Post-identity politics

That’s funny. The day we send in our report to a prominent think tank on ‘post-identity politics in contemporary Britain’ (Discuss) is Red Nose Day.

The research we did looked into questions such as:

• How do people now express their identity?
• How are people affected by any sense of group identity?

While organisations typically classify people into various ‘boxes’ (marketing services does it all the time, eg male, 35-45, C2D, north), most people reject the idea that who they are as a person is truly reflected in these or any similar categories.

There is a lot of discussion about Britain being a highly diverse, multicultural country and yet there are tensions between the different ‘strands’ of identity, such as religion and belief, race and ethnicity. Some feel there is more segregation in British society nowadays, not less. The BNP is actively campaigning to gain European seats.

So on the day we have been pondering divisions and schisms in society, we can now join in with Red Nose Day in celebrating our common humanity.

Comic Relief has so far raised £600m since its inception in 1985. The idea of using a red nose as a visual symbol was a last-minute idea from marketing executive Peter Crossing, which Richard Curtis and Co initially thought would never work.

But the red nose and Red Nose Day are strokes of genius and give us all a chance to augment our identities and share in a common cause.