Personality versus identity

I just had a rather interesting conversation with my friend Valgeir the Philosopher. Reminded me of the sorts of conversation I would have if I were still on campus at Berkeley, so that was nice. We were talking about whether or not digital communication is changing the concept of individuality. Lots of people are talking about that these days, I think. But you know it occurs to me that somehow the terms personality and identity have been conflated in a lot of these discussions. Icelanders make a big deal out of how unique they are, but I am not sure that makes them extremely individualistic. And although I am not going to launch into a big essay on the subject at the moment, it just seemed worth it to note that to me, individuality is a concept of boundedness and separateness that has little to no place in Icelandic society, whereas personality--having divergent opinions and ideas and different senses of humor--does.

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