On his book The Politics and Ethics of Identity: In Search of Ourselves
Cover Interview of February 15, 2013
In a nutshell
We are multiple, fragmented, and evolving selves who, nevertheless, believe we have unique and consistent identities.
What accounts for this illusion? Why has the problem of identity become so central to post-war scholarship, fiction and popular culture?
I contend that the defining psychological feature of modernity is the tension between our reflective and social selves.
To address this problem, Westerners have developed four generic strategies of identity construction that are associated with four distinct political orientations: conservatism, totalitarianism, liberalism and anarchism.
I develop my argument through the reading of ancient and modern literary, philosophical and musical texts.
[M]odern art still commonly refers to a rather narrow range of meaning and scope. It basically focuses on developments in Paris (Impressionism etc.) in the nineteenth century, and to selected Euro-American movements in the twentieth century (Cubism, Abstract Expressionism etc). But if we understand modernity as a socially transformative condition that was in force across much of the world from the nineteenth century on, how are we to understand artistic practices that were associated with these momentous changes?Iftikhar Dadi, Interview of March 26, 2012
The two world wars of the twentieth century were a product of the dislocations brought about of modernization in an environment where great power competition and the drive for hegemony were conducted primarily by violent means. Now that this era has passed in Europe and is receding in much of the Pacific rim, and hegemony achieved by force is no longer considered a legitimate ambition, the security requirements and fears of great powers should decline.Richard Ned Lebow, Interview of October 4, 2010
In a nutshell
We are multiple, fragmented, and evolving selves who, nevertheless, believe we have unique and consistent identities.
What accounts for this illusion? Why has the problem of identity become so central to post-war scholarship, fiction and popular culture?
I contend that the defining psychological feature of modernity is the tension between our reflective and social selves.
To address this problem, Westerners have developed four generic strategies of identity construction that are associated with four distinct political orientations: conservatism, totalitarianism, liberalism and anarchism.
I develop my argument through the reading of ancient and modern literary, philosophical and musical texts.