More on 'Identity and Violence'

Today's Guardian has a thoughful review of review of Amartya Sen's new book, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, by John Gray: Thinking out of the box

Impassioned, eloquent and often moving, Identity and Violence is a sustained attack on the "solitarist" theory which says that human identities are formed by membership of a single social group. Sen believes this solitarist fallacy shapes much communitarian and multicultural thinking, as well as Samuel Huntingdon's theory of "clashing civilisations". In each case it involves the fallacy of defining the multiple and shifting identities present in every human being in terms of a single, unchanging essence.

In Sen's view the idea that we can be divided up in this way leads to a "miniaturisation" of humanity, with everyone locked up in tight little boxes from which they emerge only to attack one another.The solitarist view of human identity is plainly false, and it can also be dangerous. Sen notes astutely how Huntingdon's crude theory has been used in the "war on terror" to entrench the perception that Muslims are defined only by their religious identity, itself supposedly defined in "anti-western" terms. Here, and at several points in Identity and Violence, Sen mounts a timely critique of the contemporary politics of identity.

Yet his critique is undermined by a pervasive lack of realism. He attacks the multicultural view of society, contrasting it with Gandhi's "far-sighted refusal to see a nation as a federation of communities and religions". In effect, Sen's alternative to multiculturalism is a species of liberal nationalism. Unfortunately he fails to ask how nationhood is achieved, and at what cost. The emergence of modern nations has done much to emancipate individuals from the tyranny of local communities, but this freedom has come at a heavy price. Nearly everywhere, large-scale violence has been an integral feature of the construction of nation-states. The communal slaughter that accompanied Indian independence is in no way exceptional. The US became a modern nation only after a devastating civil war, France only after Napoleon. In Africa and the Balkans the formation of nations has gone hand in hand with tribal conflict and ethnic cleansing, while the welding of China into a nation that is under way today involves the ruthless suppression of Tibetan and Muslim minorities. Even in its liberal, "civic" varieties, nationalism has spawned violence on a vast scale. In comparison, multiculturalism - the chief target of Sen's critique - is a sideshow.

There is a deeper unrealism in Sen's analysis, which emerges in his inability to account for the powerful appeal of the solitarist view. He tells us "there is a big question about why the cultivation of singularity is so successful, given the extraordinary naivete of the thesis in a world of obviously plural affiliations". Here we touch the heart of Sen's continuing bewilderment. Along with many liberal philosophers, he seems to think human conflict is a result of intellectual error. But if the error of solitarism is so blatantly obvious, why do large numbers of people continue to believe in it and act on it?

Sen refers repeatedly to manipulation by malevolent propagandists. "Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people," he writes, "championed by proficient artisans of terror." But are people really so stupid? Or is the failure of understanding actually in the liberal philosopher?

See also my earlier post, where Sen is interviewed about his book: Amartya Sen's new book

Comments

[Lord]

Is solitarism a strawman? It is not hard to believe there are more commonalities between those of a common culture than those of differing ones, but I don't see that this makes for a single unchanging essence. At the same time, it is quite believeable that there are systems of thought which are fundamentally incompatible and cannot be reconciled without changes to them.

[minyu]

"Yet his critique is undermined by a pervasive lack of realism."

Is he talking about Sen? Sen is among the best authors at nuanced analysis I read.

The book had been in my wishlist for 3 months. It seems having come out in the Britain market, but just the hardcover, and I still have to wait.

BTW, the link is not working. You forgot to copy the "h" before the "ttp".

[Paul]

there's video of Sen's presentation on the book
http://truckandbarter.com/mt/archives/2006/08/identity_and_vi.html

[A. PERLA]

"The US became a modern nation only after a devastating civil war, France only after Napoleon."

The review carries some interesting thoughts. But, the above is a specious substantiation.

The Civil War occurred at the onset of the Industrial Age. The southern states new full well that the industrialized north would fair better from the Industrial Age than the heavily agricultural south. To outlaw slavery would be the death knell of the southern way of life on the plantations.

Some may see the Civil War's outcome as being the negation of an agricultural economy and the acceptance of industrialization. This is not so. Agriculture remained an important part of the American economy well into the 20th century and still does today.

So, I doubt that the Civil War triggered the modernization of America.

As regards France, the context was altogether different and its remnants are still visible today. France was national entity that was governed by the concentration of power in one person, the King, for almost a millennia.

Its small adventure with revolution and “democracy” was short lived and upon its ashes Napoleon walked in to restore the aristocracy, which his progenitors continued for another half a century or so. Even in its democratic form today, France is still hobbled by its "dirigism" from the top.

In neither circumstance were these cited events step-function changes. They were simply one more stride along a road that had been traced for centuries.

I maintain that such is still the case. Nations take time to evolve because the prevailing mentality of a people also takes time to mature - and lots of it. Cultural values are in constant evolution and do not change over night, though that sometimes seems to be the case. It is possible that the evolutionary process may be accelerating.

Developing nations (i.e., most of the existing world) have nearly all the same aspiration: To have a large middle-class that enjoys the benefits of a middle-class existence, without causing the impoverished to riot from desperation. (I doubt that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is becoming obsolete as more and more nations scramble up the ladder.)

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