Retro Redux: Social Identity
I owe thanks to my kind mentor and collaborator Nick Burningham for making an observation about the “Retro” piece that led directly to this one. In the last one, I stuck to individual technological choices, made without explicit reference to what Nick called “social identity.” It almost goes without saying that technological choice as connected to social identity deserves at least as much consideration, so here goes.
As a student of vernacular and artisanal watercraft, Nick observed that, in Indonesia, one could, with enough experience, identify which island—or even village—a perahu (traditional sailing craft) came from, as the styles varied from village to village and island to island. That traditional artisanal crafts, learned by apprenticeship, are distinctive to certain regions or locales is universal; the question I want to consider is: what does it mean if we say that these technological choices are connected to “social identity”?
When a fourteen-year-old picks out clothes, hairstyle, music—really anything involving personal taste—chances are high that those choices are made primarily with the goal in mind of fitting in to a pre-established social group, for whom those items of personal taste are distinguishing identifiers. So, in that case, any related technological choice that takes place is made primarily for peer-group conformity. Some fourteen-year-olds may consciously choose such items so as to distinguish themselves as distinctly as possible from a dominant peer group. By doing so, they may well be identifying themselves with another, perhaps smaller, peer group.
Artisanal craft is different, though I want to explore how much. The apprentice learns the craft that the master is equipped to teach—which is the tradition that the master learned as an apprentice, with perhaps some tweaks and adaptations made along the way (those are important; I don’t mean to gloss over them, but they are tangential to the discussion here). The apprentice, then, is not making a technological choice primarily for peer-group conformity, as the middle-schooler does. That is not to say that the apprentice is not accomplishing peer-group conformity by that choice—in all likelihood, he is. The primary purpose of his choice, though, is to learn a trade, and how that will work is dictated to him by his master. Once he chooses a master (if that is indeed his choice, and not one made for him), he has chosen the type or style of perahu or earthenware or viola he is going to learn to make.
So far, then, we have two distinct primary motivations for technological choices that connect to social identity: 1) peer-group conformity; 2) learning a trade. The second necessarily involves becoming a member of a peer-group of artisans plying that same trade, in that same way—perhaps a guild, in medieval Europe, a craft or trade union, or something less formalized. But, in such cases, belonging to the peer group is not the primary motivation.
Perhaps one way to generalize this distinction is to say that we can use technological choice for the primary purpose of manipulating our social identity, or we can make a technological choice that affects our social identity, perhaps drastically, but with another primary purpose.
An example I proposed to Nick was that of Harley-Davidson riders in the U.S. versus members of car clubs. While I’m sure this is not universally true, it seems to me that Harley-Davidson ownership is a “lifestyle,” complete with social functions and peer groups and distinctive dress, and that some who make the choice to buy Harley-Davidson over another brand of motorcycle do so because they want to belong to this group and adopt that “lifestyle”. By contrast, I joined the regional Jaguar Club because I’m interested in Jaguar cars and hope to own one, not because I saw the Club as a peer group or “lifestyle” I wanted for myself. I am sure that, for some, it works the other way around. And, as Nick pointed out, I could want a Jaguar because I want to be seen as the sort of person who drives a Jaguar, and that’s an important point; I haven’t necessarily removed social identity from this scenario. “Badge prestige” is indeed an interesting facet of technological choice in cars, and one commonly brought up in car reviews of luxury marques. When Lexus first came out—and, now, with Genesis—reviews of those cars always mention that they will only appeal to buyers who are not looking for badge prestige; those buyers will not consider a relatively unknown brand as an alternative to the (more expensive) established luxury marques, even if they offer comparable—or even superior—technical benefits.
Technological choices, then, can be made with social identity as a primary motivation for those choices, as with some Harley-Davidson riders, or they can reflect social identity that already exists, as with Indonesian perahu. In societies with less mobility and less mass marketing, I would expect to find more of the latter. Advertisers routinely appeal to both the urge to conform to a peer group and the desire for an appealing “lifestyle” in attempting to influence our technological choices. They are not about to leave all the “heavy lifting” of selling a contrivance to its technical characteristics as compared to its competition—compelling though those might be. They want us to believe that their product will serve our need for social identity better than their competitors’.
What’s the point? That the better we understand why we—and others—make technological choices, the better chance we stand of making the best ones—whether as individuals or societies. I also hope it’s apparent that considering what’s behind those choices makes us aware of aspects of our nature and social conditioning that act upon us in all sorts of ways, not just in the technological choices we make.