Isn’t this more of symptom of modern western values?
Try a book by Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss), like the Road to Mecca.
Every year during hajj in Mecca, there’s profound view of sea of humans wearing white from vast different backgrounds, wealth, health, ethnicities, continents. You can find Japanese, Africans, Australians, Russians, Indonesians, etc, variety of skin colors and builds, in one place.
The internet has really helped/harmed this modern identity crisis. People can be who they want to be online and live that identity as long as they stay online. This can be freeing, or merely addictive, crushing escapism.
In my opinion, the best/worst way this presents itself is that people can find who they want to be online. Whether that's who they have always been underneath the demands of society or not is deeply personal to each person...but we have to be honest and admit people can learn bad habits online too.
This is the danger of finding an external identity, or an identity based on what you do. Times change, you abilities change, and the "midlife crisis" concept may be what happens when people realize their identity wasn't based on who they are. Everything can come crashing down in an instant, and it makes imposter syndrome worse.
> The pressure of trying to do both has a huge number of people anywhere from depressed to suicidal.
You give this like it's a fact but don't back it up. Can you? It's not like there weren't depressed or suicidal people before, and it's not clear to me that what you're calling "the new system" is a primary driver of changes in those rates.
>In particular, it seems to me to be likely that we have to choose between "make your own identity/be true to yourself" and "you have to have a good job and a good house and good mating prospects". (That seems reasonable; those two expectations are largely at war with each other.)
If my identity that I choose for myself is "follower of religion X/sports team Y/band Z", then that's completely compatible with financial success.
If I pick "I'm a beach bum", and seriously try to live that out, well, that doesn't pay very well. If I pick "I'm a professional skier", that may pay well, but the odds are it won't, and seriously trying to pursue it is probably going to preclude most well-paying jobs.
So "largely at war with each other" was probably an overstatement. And as I said, they aren't diametrically opposed - they aren't totally at odds with each other. Still, they seem to me to be at least somewhat opposed to each other - if nothing else, both can take our time, attention, and effort, and we are finite. What we give to one, we don't have available for the other.
This is a prescient observation. As a child of Asian immigrants to the US, I've lived through the clash of these two types of cultures. Asian society can be very prescriptive - if you live a certain way, your life will be good. It will lack self-determination, but it will generally be a joyous one.
This type of system takes a utilitarian view - maximize the most good for the most number of people. The downside of utilitarianism - and prescriptive happiness - is that edge cases are not handled. Do you not subscribe to the traditional roles of gender? There are very, very few avenues for you to seek happiness in that world.
As someone who does not deviate from the norm (other than the fact that I was born in America), I enjoy my culture and all that it has to offer. I am not sure if that would be the case if I was at all unlike others in my traditional culture. There are other ways of living I might have tried when I was younger, had I not been afraid of the social consequences. I don't feel deprived as a result, however.
The promise of America is that it's a land of misfits and outcasts. Many of our ancestors left their homeland because they did not fit-in in some way. A lot of the times they were ideological outcasts - they believed that individual merit and success should not necessarily be abandoned for "the greater good". That if you form a society of these types of "selfish" people, you paradoxically end up with something that is better for everyone. While this is a mainstream idea now, this belief in individual determinism was entirely out of the norm globally in the era of American's founding.
I think the "Problem with Identity" that you so eloquently describe is a direct result of our current times. Human society is experiencing the greatest philosophical and societal upheaval in the history of its existence. Never in history have people crossed so many boundaries - political, physical, social - in such massive quantities and so drastically. You can argue this is good, you can argue this is bad - but this is a fact.
Now for the truly unpopular opinion - religion was developed for circumstances like this. In the West, the word "religion" evokes visions of about modern, punitive, Abrahmic-style religions. Rather, I'm referring to what Westerners call "spiritualism".
I believe every religion's origin was in this concept. Why are we here? What happened before, and what happens after? How does one find meaning in this world? Spiritualism doesn't have answers for any of these questions, but it equips us with the tools to find answers. That's really what it's all about. Many Westerners are familiar with meditation - this is but one of many tools that arise from Indian (and other Asian cultures') spiritual practices.
I think as society at large struggles to find answers to deep problems, they will return to spiritualism as a source for answers. It will happen in fits and spurts, and with lots of misunderstandings. But the change will occur, slowly but surely.
Try a book by Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss), like the Road to Mecca.
Every year during hajj in Mecca, there’s profound view of sea of humans wearing white from vast different backgrounds, wealth, health, ethnicities, continents. You can find Japanese, Africans, Australians, Russians, Indonesians, etc, variety of skin colors and builds, in one place.
Put the world in your hand, not in your heart.