“[W]hy do so many people commit crimes [and violence] in the name of identity?” Its answer is that, in the name of an identity that one sees as under siege, one can do things that one could never do as an individual, things that one could never do in one’s own name. In defense of one’s country, one’s religion, one’s region, one’s ethnicity, the image of one’s group in the world, one can do things that would otherwise be unimaginable.
