In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to BelongIn the Name of Identity is as close to summer reading as philosophy gets. It is a personal, sometimes even intimate, account of identity-in-the-world, not a treatise on the thorny metaphysics of identity. A novelist by trade, Amin Maalouf is a fluid writer, and he is aided by Barbara Bray's award-winning translation. His aim is to illuminate the roots of violence and hatred, which he sees in tribalistic forms of identity. He argues that our convictions and notions of identity--whether cultural, religious, national, or ethnic--are socially habituated and frequently dangerous. We'd give them up, he argues, if we thought more closely about them.Though the book has been heralded as radical and surprising, Maalouf essentially espouses an Enlightenment sensibility, a faith in the brotherhood of man. He is a believer in progress, arguing that "the wind of globalisation, while it could lead us to disaster, could also lead us to success." In fact, he envisions a globalized world in which our local identities are subordinated to a broader "allegiance to the human community itself." Maalouf wants us to retain our distinctiveness, but he wants it subsumed under the nave of common understanding. --Eric de Place |
Contents
Section 1 | 1 |
Section 2 | 9 |
Section 3 | 16 |
Section 4 | 23 |
Section 5 | 30 |
Section 6 | 37 |
Section 7 | 47 |
Section 8 | 52 |
Section 13 | 87 |
Section 14 | 95 |
Section 15 | 101 |
Section 16 | 105 |
Section 17 | 110 |
Section 18 | 119 |
Section 19 | 128 |
Section 20 | 143 |
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Common terms and phrases
accept affiliation African Algeria allegiances AMIN MAALOUF Arab world atavism attitude become behaviour beliefs belonging born Catholic century Christianity civilisation colour complex course Croat culture democracy diversity doctrine Egypt Empire English equally ethnic Europe European everything example fact faith feel fight France French fundamental future gion global globalisation guage hand happens Hispanic human Hutu Icelandic idea iden images immigrants individual influence intellectual Islam Islamists Italian Jews kind language Lebanese Lebanon less liberty linguistic live look Marxism massacres Melchite merely migrant minority modernisation modernity Mohammed Muslim world need for identity never one's Ottoman Empire ourselves past person political question recognise regard religion religious respect seems Serb society someone sometimes South Africa speak Taliban things tion tity tolerance tradition tribes Turks Tutsis universal suffrage West Western whole word