Thus far into my project, I am still wrapped up with the philosophical implications of identity.
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While taking a break from the oh so exciting preamble of the EU, I did my weekly philosophy reading. This week\u2019s topic is focused around aesthetic judgements and implicit biases. Once I had finished Hume\u2019s famous Of the Standard of Taste <\/em>essay, I was faced with a predicament. Hume is absolutely correct to point out these underlying biases all humans harbour. I think these biases at times, cloud our view of ourselves and the world around us. Really milking the philosophy student cliche, but I am wondering whether our general perception of reality is merely just one of a generated bias. Is there even a standard reality? Or, as I skeptically think, we all just live in our own separate realities. This relates to my project in the sense that identity is merely just how one perceives themselves, and attempts to convince others to see them in the same light. For example, my family is incredibly Eastern European. Though they have embraced the \u2018American Dream\u2019 in all senses of the expression, they still feel Hungarian and have strong (sometimes annoyingly strong) views about the political culture of Hungary. For example, my Bubbie (grandmother in Yiddish) HATES JFK. She accuses him of killing boats of Hungarian refugees attempting to come to the States. Instead of letting the boats come into the country, JFK turned them back, ultimately in my Bubbie\u2019s eyes, killing all of those Jews who were forced to return to occupied Hungary. Moreover, while others see JFK as a hero, pulling the U.S back onto its feet, my Bubbie sides with Hungary, harbouring a bias against any other political decisions JFK would go on to make. In this sense, she lives in her own reality, prioritising the safety of Hungarian Jews like herself over internal advances within the U.S. In this way, it seems individuals like my Bubbie hold transnational biases. What I mean by this is even though my Bubbie only has an American passport and has lived in the states her whole life, her Hungarian traditions and the language they spoke in the house influence her to be more sympathetic to Hungary. Her kinship to her country and origins is merely worn outwardly by labeling herself as \u201cHungarian.\u201d In this respect identity is merely equivalent to wearing your bias as a name-tag for the world to see, acknowledge, and hopefully, respect. My point is, identity is socially constructed. This seems obvious but I\u2019m understanding it has a deeper meaning. For example, in terms of the EU, many European policies have been unfairly isolating the East. Countries like Hungary who have a track record of economic upsets and political instability are compared to a yardstick of successful Western countries such as France and Germany. Holding these biases against people, countries, and regions, I would cling to my conclusion that there is no wholly successful \u201cEuropean Identity.\u201d While the concept itself might serve as a tool of unity and solidarity, closer investigation will only strain these connections. For example, A Hungarian like my Bubbie might consider themselves \u201cEuropean\u201d but for different reasons than for which a French person would consider themselves \u201cEuropean.\u201d While the French might cling to cultural similarities like literature, philosophy, and music, Hungary has historically been so isolated from these factors that they cannot relate. For Hungarians, or at least for my Bubbie, being European is not necessarily about this idea of solidarity or conjoined policies, but more the idea of liberation and freedom and protection of human rights. Breaking from Communist rule, many Hungarians are fearful to give over power and control to governmental institutions considering past history. The social benefits and human rights protections are what motivate much of Eastern Europe to consider themselves Europeans. So I still hold to my cliche philosophical question: Is identity merely just the name tagging of biases? Thus far into my project, I am still wrapped up with the philosophical implications of identity. While taking a break from the oh so exciting preamble of the EU, I did my weekly philosophy reading. This week\u2019s topic is focused<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-lz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1338,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions\/1338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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