Popular National Identities: Human Brands

Branding is quite the modern phenomenon.

Yet, to “brand” something according to today's understanding of that marketing term is nothing new.

Religions are a brand.

Several brands exist within religious thought.

Nationality is an ancient brand.

Tribal identity is yet another ancient brand predating nationality.

Concepts and ideas can blend into one another.

Although the term “brand” is speaking specifically to a business concept, the blending of identity with a particular brand brings the human perception to the forefront.

Think of how a certain hat / headgear beckons a feeling of identity in someone or a group of people.

Same with footgear and any wearable / attachable accessory.

Certain types of clothing also beckon identity weaved into branding.

They are reflecting an ideal; a particular brand of what they perceive and interpret to invoke, promote or become.

Some people think themselves to be “good” or “righteous” according to the clothes they wear, including head and foot gear... and others are deemed "bad" and "unrighteous" according to the inverse.

This external perception is internalized according to the stamp of branding one has received or has adopted.

But try and convince someone ( or yourself ) to see past the branded identity.

Difficult, nearly impossible, somewhat plausible... and maybe never to be experienced while clothed with this world's material veneer.

Every time, empire, people, culture, society, movement, religion, tribe, individual has / had their specific or generic brand in terms of reflecting that brand onto themselves and themselves into that brand.

The brand becomes the ideal.

Regardless of the sophistication of any organized group - whether government, religious, public or private group – the ideal brand can be constant or can change over time.

Depending on the individual's or nation's or public's specific interpretation of their ideal brand, the concept of what is right or wrong, good or evil, acceptable or despicable, swings according to relative definitions of the truth according to perception and branded ideal.

If your brand teaches you to love your enemy, while your enemy's brand teaches them to hate their enemy... no wonder truth can become a relative interpretation dependent on one's branding... and the "truth" is lost on those claiming to intimately know the truth.