The identity vs character crisis in the environmental movement... and beyond.

I was recently turned onto a youtube conversation about the unicontext, a theory developed by Philosopher Agnes Callard for what happens when billions of people are all forced to inhabit the same global conversation through the internet and social media.

The conversation between Agnes and Derek Thompson explores why online life feels overwhelmingly negative and why public discourse has become so focused on outrage and identity. I strongly recommend giving the full conversation a listen as it somewhat blew my mind on a few fronts.

But one front in particular really hit home.

The flattening of human interaction and relationship to only identity, largely removing all aspects of character from the conversation.

While identity has a much broader definition, this version of identity is the one of identity politics which I would perhaps define as someone’s digital image. How the rest of the world perceives you based on your online presence. That image is formed by what you post, photos, videos, tweets, linkedin posts, substack posts, instagram reels, etc…

Now, I invite you take a second and reflect on your own experience online.

How much of your online presence has represented your character vs your identity/image? For me, at least up until the last year or so, it was heavily swayed towards identity/image because the more that I focused on a single topic, the more that I built singular identity — especially if that was on a particularly divisive topic, like say carbon markets — the more that my posts were picked up by the algorithms and the more I would stand out among the internet noise.

It is much easier for your voice to get amplified if you have a provocative online identity/image. But it’s largely impossible for anyone to get the context behind how that identity/image was formed, to get a sense for your character. And so we largely choose who we want to follow and who we want to support and even what ideas we want to engage with, based on identity/image rather than character.

And for the environmental movement, and beyond, I think this has not only inhibited progress, I think it has set us back decades.

The environmental movement has long focused on establishing a clear identity, a clear image. An acute definition of the change that we want to see in the world and how we want to see that change occur. But among the movement, there are strong differences of opinion as to how we should achieve that change and when those differences become entirely driven by identity/image and lose all aspects of character, we run into trouble.

My sense is that carbon markets are a prime example of where identity/image has completely taken over and character has been almost entirely removed from the discourse.

The predominant discourse online is either you are pro-carbon markets or you are anti-carbon markets, which expands into a broader debate within the environmental movement, are you pro-market solutions or anti?

And I think that the digital realm has largely flattened these debates to be entirely intellectual, entirely based on position, entirely based on identity/image. Because those that take a strong position — that establish a more defined and polarizing identity/image — are the voices that get amplified which inherently pushes the overall debate to become more negative, more outrage-based, less constructive.

I see people from both sides of the carbon markets debate that think the other are evil because of their identity/image/position. But I know people on both sides of the debate and they are largely good people with the best intentions at heart.

Particularly when it comes to carbon markets, I’ve seen the environmental movement focus its energies on undercutting each other, which has taken countless hours and resources away from countering the institutions and systems that are driving the problem to begin with.

Yes, it is important to understand who is behind what, but what frustrates me is the constant jumping to conclusions before doing the due diligence. The default to judgement and critique rather than curiosity. On both sides of the debates.

This is just one anecdote from the broader environmental movement that I fear has become all to focused on identity/image and has lost sight of character.

And I myself am as guilty as anyone. Up until 2021, I maybe got ten likes on my best LinkedIn posts. But then I started to work on carbon markets, to post on carbon markets and the engagement took off.

I went from about 1000 to more than 10,000 followers in the span of about two years.

I took strong positions on topics and it got clicks, it captured attention. I took a strong pro-carbon markets stance and I became somewhat of a micro-influencer in the carbon markets space.

But when I stepped out of carbon markets a couple of years ago and started posting more about questions I hold, rather than answers I have, the engagement on LinkedIn significantly dropped off.

And this is what worries me. More than not, to stand out among the digital noise, you have to take an ironclad, black or white, position, you have the have a clear cut identity/image —like the “The Anti-Markets” guy or the “Only Engineered Carbon Removals” gal or the “Nuclear is the only answer” gent. And this closes off the creativity, it closes off the solution space, it closes off the productive discourse to solve complex problems that require many solutions working in parallel.

The unicontext tells you to just be a critic, or just promote a singular solution. It asks you to be black or white, but not spend any time in the grey.

And this is much issue with the environmental movement, this is my issue with the broader societal discourse across many issues. We find ourselves trapped in the black and the white, with little to no incentive to step into the grey.

I find it fascinating that most environmentalists get super angry when we see someone else (especially the Fox News host) judging others based on their identity (race, religion, sexuality) instead of their character. But yet when we see a fellow environmentalist that holds a position we don’t agree with, we often ignore their character and focus on their identity.

But I think there is a way out, a way back into the grey, a way back to finding middle ground and working together to make progress even if we don’t agree on everything.

That is the way of character.

Have you noticed a major increase on LinkedIn of people posting about their lives outside of work?

Yes, part of the driver is likely the algorithm rewarding such posts, but I think there is another dynamic at play.

I think we are all starting to recognize that we yearn for character, both to show our own character and to understand the character of others. Beyond the identity and the image that build followers over the past decade, I sense a yearning to understand the character, the human, the life, the context behind the positions.

And I sense even more a yearning for each of us to be seen, truly seen, beyond the positions that we take in public or online.

Because I think we all are sensing that the character is more important than the identity. Who I am is more important than the image that I project.

I find myself wondering, is identity/image the end and the character is the means?

And I often ponder the question, do the ends justify the means?

But as I look at the state of our world, I think I’m realizing that the ends can’t ever justify the means, because there never is an end.

There are cycles as history repeats itself, but it is the means, not the ends, that push those cycles into an upward or a downward helix where we evolve or devolve from past cycles.

Upwards, a better existence for all human and non-human life. More and more I find myself believing that the means define the ends. And the only way to achieve the ends is each of us living out the means, leaning into and looking for character and away from identity/image, to drive the upward helix even if it feels like we are surrendering the ends.

If we hold too tightly to the ends, then we are likely to pursue a means that compromise character and ultimately compromise that upwards spiral towards the ends that we hope for.

We have focused so much on the what that we have forgotten the who. From politicians to leaders of the environmental movement to business partners to collaborators to grantees, I am much more interested in your character than in your position or your identity. Because if I know your character, regardless of your position, your identity, your image, today, I know that you will find your way to the best solutions — particularly in a time when we are faced with far more problems and questions than clear answers and simple solutions.

I like to think with every year of life, I get a little better at sensing someone’s true character. And when looking for friends or collaborators or grantees and politicians for that matter, character is the first assessment, then we can get onto whether you’ve got the right mindset and ability to do good in the world.

I want to know your character, I want to see who you really are, I want you to be real and I want you to be honest. Because in that vulnerability, I can trust you, even if we don’t agree on all the solutions, I know we can work together towards a shared vision for the future.

And that is what I think the environmental movement desperately needs today. A big tent composed and led by people that lead with character instead of identity or image. That default to curiosity instead of criticism. That discern by character over identity or image.

And I hope that can start to cut through the digital noise. I think it already is.

So, let me first try to walk the character talk.

Well, I’m quite a bit biased, but here’s who I think I am as transparently and honestly as I can try to be.

Ever since being chubby as a pre-teen, I’ve been more self-conscious about my body, more vain than I’d like to be.

I have an ego. It’s larger than I would like it to be. But I am aware of it.

I have a decent amount of anxiety, or what I’ve come to see as energy. It is both a blessing and a curse. It sometimes drives me to be irrational, but it also is a great motivator and source of action if I can channel it wisely to engage in the world to try to influence the problems I care about.

I have had periods of depression, especially since moving to Long Island and feeling isolated both physically and emotionally combined with the broader cultural, economic and environmental context.

I started taking an SSRI a few months ago, before Ronen was born, when I wasn’t able to exercise because of a back injury to help with the depression and anxiety. Exercise is normally how I keep the anxiety at a healthy level and avoid the depression. I don’t plan to stay on it for much longer now that I can exercise again and we are getting sleep, but we’ll see what the future brings.

I feel deeply.

I cry a few times a month.

I am most joyful out on a surfboard amongst the waves or among friends in that conversational flow state full of laughs and digs and quips.

I want to lead, I like to lead, but I am trying to learn how to embody service leadership and listen for when and where I should lead rather than projecting when I “think” leadership is needed or where I think we should go.

I feel both grateful and guilty for the middle-class stable childhood that I had and the privileges that I have today. This was significantly amplified by my experience in the Peace Corps in Mozambique and understanding how few people have that kind of childhood. This is both a source of great motivation to do good for others and sometimes crippling guilt-driven sadness for me.

I have a deep need for community and have recently realized a fundamental need for being with men in community. Stepping into All Kings in the past year has been one of the most eye-opening and fulfilling experiences of my life. I have a deep passion for healing trauma in myself and others and hope to step more into this space in the future.

I worry about Gen Z and Alpha — especially the young men and boys who don’t have adults with whom they can process their emotions and learn how to be men in service of society. I sit on the board and try to spend a couple hours each week down at our local youth center. I wish I could spend more time with the next generations.

I think a lot about how to build bridges between people, between political divides in America and between people from different countries and cultures to jointly solve problems that inherently require collective action.

I like doorbelling and random conversations with strangers in my LA Fitness sauna about the world with people who don’t see it the way I do.

I believe that everyone has the right to be who and what they want to be and society will be at it’s best if that is not only enabled but encouraged — but that should be in service of helping others as much as it is enabling oneself to live a good life and that should not harm others.

I perennially feel like I’m not doing enough.

After I wrote that sentence, I found myself going to Ronen and holding her as “On the Nature of Daylight” was playing in the background, sobbing, telling her sorry over and over and over again. Sorry that I am, we are, not giving her the future that we inherited.

And yet, what has started to change is that I used to feel that I was never enough.

I used to cry almost every time I listened to that song from The Greatest Showman. But more and more, I am feeling like I am enough and the tears don’t come, even if I may always have the feeling that I’m not doing enough.

And hopefully that combination is the right combination for me. May it motivate me to keep showing up, without having something to prove, just being able to be of service to this thing that is so much bigger than me, so much bigger than all of us.

Show up as my full self and listen for where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to do, with character at my core.

The means being the ends.

But as my Mother-in-Law always says, “when someone shows you who they really are, believe them”.

I can share what I think my character is, but my actions define my character — they show you who I really am.

And where my actions have strayed in the past, where I’ve strayed in character, I ask for forgiveness. And where I may stray in the future, I ask for grace.

Because we all need room to grow, room to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes.

And I promise to do my best to give you the grace and forgiveness in return.

And as I write these last words, perhaps what I wish most for the environmental movement, even beyond a shift from identity and image back towards character, is to allow for a bit more grace.

Because none of us are perfect and if we don’t create space for change within ourselves, within each other, how could we possibly expect for any broader change in our society?

- Eric