Anthropoidentity: from Gaining to Losing

Abstract

The article presents the entire human history in its phylogeny and ontogenesis as a desire for personification, i.e. to find one’s generic and individual Self. If one gains one’s Self, it means that one truly exists. But that is impossible without gaining one’s freedom. The reflection over the process of self-identification is as old as the human history. However, the moment one gains one’s face, one loses it. The problem of self-identification is particularly relevant nowadays. There is every reason to talk about the growing crisis of identity in modern man. Globalization deprives people of some markers that previously identified them. People seldom identify themselves with the place of birth. Man plunges into the global impersonal flow of information, thus losing both connection with a certain historical past and a sense of belonging to the family or kin. The loss of cultural and national identity is a marker of the growing social infantilism where freedom is more important than responsibility: "I want" means more than "I must", the present presides over the past and the future, and "mine" is more important than everything else.