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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Medusa Syndrome, June 14, 2005
This review is from: The Ethics of Identity (Hardcover)
There have been various attempts, in the past couple of decades, to carve out a case for group rights; the argument has been that old-school liberalism, with its emphasis on the individualism, is inadequate, because it can't accommodate "difference." Appiah's book politely and subtly demolishes this line of argument. For one thing, he calls into question the assumption that diversity (as opposed to the freedoms that make it possible) is a value in itself. He challenges what he calls the "preservationist ethic," which would preserve dying ways of life in formaldehyde. He reminds us that Locke and the other founding theorists of liberal individualism were writing after a long period of religious factionalism and bloodshed spawned by a fixation with differences; that there is something to be said for the affirmation of Sameness, of a shared humanity. And he further reminds us that not all identity groups are deserving of respect: in the case of what he terms "abhorrent identities," we should be quite content for those identities (e.g., a Nazi identity or, in a case he discusses, the Christian Identity Movement) to disappear. In a critique of what has been called the politics of recognition, Appiah raises concerns about what he terms "the Medusa Syndrome" - in which official recognition (of a tribe, an ethnic community) ends up turning the object of its concern into a fixed and freeze-dried state. This book is a major contribution to political theory, but it would be hard to parse its arguments in partisan-political terms. As Appiah says in the book's preface, he writes "neither as identity's friend nor as its foe." What he does succeed in demonstrating is that the precepts of pre-postmodern liberalism - a creed that takes the individual as the ultimate unit of concern - have been widely underestimated. The book is also a pleasure to read; characters from Stendhal, George Eliot, Tolstoy, and Dickens weave in and out of the pages; he has a gift for illustrating points with a pertinent bit of poetry - Horace, Donne, Philip Larkin (and, new to me, the contemporary poet Carl Dennis). All of which sets the book apart from the sometimes horribly mechanistic language of contemporary political philosophy. Finally, he has an admirable impatience with cliché and cant. Parts of the book can be a little dense (including a long discussion of Kant's "two standpoints"); I wouldn't recommend even academics to take this book to the bench. And I find some of his discussions -- particularly those having to do with education -- frustratingly unburdened by a sense of the real-world challenges. But this is one of the most rewarding books on liberalism (small-l liberalism) I've read in years.
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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In Defense of Sane Liberalism, October 31, 2005
This review is from: The Ethics of Identity (Hardcover)
Kwame Anthony Appiah has always sought to take seriously both the individual and the context in which she is embedded. In this book, Appiah takes a hard look at the ways we shape ourselves as distinct individuals, and he continues to defend the right of the individual to forge a plan of life over and against her community's tug of conformity - but, he insists, not with indifference to the community's influences and interests. For we are always embedded in sets of social relations. However, those relations do not preclude the freedom to become who we are. They shape us; they do not determine us. And, for Appiah, even when we take-up the obligation before us to shape ourselves, to shape our own identities and plans of life, we must take heed not to so over-determine them as to preclude meaningful and fluid engagements with others whose identities are very different. Appiah calls for each of us to have a healthy identity, but to attenuate it enough to permit the Other to engage with us fully, as a fellow human being. This he calls "identity lite" - for better or worse.
The Ethics of Identity should be one of the final words in the old liberal/communitarian debate - a debate that has been, largely, between straw men. Its call for a "rooted cosmopolitanism" speaks directly to the deficiencies in both utopian versions of cosmopolitanism and dystopian versions of Volkish communitarianism.
Appiah's call for the liberal state to engage in soul-making is likely to be one of the controversial proposals in the book (in fact, I already know it is in certain academic circles). For Appiah argues that a state, any state, has an interest in the cultivation of such virtues in its citizens as are harmonious with the values and moral commitments upon which it rests. To some, this will sound like a call for a program of state propaganda and coercion. To others, it will be merely an acknowledgment of the truth of any configuration of power in or through the state apparatus. Since we are stuck with such configurations, why not give the liberal, democratic state a role to play in the production (education) of liberal, pluralistic, tolerant citizens, just as illiberal, undemocratic states go about doing the opposite? A good question. It is worth reading the book to find out where Appiah takes us on this point, and many others. As soul-making has been something that certain conservatives, such as George Will, have called for (See Will's Statecraft as Soulcraft) it will be interesting to see if, oddly, Appiah has "gone conservative." I think not, however. I think that he has simply found some common ground in the interminable culture wars. Whatever the case, the discussions and debates will be interesting.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The blade of analysis, June 13, 2005
This review is from: The Ethics of Identity (Hardcover)
"The Ethics of Identity" is an ambitious attempt to make liberal political theory safe for the discourse of identity, and vice-versa. As a graduate student in political science, I was impressed by the way it grappled with current political philosophy while cutting a path very much its own. Appiah's voice is so inviting and level sounding that one is not always aware how deep the blade has been drawn. On the other hand, those hoping for a real engagement with the work of Continent thinkers like Levinas will be disappointed. Despite a qualified endorsement of cosmopolitanism, the book is definitely oriented toward the Anglo-American philosophic tradition. At the same time, the book's rigor and originality will make it worth reading by those interested in the future of political philosophy.
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