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Identity must always be understood as relational and representative in the largest possible context, and as the residents of Planet 8 die one by one, those who remain, those who go furthest in their understanding, come to recognize their errors of perception from their ordinary senses; they will see more clearly with their “new eyes” and will radically change their way of thinking as a result. The collective identity of these residents has been recovered, freed from any material anchors in a body or a geographic zone, to become an identity ultimately understood as both plural and one, but never fixed. Even death does not interrupt the evolution of identity, since the death of a person or even an entire planet is, after all, perfectly normal in a universe which is constantly changing.
Group affiliation is a key concept throughout Lessing’s space fiction, and in The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire rhetoric is the tool which accomplishes this herd mentality which becomes the basis for identity, a way of conditioning people to need a tyranny, ultimately restricting freedom. Such rhetoric makes reference to the human specie’s past, in other words the animal-past when the formation of packs was necessary as a means of survival. In theory, pack behavior is no longer vital for humans, but the rhetoric of group division is still current; the elite of society attend special schools to become adept in its use. Like the Link people, the sentimental agents of the title play the role of yeast within the society, in other words, the ingredient which will encourage the evolution of a population immobilized in the status quo. Instead of geographic zones, groups are formed by means of rhetoric which the agents target as their principal obstacle to positive change. In the novel, the court trial becomes a way to oppose lassitude, the force of tradition and insularity; the Peers intend, before reaching a verdict, to inform themselves (thanks to books on the subject) about group dynamics. Although in the minority, those who refuse the rhetoric of group minds succeed, at least for a short time, in their effort to see humanity in a more universal manner.