Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. Amartya Sen [Paperback]

Amartya Kumar Sen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2008

The world may be more driven by murderous violence than ever before, yet Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen argues in this sweeping philosophical work that its brutalities are driven as much by confusion as by inescapable hatred. Sen argues in his new book that conflict and violence are sustained today, no less than the past, but by the illusion of a unique identity. Indeed, the world is increasingly taken to be divided between religions (or 'cultures' or 'civilizations'), ignoring the relevance of other ways in which people see themselves through class, gender, profession, language, literature, science, music, morals or politics, and denying the real possibilities of reasoned choices.In "Identity and Violence", he overturns such stereotypes as the 'the monolithic Middle East' or 'the Western Mind'. Through his penetrating investigation of such subjects as multiculturalism, fundamentalism, terrorism and globalization, he brings out the need for a clear-headed understanding of human freedom and a constructive public voice in Global civil society. The world, Sen shows, can be made to move towards peace as firmly as it has recently spiralled towards war.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nobel Prize–winning economist Sen deplores the "little boxes" that divide us in this high-minded but seldom penetrating brief against identity politics. Sen observes that ideologies of hate typically slot people into communities based on a single dimension that trumps the multifaceted affinities of class, sex, politics and personal interest that make up individual identities. This "reductionist" us-versus-them outlook is not limited to jihadists, he argues, but is a widespread intellectual tendency seen in Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" paradigm, in postcolonial critiques of democracy and rationalism as "Western" ideals, as well as in efforts to "dialogue" with moderate Muslims. (These last, he feels, pigeonhole Muslims in purely religious terms.) Sen rebuts the "singular affiliation" falsehood with a cursory historical, literary and cultural survey of the diversity of supposedly monolithic civilizations (Akbar, a 16th-century Mughal emperor and champion of religious toleration, is a favorite citation.) Sen's previous work (Development as Freedom) injected liberal values into development economics; here, he argues that the freedom to choose one's identity affiliations is the antidote to divisive extremism. Stitched together from lectures, the book is dry and repetitive. While Sen's defense of humane pluralism against narrow-minded communalism is laudable, he never really elucidates the social psychology that translates group identity into violence. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Violence is "promoted by a sense of inevitability about some allegedly unique--often belligerent--identity that we are supposed to have," argues Sen in this rejection of the civilizational or religious partitioning that defines human beings by their membership in a particular group. Reminding us that each person is actually a composite of many affiliations, the author informs us that he is Asian, an Indian citizen, a Bengali with Bangladeshi ancestry, an economist, a teacher of philosophy, a Sanskritist, a believer in secularism and democracy, a man, a feminist, and a nonbeliever in afterlife; he omits, perhaps out of modesty, that he is a Nobel Prize winner. Those who would define themselves according to one monolithic system of categories (read jihadists, communitarians, and Samuel Huntington and his followers), says Sen, ignore both the composite nature of humankind and the freedom to choose how much importance to attach to a particular affiliation in a particular context and, in doing so, perpetuate sectarian violence. The key to peace, then, is the rejection of stereotypes in favor of humane pluralism. Pithy and optimistic. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (May 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141027800
• ISBN-13: 978-0141027807
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #973,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars identity need not mean violent destiny, January 17, 2007

By 

Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time) (Hardcover)

Amartya Sen, Harvard professor and winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, still remembers the day sixty-three years ago when a Muslim day laborer named Kader Mia stumbled through the gate into his family's yard in Dhaka, bleeding from knife wounds and begging for help. His father rushed him to the hospital where he eventually died. Kader was a Muslim who was murdered by a Hindu thug, and was but one of the thousands of people who died in Muslim-Hindu riots that erupted in British India in the 1940's. Although most of the rioters shared an economic class identity as poor people, partisans demonized each other with a lethal, singularist "identity of violence," in this instance a diminution of their humanity to religious ethnicity: "The illusion of a uniquely confrontational reality had thoroughly reduced human beings and eclipsed the protagonists' freedom to think." Sen's book is an exploration of this memory of his as a bewildered eleven-year-old boy.

Far too much violence in the world today is fomented by the illusion that people are destined to a "sectarian singularity." Stereotyping people with a singular identity leads to fatalism, resignation, and a sense of inevitability about violence. It partitions people and civilizations into binary oppositions, it ignores the plural ways that people understand themselves, and obscures what Sen calls our "diverse diversities." In particular, he objects to the "clash of civilizations" thesis made popular by Samuel Huntington. Along the way he explores the implications of his thesis for multiculturalism, public policy, globalization, terrorism, anti-Western rage, democracy, and theories of culture.

Sen argues against identity violence caused by the illusion of destiny in three ways. First, he appeals to our common humanity; everyone laughs at weddings, cries at funerals, and worries about their children. More important than any of our external differences, even though these are powerful and important, is our shared humanity. Second, he makes the obvious point that all people enjoy plural identities. To understand a person one must consider factors of civilization, religion, nationality, class, community, culture, gender, profession, language, politics, morals, family of origin, skin color, and a multitude of other markers. Plus, these diverse differences within a single individual depend on one's social context, whether the trait is durable over time, relevant, a factor of constraint or free choice, and so on. Finally, Sen urges us to transcend the illusion of destiny and identity violence by what he calls "reasoned choice." Instead of living as if some irrational fate destines people to confrontation with others who are different, a person needs to make a rational choice about what relative importance to attach to any single trait. Although Sen never explains why rational people succumb to the irrational violence of identity instead of choosing enlightened self-interest, economic incentives, and geo-political peace, this readable book by one of our most brilliant thinkers conveys an important reminder: "We can do better."

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some people don't like reading these thoughts, December 30, 2006

By 

Roger Green (Brighton, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time) (Hardcover)

Amartya Sen's "Identity and Violence" is an excellent, perceptive and penetrating book. The reviews by the Washington Post and Publishers Weekly are rather obtuse. There is nit-picking to avoid the reality that Sen has shown Huntington's clashes of civilisations thesis to be fatally flawed, for example, and the reality of Maimonides' flight from Spain to refuge in Islamic lands rather than to jew-hating Christian Europe, and the reality of others of Sen's examples. Saying that his writing style is dry (I didn't find it so) simply suggests the level of literacy of the reviewer and perhaps most of the reviewer's audience. Some of the negative reviews by individuals are obviously written by people pre-determined to not like what this author says. Saying that Sen's thesis about multiple identities is no good because the Islamic terrorists don't think that way rather neatly avoids his point that far too many in "the West" think the same way as the Islamic terrorists in this regard. The attitude of many of the reviewers simply illuminates Sen's point that too many people on both of the artificial "sides" actually WANT to scream at each other across their imagined single-criterion divide. I urge everyone to bypass the more negative of the reviews posted here, and to go read this book and judge for themselves. I was certainly enriched by reading it. Perfect? No, but immensely worth reading. I wish it was required reading in schools around the world.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Every Rational Being, July 31, 2006

By 

Theodore Godlaski "plinius the elder" (Lexington, Kentucky United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time) (Hardcover)

This is a work that is at once literate, insightful, and witty. Dr. Sen discusses how the narrowness of self-definition has and does lead to violence among groups who, if they but thought more critically about it, have far more that binds them in common concern than that divides them into antagonistic camps. He also discusses how over generalizing can also dismiss the legitimate concerns especially of minorities. He does this in language that is a pleasure to read and with a mind that is at once incisive and also compassionate. The humor comes from recognition of how easily humans are led away from finding common ground by those who benefit most from keeping peoples divided.

This book is a necessary read for anyone who still prizes the ability to think critically and broadly.