Scones and Factionalism

The truth is what enables the parody. 

My week of stress baking was pretty productive. It served as a distraction, an act of self care, and a means of processing some of the more frustrating aspects of our modern times. This blog is meant to be my two inches of ivory, reflecting the small happenings in and around my home, and so it will, from time to time, linger over a particular subject.


So let’s talk scones and existential crises.

While it may appear otherwise, given my love for The Great British Baking Show, I’m not a true anglophile. At best I could be considered a novice aficionado. There is one thing I unabashedly love from British culture more than it’s American counterpart, something that crosses blades with my southern upbringing in scandalous ways. Much as I know that I risk ex-communication from my native land for admitting this in a public forum… y’all, I think scones are better than biscuits.

Scones (the British sort, not the American type with too much sugar) and (southern) biscuits are basically from the same category of baked good. They are both relatively easy to make, require a little technical skill, generally involve the exact same set of ingredients in slightly different proportions, but diverge in the final desired texture and taste. They both act as marvelous vehicles for delicious jams and both are welcome as an accompaniment to a good cup of tea or coffee. But the truth is I just like scones better. Let the Twitter wars begin! #TeamScones

There is a reason why I can make this joke and most of you will understand it. Whatever else it might mean to be “southern” in the US, part of what comes to mind is likely something about our food. There are good and bad causes for our distinctive culinary genetics, but there is no doubt that food is tied to the identity of the region. By archly announcing my preference for a rival version of one of the most iconic items from southern cooking, I can whip up some sort of declaration of rebellion and faux controversy. It’s a riff on the reality of entrenched identity battles. The truth is what enables the parody. 

Identity as a word is experiencing an odd etymological mutation in our times, tossed about in the culture wars, weaponized by some as a pejorative, and sanctified by others as unassailable, even holy. I want to give it a working definition for this post, but the moment you try and stake it to the ground, angry anonymous Twitter accounts will surface accusing you of bringing about the end of Western Civilization or Democracy as we know it. (I wish I was kidding about that last bit.)

There is a screeching anxiety about identity in our age.

Healthy Identity

The thing is, neurologically speaking, healthy humans need to work out our identity, as a matter of finding support in life. It’s not weird that we seek connection and belonging to one another around something, really anything that we can share in common. We were not made to be lone, empty vessels. Moving about the world with no sense of self, with no story of your own or feeling of connection to anyone or anything, is not very good for us. We need people, specifically, our people, those whom we feel are kindred spirits. But such a need can get twisted.

If we are not careful, some thoughts about our identity can firm up in our minds around even innocuous material.

“I’m an introvert, so you extroverted people need to give me space.” 

“I’m an extrovert so I need to go out all the time.”

“I’m an Enneagram 1. I’m just going to struggle with perfectionism.” 

“I’m a Hufflepuff! I must be cozy!” (Okay, this one is just for funsies.) 

Now, don’t go too far with this sort of thing. I think most of the fear-mongering and hyperbole around the concept of identity is not at all thoughtful or grounded in reality. We need to be careful with it, sure, and the best way to do that is to work on having a lot of awareness about it, understanding how we make and hold onto the things that we use to define ourselves.

Ideally, we want such things to stay flexible, to avoid a sort of creeping ideological rigidity. It doesn’t mean you are a person without firm core values or beliefs, not in the slightest. It just means that these things become a source of health and growth in your life, rather than something that makes you less and less able to tolerate people who are not like you or ideas that are uncomfortable or challenging.

A Creeping Threat

The darker and more serious side of humans grappling with identity can lead us all the way to factionalism. We begin to think only inside of our ideological constraints and lose our awareness of the nuance of ourselves, even our personal preferences. We begin to mirror and mimic the source of our identity and it’s chosen markers. We become incurious about what motivates us, can compromise others, and start to assume the worst about those who are different from us. Let it go too far, and we may find we demand an absurd loyalty to our self-imposed constraints, refusing to associate with outsiders, and seeking an ever more homogeneous and friction-less existence. It’s absurd but also common.

People do this in groups of friends, in businesses, in churches, on sports teams, and, obviously, in politics. They do it as nations and races. We don’t just take what we truly like or agree with about these institutions or categories and then leave what we don’t. We feel bound to them in broad ways that often don’t make a lot of rational sense. This process can be subtle. Left unchecked, it can consume a person in totality. They become trapped.

Some people have learned to exploit this tendency of humans. They encourage the firming up of identity, the separation of the “other”. They encourage homogeneity and friction-less agreement. Why? Because a bunch of humans who lock their identity inside another human can be very useful tools of power.

How can you tell if you’ve been entrapped by an identity? Look for a thing or a person you know you objectively love. Can you own that publicly without caveat? Are you able to be associated with it or them without spoken or unspoken consequences, and would you do it despite the negative outcomes? Do markers outside your identity cause others to question who you are? Or maybe only one person would question you. Does that person’s opinion matter so much that you would avoid things in order to avoid their displeasure?

What if I could not allow myself to acknowledge my preference for scones because I felt some strange obligation to meet the markers of southern identity established by others? How silly. But again, humans do this all the time about so many aspects of life.

If you’re eating biscuits while your heart misses scones… friend, that is something to be curious about.