ABSTRACT
What we seem to be doing in identity politics, our need for and formation of community based on some pure identity, is reducing the concept of cul ture to an extension of identity. I AM becomes WE ARE. And bingo, you've got a culture. One of the benefits of an identity is the culture that the com bined membership of that identity spawned prior to one's own membership. The point of arrival at no identity is the point of departure from a world that depends on identities. If we admit who we are not, we're going to disappear, because we can only exist in a world that would deny our existence as nothing. Once we admit that we truly exist as being outside the binary, we also begin to suspect that none of us can truly have a pure identity, gendered or otherwise. And if we do come to that conclusion, that's when we disappear. Well, not really. I think what happens is the apparently monolithic WE ARE reverts to a lot of I AMs, and we have the opportunity to forge a culture of unique individuals who share common values. Freedom, compassion, and honor come to mind as some worthwhile values to share. But it begins, I believe, with nothing.
