The first sentence in the SEC entry has no bearing on identity. The basic, fundamental error is that self – identity is being cited as - ‘a thing onto itself’. Identity has nothing to do the structure of a ‘self’ as a ‘thing’.
We tend to stay where we feel comfortable, even if that does not provide us with a social status in our community. The experiences of belonging in a personal sense, often replaces belonging in a larger social sense. ‘Relativism’ – the distinction that ‘all things, experiences and values are relative’ – has, at it’s roots, the cultural legacy of identity we receive in the language we speak. Cartesian dualism, Machiavellianism, religious teachings and even gender, create our learned identity of a referential entity we call ‘my -self’. It is through our experiential attachments that we create connective values to our comfort and inclusive / exclusive needs.
Whether it be a collective or an individual connection, identity is a referential abstract containing statuses of inclusions and exclusions. We know ‘Who’ we are by experiences, connections to other social beings, and, by our sentient physical existence.