Who do we think we are?!

Date & Time: Thursday, June 19th at 6-ish
Place: Habesha Restaurant, 1087 Wellington St. W.
Topic: The creation of identity (Ted – I need your help in explaining this one!)
**Special Feature: For this particular topic, we are asking Chatters to bring a copy of their High School Yearbook, or at least a photo from their high school graduation!!

And Ted explains...

From identity politics to identity theft, the topic of who we think we are, and how, and why, is a really tough nut to crack. Is identity a spiritual, psychological or a social phenomenon? What is / should be the relationship of individual and collective identity? Do clothes make the man or are you what you eat? All this, and so much more up for grabs at the next Chatters confab! But don't take my word for it. Here's what just a few of our loyal customers have to say about IDENTITY:

“Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.” -- B.R. Ambedkar

“Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned.” -- James Arthur Baldwin

“This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others.” -- Elie Wiesel

“Most urgently, women's identity must be premised upon our "beauty" so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.” -- Naomi Wolf

“In the theory of gender I began from zero. There is no masculine power or privilege I did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot escape her hormonal identity.” -- Camille Paglia

“A miracle is nothing more or less than this. Anyone who has come into a knowledge of his true identity, of his oneness with the all-pervading wisdom and power, this makes it possible for laws higher than the ordinary mind knows of to be revealed to him.” -- Ralph Waldo Trine

"Few men who have liberated themselves from the fear of God and the fear of death are yet able to liberate themselves from the fear of man." -- Lin Yutang

“Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.” -- Marshall McLuhan