Holding and Letting Go: The Social Practice of Personal Identities

by Hilde Lindemann

The social practice of forming, shaping, expressing, contesting, and maintaining personal identities makes human interaction, and therefore society, possible. Our identities give us our sense of how we are supposed to act and how we may or must treat others, so how we hold each other in our identities is of crucial moral importance. To hold someone in her identity is to treat her according to the stories one uses to make sense of who she is. Done well, holding allows individuals to flourish personally and in their interactions with others; done poorly, it diminishes their self-respect and restricts their participation in social life. If the identity is to represent accurately the person who bears it, the tissue of stories that constitute it must continue to change as the person grows and changes. Here, good holding is a matter of retaining the stories that still depict the person but letting go of the ones that no longer do. The book begins with a puzzling instance of personhood,
where the work of holding someone in her identity is tragically one-sided. It then traces this work of holding and letting go over the human life span, paying special attention to its implications for bioethics. A pregnant woman starts to call her fetus into personhood. Children develop their moral agency as they learn to hold themselves and others in their identities. Ordinary adults hold and let go, sometimes well and sometimes badly. People bearing damaged or liminal identities leave others uncertain how to hold and what to let go. Identities are called into question at the end of life, and persist after the person has died. In all, the book offers a glimpse into a fascinating moral terrain that is ripe for philosophical exploration.

Genres: Philosophy

242 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Tommy Erickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written and thought-provoking book, but it falls short in its treatment of transgender identities. The suggestion that transgender people hold an "impossible identity" is deeply problematic, as it frames their existence as inherently deceptive, relying on society's prejudices rather than challenging them. Lindemann's fourth criterion for holding identities—requiring a reaction from others—does not account for the harm caused by reducing marginalized people’s identities to the biases of those around them. If this criterion were applied universally, it would also diminish the humanity of other groups, as evidenced by her chapter on abortion, which risks portraying women as second-class citizens. While Lindemann shows significant compassion for white women and their struggles, the same understanding is notably absent for transgender individuals and other marginalized groups. This lack of intersectionality undermines the otherwise insightful nature of the book.

[Reichnekov · Rating 4 out of 5]

DISCLAIMER: Only read chapters 1 and 3 for class.

Lindemann has something useful to say here in this book about holding and letting go of identities even if her prose is not the most creative. Her first chapter is about personhood, and I think it is weakly written. Chapter 3, however, is a must-read.