Eric wrote:
>
> > > > Even if it were desirable to think in these terms, identity can only
> >> make sense as something that is produced by a subject's ensemble of
> >> functions. How do you separate a thing from what it does?
> >
> >My point exactly.
>
> Then I don't know how to read. Here's what you wrote in your post on class:
>
> > Class cannot be defined or explained or recognized by the functions
> > performed by its members,
>
> This seems exactly the opposite of what I wrote but they you are now
> agreeing with. I'm confused.
Identity, as I pointed out in a post you apparently haven't read, belongs to ideology, like "race," "individual," etc. Hence it doesn't make sense if what you are talking about is the historically existing human person.
Class is a different matter. It is a relation and a process. An independent carpenter pounding on a nail and a carpenter who is an employee of a construction firm belong to different classes (petty producer/working class). Same behavior, totally different set of social relations. And we still don't know anything useful about the person as a person, which I presume is what people think they are talking about when they talk about that illusory entity, "identity." And if Bill Gates pounds nails for the hell of it that is sort of irrelevant to his class position too.
Carrol