Affiliation vs. Affinity

As Merriam-Webster reminds us, to affiliate with someone or something typically involves a subordinate relation of "membership."

It also involves a concern with "origins."

An affinity, on the other hand, involves sympathy marked by a community of interest.

In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, we are under continual social pressure to affiliate, i.e., to submerge our individual identities in the larger identity of a group or organization.

In a sane society, we would be encouraged to cultivate sympathies in which mutual interests create community: the voluntary association of the like-minded. Instead, "authentic" identity is acquired by affiliation.

Our affiliations are frequently accidents of history and birth; by contrast, affinities result from conscious decisions made in pursuit of one's passions.

Which of these two presents a more "authentic" identity?

Sufis affiliate; the dervish demonstrates an affinity. "Affinity, not affiliation" would also serve well as an Anarchist motto or slogan.

To choose affinity over affiliation is a form of askesis; askesis is the mark of the dervish and, for the dervish, means to sacrifice as much as possible the inherited benefits of in-group identity (white privilege, for example).

In the Persian of Sa'adi, the dervish is an azad: a free individual. In Ibn Bajjah's Arabic, the dervish is al-mutawahhid or an isolato. In either case, the fine tethers of community are achieved not by coercion but rather by consensual communion.

Identity, then, is nothing less than a gift of the Holy Ghost.