What do you think?
Rate this book
Against Identity: The Wisdom of Escaping the Self
‘Deeply interesting … a superb critique of contemporary self-obsession’ Steven Poole, Guardian
'Engrossing … bracing … incendiary and timely’ Stuart Jeffries, Daily Telegraph
A philosopher explains why the search for identity is meaningless, and how we should escape the self
Modern life encourages us to pursue the perfect identity. Whether we aspire to become the best lawyer or charity worker, life partner or celebrity influencer, we emulate exemplars that exist in the world – hoping it will bring us happiness. But this often leads to a complex game of envy and pride. We achieve these identities but want others to imitate us. We disagree with those whose identities contradict ours – leading to polarisation and even violence. And yet when they thump against us, we are ashamed to ring hollow.
In Against Identity, philosopher Alexander Douglas seeks an alternative wisdom. Searching the work of three thinkers – ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, Dutch Enlightenment thinker Benedict de Spinoza, and 20th Century French theorist René Girard – he explores how identity can be a spiritual violence that leads us away from truth.
Through their worlds and radically different cultures, we discover how, at moments of historical rupture, our hunger for being and yet, it is exactly these times when we should make peace with our indeterminacy and discover the freedom of escaping our selves.
‘Lucid and absorbing … One of my highlight books of the year’ Stuart Kelly, Scotsman
'Engrossing … bracing … incendiary and timely’ Stuart Jeffries, Daily Telegraph
A philosopher explains why the search for identity is meaningless, and how we should escape the self
Modern life encourages us to pursue the perfect identity. Whether we aspire to become the best lawyer or charity worker, life partner or celebrity influencer, we emulate exemplars that exist in the world – hoping it will bring us happiness. But this often leads to a complex game of envy and pride. We achieve these identities but want others to imitate us. We disagree with those whose identities contradict ours – leading to polarisation and even violence. And yet when they thump against us, we are ashamed to ring hollow.
In Against Identity, philosopher Alexander Douglas seeks an alternative wisdom. Searching the work of three thinkers – ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, Dutch Enlightenment thinker Benedict de Spinoza, and 20th Century French theorist René Girard – he explores how identity can be a spiritual violence that leads us away from truth.
Through their worlds and radically different cultures, we discover how, at moments of historical rupture, our hunger for being and yet, it is exactly these times when we should make peace with our indeterminacy and discover the freedom of escaping our selves.
‘Lucid and absorbing … One of my highlight books of the year’ Stuart Kelly, Scotsman
254 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 19, 2025
56 people are currently reading
831 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 5, 2025
Hard book to review because, I must admit, I didn't understand all of it. But the 60% I did understand was fascinating. Took me out of my comfort zone.
I have some issues with the argument however, namely:
* How exactly are we to achieve this death of identity? Even if I'm convinced of the author's thesis I wouldn't know where to start. It's also a point that the author finally admits in the conclusion
* There is a lot about the perils of identity, but might identity has an upside. The modern world has, afterall, delivered some miracles along with its horrors. Might these have been impossible without the mass collective action facilitated by identity.
* Related to the above; there is a bit too much of explaining away good deeds. Am I really giving to charity because I want to help the poor, or am I merely signalling my identity as a caring person? I find this kind of reduction fantastically irritating.
But there is so much interesting content, often delivered with a dose of slyly cheeky humour that I would recommend, if you want a bit of a challenge.
I have some issues with the argument however, namely:
* How exactly are we to achieve this death of identity? Even if I'm convinced of the author's thesis I wouldn't know where to start. It's also a point that the author finally admits in the conclusion
* There is a lot about the perils of identity, but might identity has an upside. The modern world has, afterall, delivered some miracles along with its horrors. Might these have been impossible without the mass collective action facilitated by identity.
* Related to the above; there is a bit too much of explaining away good deeds. Am I really giving to charity because I want to help the poor, or am I merely signalling my identity as a caring person? I find this kind of reduction fantastically irritating.
But there is so much interesting content, often delivered with a dose of slyly cheeky humour that I would recommend, if you want a bit of a challenge.
July 6, 2025
A truly interesting and freeing book. Like lots of other reviewers I can't pretend to have understood all of it, but what I've taken away from the is that the search for identity happens in the mind, and the mind is just a bundle of ever-changing thoughts. We can't find true peace through thinking, but we can try to surrender to the big I Am and merge with the All, which contains all facets of all our identities. We can experience this through meditation and never bind ourselves to any one identity. 🙏
October 10, 2025
A somewhat abstract book of philosophy, but still geared for a general readership making the case that identity is a dead end and using three philosophers; Chuang Hzu, Spinoza and Girard to illustrate that. He threads that needle pulling aspects out of all three and claims they are basically saying the same things in different ways.
I got the most out of the Rene Girard section...but you may find the others more engaging.
Identity is a delusion and best be abandoned. Politics (left or right) ends up directing you to a false utopia that always bring you back to more delusion.
Does Alexander Douglas, provide a guide to doing that?
No. It's a conundrum.
Especially for someone embedded in the system, and yes...we are all embedded in the system, feeling like individuals, replicating personalized role models and thinking ourselves as unique beings while merely engaged in mimesis.
I'm not sure if this book has any answers, but it still remains interesting to ruminate over the questions it poses.
I got the most out of the Rene Girard section...but you may find the others more engaging.
Identity is a delusion and best be abandoned. Politics (left or right) ends up directing you to a false utopia that always bring you back to more delusion.
Does Alexander Douglas, provide a guide to doing that?
No. It's a conundrum.
Especially for someone embedded in the system, and yes...we are all embedded in the system, feeling like individuals, replicating personalized role models and thinking ourselves as unique beings while merely engaged in mimesis.
I'm not sure if this book has any answers, but it still remains interesting to ruminate over the questions it poses.
December 21, 2025
Douglas describes aspects of the philosophy of Zhuang Zi, Spinoza and Girard. I didn’t know these thoughts before but they resonated a lot. I appreciate the thought that personality is a bundle of chaos (hundun) and identity is an emulation of who people like. He sees identity as an act of spiritual violence because it is always also an exclusion of identity traits that won’t “fit” in the identity you portray but that you also have. Not sure if I got it right but it’s a start.
Read
October 22, 2025There is one theme played in three variations. Sometimes this leads to repetitiveness, but it more often displays new facets about this central theme.
Identity is the source of violence. It will always come from the outside, even when a radically free individual believes that they will shed all preconceived notions imposed on them and either find or construct their true selves. Identities might be the roles we play in society: father, son, ruler, servant, faithful, atheist, from this or that nation, etc. Once we recognize those are roles we play and not our essences, it's impossible to completely authentically return to playing that part. We can decide to embrace one of these roles, but the knowledge that this is not immutable will be there, latent. These identities put us on a collision course with others. It might lead us to hate others who do not share our identities, but even those sharing an identity might come into conflict while fighting for the same resources (material or not). Someone who follows a role model or master will seek to emulate them, but that also means desiring that others will see them as a role model themselves, creating competition between the followers and even between follower and master.
The recognition that those are socially imposed roles does not free the individual. It might give the freedom to change identities, to experiment and mix and match identities, but identity will inevitably come from the outside. Our "true self" is not a fixed thing nor a complete void, but we are "essentially" an ever-changing multi-splendored thing. At the end of the book, Douglas beautifully puts it as the realization that our internal chaos is the same as the mutable storm we see outside. The world changes and so do we, and the best we can do is to seek to emulate a model that allows space for this mutability, adaptability, that recognizes that the world is flowing and flows along with it.
These ideas are presented via the thoughts of Zhuangzi, Spinoza, and Girard. In each iteration we get a new perspective to them. In Zhuangzi we get the opposition with the fixed essentialist order of Confucianism, where a well ordered world would demand each one playing their roles to their full extent. Zhuangzi shows us a Dao that is in constant flux and asks us to embrace it. It's even interesting that taking the position of the sage who recognizes this and admonishes others for not following this position is also a reproachable position, as it assumes an identity of superiority.
With Spinoza we see that our essence is a Conatus that seeks to expand its own being, and that is what we deem "good." On a personal level, that leads us to seek exemplary models to show us what is good and seek to emulate them, but this eventually leads to vain glory and a social contract fixed so society can regulate the competition created by people desiring the same things as they emulate each other. Beatitude comes from seeing God (that is, Spinoza's God) as the model - a super-determinate being that is expressed but not determined by anything in its attributes and modes.
Similarly, Girard's theory of mimetic desire traces all non-essential desires to mimesis, to people copying their models, and desiring the same things creating conflict. Identity would surface as a way to create in-groups that can scapegoat their conflict by imputing blame to an out-group that can be sacrificed. The solution to the identity problem is to copy the desires of Jesus, not merely as a Christian following the Bible, but Jesus as the role mode who sought to be like the Father. Copying the indeterminacy of the Father would be beyond our capabilities, so the best we can do is mimicking the Son and unconditionally loving the Other's indeterminacy. It's wholly other and yet it is exactly the same as our own indeterminacy.
This book deeply fascinated me. Its subject matter is deep and well researched by a scholar and yet its prose is approachable and clear. It reads like a good friend doing his best to translate his deep knowledge to you. It recognized the challenges of escaping from identity, and yet it inspires one to also embark on this journey. It offers no clear cut solutions or an algorithm to follow so you can be like the Dao or reach beatitude, but it gives enough food for thought to put one on the path of trying to do so.
It can be "victim" to the Marxist insult of being idealist (in the philosophical sense), and placing the root of conflicts and violence in ideas instead of material conditions, but dismissing the book on these grounds would be very pedestrian. It even captures a sense that were the communist utopia be reached, it couldn't possibly mean the end of all conflict, as the mechanisms of identity and mimesis would still lead to conflicting desires and competition, no matter the abundance we might have. I'm not sure if it's possible to logically or scientifically prove this statement, but it has an intuitive sense of truth.
I would recommend this reading for anyone interested in any of the three thinkers and anyone open minded about shedding their identities and allowing themselves to be as ever-changing as the universe we live in.
Identity is the source of violence. It will always come from the outside, even when a radically free individual believes that they will shed all preconceived notions imposed on them and either find or construct their true selves. Identities might be the roles we play in society: father, son, ruler, servant, faithful, atheist, from this or that nation, etc. Once we recognize those are roles we play and not our essences, it's impossible to completely authentically return to playing that part. We can decide to embrace one of these roles, but the knowledge that this is not immutable will be there, latent. These identities put us on a collision course with others. It might lead us to hate others who do not share our identities, but even those sharing an identity might come into conflict while fighting for the same resources (material or not). Someone who follows a role model or master will seek to emulate them, but that also means desiring that others will see them as a role model themselves, creating competition between the followers and even between follower and master.
The recognition that those are socially imposed roles does not free the individual. It might give the freedom to change identities, to experiment and mix and match identities, but identity will inevitably come from the outside. Our "true self" is not a fixed thing nor a complete void, but we are "essentially" an ever-changing multi-splendored thing. At the end of the book, Douglas beautifully puts it as the realization that our internal chaos is the same as the mutable storm we see outside. The world changes and so do we, and the best we can do is to seek to emulate a model that allows space for this mutability, adaptability, that recognizes that the world is flowing and flows along with it.
These ideas are presented via the thoughts of Zhuangzi, Spinoza, and Girard. In each iteration we get a new perspective to them. In Zhuangzi we get the opposition with the fixed essentialist order of Confucianism, where a well ordered world would demand each one playing their roles to their full extent. Zhuangzi shows us a Dao that is in constant flux and asks us to embrace it. It's even interesting that taking the position of the sage who recognizes this and admonishes others for not following this position is also a reproachable position, as it assumes an identity of superiority.
With Spinoza we see that our essence is a Conatus that seeks to expand its own being, and that is what we deem "good." On a personal level, that leads us to seek exemplary models to show us what is good and seek to emulate them, but this eventually leads to vain glory and a social contract fixed so society can regulate the competition created by people desiring the same things as they emulate each other. Beatitude comes from seeing God (that is, Spinoza's God) as the model - a super-determinate being that is expressed but not determined by anything in its attributes and modes.
Similarly, Girard's theory of mimetic desire traces all non-essential desires to mimesis, to people copying their models, and desiring the same things creating conflict. Identity would surface as a way to create in-groups that can scapegoat their conflict by imputing blame to an out-group that can be sacrificed. The solution to the identity problem is to copy the desires of Jesus, not merely as a Christian following the Bible, but Jesus as the role mode who sought to be like the Father. Copying the indeterminacy of the Father would be beyond our capabilities, so the best we can do is mimicking the Son and unconditionally loving the Other's indeterminacy. It's wholly other and yet it is exactly the same as our own indeterminacy.
This book deeply fascinated me. Its subject matter is deep and well researched by a scholar and yet its prose is approachable and clear. It reads like a good friend doing his best to translate his deep knowledge to you. It recognized the challenges of escaping from identity, and yet it inspires one to also embark on this journey. It offers no clear cut solutions or an algorithm to follow so you can be like the Dao or reach beatitude, but it gives enough food for thought to put one on the path of trying to do so.
It can be "victim" to the Marxist insult of being idealist (in the philosophical sense), and placing the root of conflicts and violence in ideas instead of material conditions, but dismissing the book on these grounds would be very pedestrian. It even captures a sense that were the communist utopia be reached, it couldn't possibly mean the end of all conflict, as the mechanisms of identity and mimesis would still lead to conflicting desires and competition, no matter the abundance we might have. I'm not sure if it's possible to logically or scientifically prove this statement, but it has an intuitive sense of truth.
I would recommend this reading for anyone interested in any of the three thinkers and anyone open minded about shedding their identities and allowing themselves to be as ever-changing as the universe we live in.
January 9, 2026
Insightful! Beautifully delivers its main message through the authors. Nevetheless, the depiction of Existentialism and especially Sartrean philosophy is below standard and delivers infuriating misconceptions. The late Sartre (and even if one bothers to actually read Being and Nothingness... Nothingness is IN the title...) would, yes counterintuitively, be much closer to Douglas' and Spinoza's views on identity as he seems to think.
Furthermore, the authors omits practical, material and ideological reasons for (the need of) identity (politics) in a meaningful way and just armchair-philosopher-dao-vibes over it. While I understand that one book cannot solve everything and write about everything at least more nods at certain critical traditions would have been necessary to signal non-naivety.
All in all, I do like the book, just focused on the negative here. The main goal is executed succesfully as well as written and read beautifully. The author's voice is particulalry friendly and soothing. I would love to continue my intellectual assault over a cup of coffee.
Edit: The acknowledgments sprout a beauty of their one whereas the sentence "I have found happiness in my wife" made me laugh like a horny juvenile.
Furthermore, the authors omits practical, material and ideological reasons for (the need of) identity (politics) in a meaningful way and just armchair-philosopher-dao-vibes over it. While I understand that one book cannot solve everything and write about everything at least more nods at certain critical traditions would have been necessary to signal non-naivety.
All in all, I do like the book, just focused on the negative here. The main goal is executed succesfully as well as written and read beautifully. The author's voice is particulalry friendly and soothing. I would love to continue my intellectual assault over a cup of coffee.
Edit: The acknowledgments sprout a beauty of their one whereas the sentence "I have found happiness in my wife" made me laugh like a horny juvenile.
July 5, 2025
4.5 stars This gave me lots of food for thought, and I've already found the basic thesis of the book creeping into my thinking in conversation, so it's made an impact. One plausible conclusion after reading this might be that, if we have freedom, it is the freedom to choose an identity to adopt in each moment, so the more identities we allow ourselves to acquire, the greater our freedom. I want to believe this, because it fits in with dialogic education theory, which I want to be true! But is the choice to choose this or that identity in each moment itself the product of another mimetically acquired identity? I was left without understanding who or what is the ...(I was audiobooking so have no idea how to write the Chinese word for the being that is without adopted identity) doing the desiring or imitating, and I'd thought that was going to be the conclusion. But it's entirely possible that this was explained and I just didn't understand.
July 10, 2025
One hell of a confusing book, with diverging ideas about identity;
1- Have no identity (most appealing),
2- Incorporate all the identities out there (how the hell one achieves that goal),
3- Incorporate Christian/Jesus/Christian God as identity, well because that is sum total of all identities (huh?),
4- Incorporate Spinoza's God as identity (equally perplexing).
Looks like the author thought he had a good sellable idea and rushed off to publish his half cooked thoughts.
Having no (or minimal number of) identity (s) , minimal attachments, is a good idea, but cooked the wrong way in this book's pressure cooker (the recipe is just not right).
1- Have no identity (most appealing),
2- Incorporate all the identities out there (how the hell one achieves that goal),
3- Incorporate Christian/Jesus/Christian God as identity, well because that is sum total of all identities (huh?),
4- Incorporate Spinoza's God as identity (equally perplexing).
Looks like the author thought he had a good sellable idea and rushed off to publish his half cooked thoughts.
Having no (or minimal number of) identity (s) , minimal attachments, is a good idea, but cooked the wrong way in this book's pressure cooker (the recipe is just not right).
October 5, 2025
A good investigation into the all-encompassing idea of identity, even if it ends on a vague note. The questions are good but I can’t quite pull apart what the author wants us to do.
It’s a good place to start if you think who you are bubbles up from the depths of your inner self. Read this then go read all of Girard.
It’s a good place to start if you think who you are bubbles up from the depths of your inner self. Read this then go read all of Girard.
October 13, 2025
The book has a strong start by breaking down the issues with identity from a Daoist standpoint. However, there is so much repetition of the same points, just applying different thinkers to the same argument. It feels like 1+3=4, 3+1=4, 2+2=4. Same answer, just a different route to get there.
What is missing is any clear instruction on how to reject identity. The author even states in the last chapter that he's been unable to do so himself.
That being said, I did annotate it a lot.
What is missing is any clear instruction on how to reject identity. The author even states in the last chapter that he's been unable to do so himself.
That being said, I did annotate it a lot.
December 21, 2025
A very interesting topic. Mostly because nowadays we have a strong identity disorder reflected on all the vane stuff that we consume, share and live through. Excelent essay, good points, truly inspiring to open the conversation about the self and the importance of being human (literally and figuratively).
November 10, 2025
Een fascinerend boek waarvan ik hoop dat het betaald gaat worden zodat ik het nog een keer kan lezen. Dit omdat ik niet altijd alles kon vertalen. Maar anders lees ik het over een tijdje nog een keer. Omdat hij een zeer wezenlijke boodschap heeft over de ‘vorming’ van onze identiteit.
August 7, 2025
While I liked Douglas' discussion of identity, I got far more out of his discussion and observations on the three philosophers that he discusses in relation to identity.
September 15, 2025
Permission
Perhaps it is when AI realizes its singular-soulless perfection that we may finally permit our super-indeterminate selves into each other's lives.
Perhaps it is when AI realizes its singular-soulless perfection that we may finally permit our super-indeterminate selves into each other's lives.
November 3, 2025
Most of it went over my head, but an interesting book nonetheless.
November 8, 2025
Warning: this book might hurt your ego (but in a good way).
November 18, 2025
Audiobook
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews