Is there any other aspect of identity which we would routinely suggest should be hidden, not just from others, but from the self?
lots of generalisations about what "most people" think follow. I'm leaving them because I think they're relevant and true, but feel free to disagree :-)
Well, yes, lots. Let's start with "from others" and go on to "from the self" in a moment. In general, it isn't socially acceptable, except in
very limited and special circumstances (job interviews!), to say that one is better than other people at anything, from running to knitting to resolving arguments- at least not without some kind of deprecatory disclaimer such as "if I do say it myself". To claim to be "gifted" is to say that one is better than other people at thinking, and that's why it isn't socially acceptable.
Is it "an aspect of identity that should be hidden... from the self?" Well, what things go into one's "identity"? I suppose, statements about oneself that one considers to be both true and important, especially, important to grouping one with people who one feels are like oneself and differentiating oneself from people who one feels are not like oneself. I suggest that while we may be comfortable with the idea that we should be honest enough to accept as
true statements about what we're better than other people at, most people including me are uncomfortable with the idea that those statement should be among the most
important things about us.
For example, I'm quite happy to say that part of my identity is that I
enjoy mathematics, but I wouldn't want to say (or even think :-) that part of my identity is that I'm good at it, even though I am. Indeed, I feel much more affinity with someone who enjoys mathematics but is not very talented at it, than I do with someone who is good at it but does not enjoy it.
I tend to feel that if someone's identity is bound up with being better than other people at something, they're likely to be making comparisons between how good they are at it and how good people they meet are at it, and regardless of how I'd fare in the comparison I react against that. At any event I am intuitively repelled by adults identifying as "gifted", even though intellectually I understand that there might be good reasons for doing so, such as needing to accept that that label is true, or wanting a way to meet people with similar interests.
In my initial typing of this post I wrote "good at" where I now have "better than other people at". I changed it because I think it really is the comparison aspect that makes "gifted" problematic. It's iffy to define oneself by comparison with other people: we tend to feel that identity should be internal. But there's more to it than this; "gifted" feels to me to be even more "off" as part of identity than "good at mathematics" would be. I think this is because of how very general the word "gifted" is. When I think about things people might say they were good at, it seems to me that there's a tendency for this to be more acceptable the fewer other people
choose to attempt whatever it is. Compare your immediate reactions to "I'm brilliant at making raspberry and parsnip soup" with "I'm brilliant at making mushroom soup" for example, or "I'm brilliant at hnafenetl" with "I'm brilliant at chess".
In summary, I submit it's not that we think being gifted should be hidden from the self, but that we're suspicious of people who find it important enough to be "an aspect of identity".
