06/18/2018
The supposedly eternal categories people use to group themselves into antagonistic collectives are misleading memes of recent vintage, according to this probing critique of identity politics. New York University philosophy professor Appiah (Cosmopolitanisms) argues that, although people have an innate “clannishness”—an instinct to identify with groups—the common essential properties that bind those groups are arbitrary, inconsistent, and mainly imaginary. The idea of fixed biological races, he contends, developed in the 18th century to justify the transatlantic slave trade; the notion of homogeneous national identities sprouted from a 19th-century romantic philosophy that forced them onto multiethnic, multilingual communities; modern religious divisions are based on contradictory, often unintelligible scriptures; and, contrary to the dicta of both white nationalists and Afrocentrists, Western culture isn’t the creation of Europeans, Egyptians, or any other single people. Writing in erudite but engaging prose, Appiah spotlights figures who created identitarian doctrines or challenged them, including a West African boy who traveled to Germany in 1707 and became a philosophy professor, and ponders his own complicated identity as a gay, biracial man descended from English knights on his mother’s side and Ghanaian royalty on his father’s. With deep learning and incisive reasoning, Appiah makes a forceful argument for building identity from individual aspirations rather than exclusionary dogmas. (Aug.)
Appiah—who could variously be described as biracial, Ghanaian British, an Asante, a Londoner, and a gay cis man—is perfectly positioned to explore the various meanings and missteps involved in charting human identity... His discussions of religion and nationality are particularly apt... Perhaps the most startling of Appiah’s claims is that cultural differences are a response to the need for a distinguishing identity. Herein lies the paradox of cultural identity: the human need to belong will always require an outsider group to reject.
The terrible power of bad ideas is best resisted, as The Lies That Bind shows, by subjecting them to serious critical scrutiny. Identities central to contemporary cultures can be both historically grounded and utterly misconceived. There is so much to learn from Anthony Appiah's splendid book.
This wonderful book unravels a tapestry of suppositions about identity. Understanding what draws us together and what tears us apart lies at the core of democracy. This is a vital book, an antidote to violent nativism, and a key to success in the human experiment.
A provocative and brilliant intervention into the current discussion of the role identity plays in our society. We’re doing it all wrong, as Appiah demonstrates with characteristic erudition, clear thinking, and elegant prose.
Kwame
Anthony Appiah again demonstrates that he is one of our foremost writers on identity, culture, and difference. With his trademark clarity, elegance, and rigor, he is a most useful guide to thinking through some of the complicated problems of who we are and what we can be.
Not only does that elegant writer and transcendent thinker, Anthony Appiah, clarify the historical gaslighting around color and racial stereotype, he also forges radical new theories of identity as they apply to almost every conceivable aspect of self. The Lies That Bind forces you to rethink what tribe you actually belong to with regard to race and religion, geography and gender, class and sexuality. Sheer genius and a joy to read.
Through this meditative journey, Appiah calls on us to buckle down to the difficult task of living with complexity—that is, the task of being modern. Erudite, personal, timely and deeply humane, this is a book for our time.
The Lies That Bind ranges even more widely in time and space than [Francis Fukuyama's] Identity… The point of this entertaining, meandering journey is that identities are less solid than is frequently thought.
The Lies that Bind is a small volume of mighty power. In his lucid prose, Appiah elegantly dismantles the humbug, dogma, pseudo-science and propaganda that have long dogged our attempts to discuss 'identity,' and offers in their place a practical and philosophical tool-kit, as subtly radical in its aims as it is humane in application. From the illusions of 19th century ideas of biological destiny, to the late-capitalist logic of our contemporary 'cultural appropriation' debates, this book will help a lot of people think with far more clarity about some of the thorniest issues of our times. An inspiring and essential read.
Appiah makes the controversial and difficult subject of identity lucid, edifying, and even fun. When it comes to the humane values that allow us to live with one another, he may be our most penetrating—and entertaining—major philosopher.
Excellent… Appiah hopes to inspire a rethinking of our restrictive and therefore divisive notions of who we are. But if that seems an impossible task, should the massive obstacles stop us from trying? [Appiah] brings to the task a number of insights and the mind of a realist… if the solution to the fracturing of our world remains elusive, this book at least helps us think clearly about the problem.
[Appiah is] one of the most brilliant philosophers in the English-speaking world. He is an intellectual hero of mine… a brilliant and beautiful thinker. He writes with élan and clarity, erudition and wit.
Appiah believes we’re in wars of identity because we keep making the same mistake: exaggerating our differences with others and our similarities with our own kind… [his] writing is often fresh, even beautiful… We need more thinkers as wise as Appiah.
2018-05-23
In an exploration of the ways we label and confine ourselves, a celebrated philosopher advocates for a theory of human identity that recognizes but transcends race, religion, nation, culture, and class.Repudiating today's misguided surge of nationalism and nativist "purity," Appiah (Philosophy and Law/New York Univ.; As If: Idealization and Ideals, 2017, etc.) provides an impeccably argued challenge to all manner of calcified identities, including the illusory notion of "Western" civilization. "The East" is no less a chimera. Broadly, the author insists that we are bound by ways of apprehending identities that took modern shape in the 19th century, and they demand re-evaluation. Appiah makes irrefutable points about the incoherence of narrowly defined identities and our collective delusions. However, he dithers a bit in his opening essays, splitting hairs and taking a chapter to express what could have been managed in 300 words. Indeed, the book often relates the obvious in exhaustive terms, and the author sometimes ends up preaching to the choir. While eviscerating much pseudo-science, he also parrots some of the more questionable contentions of academic ideologues, succumbing to their oversimplifications. Still, the author has a penetrating grasp of the complexities of identity, and he wields history like a scalpel, extracting the cancerous myths, poisonous prejudices, and foolish antagonisms that divide us. Though Appiah savors his entwined Asante and English heritage, he is, like Diogenes, a citizen of the world, and his intent is to build bridges. "My aim is to start conversations, not to end them," he concludes, fully acknowledging that there is much more to be said on each of the topics he investigates. Appiah knows we are clannish creatures and that the most intractable of all "isms" is tribalism. He asks only that we rethink false assumptions and find our way out of the thickets.A well-informed philosophical investigation into methods for breaking through "walls that will not let in fresh and enlivening air."
★ 09/15/2018
Appiah (philosophy, New York Univ.; Cosmopolitanism) argues that people identify with ideas and groups in ways that are inescapable but dangerous. The key danger lies in essentialism, the view that a group has fixed conditions of identity that apply without exception to its members. Thus, Scriptural determinism holds that people who profess a religion are committed to beliefs found in canonical texts, yet to view religion in this way is to ignore the diversity of belief and behavior among those who profess a particular creed. In another example, Appiah denies that race determines intelligence and personality traits and offers similar considerations along lines of country, class, and culture, moving easily over diverse fields including biblical scholarship, philosophy, history, and anthropology. Appiah often draws examples from his own remarkable life, as well as from personalities such as Michael Young, a sociologist who coined the term meritocracy and was an architect of the post-World War II British welfare state. VERDICT Written in a clear, nontechnical style, this book by an outstanding contemporary philosopher presents critical thinking about public issues at its best and should appeal widely to anyone interested in serious thought. [See Prepub Alert, 2/12/18.]—David Gordon, Ludwig von Mises Inst., Auburn, AL
