising the complexity and multi-variability of the consequences of the cultural-historical transformation of the postmodern world, the authors make the conclu­sion that the distinctive feature of that world is the degradation of complicated identification models that reaches dysfunctional aggressive and pathological forms.