Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny

For the most part very thought-provoking. The best parts, literary-wise, are maybe the personal anecdotes. Bad parts: He does grow somewhat repetitive, and the chapter on the anti-globalization movement is an attack on a straw man.

"You can choose your own identity" is one of the key points of this book by economic Nobel winning scolar Amartya Sen. But what about the social conditions of identity formation? It is not self-evident that you can choose autonomously your identity in every social situation. If people are being humiliated, disrespected or denigrated it is virtually imposible to construct a positive...more

"You can choose your own identity" is one of the key points of this book by economic Nobel winning scolar Amartya Sen. But what about the social conditions of identity formation? It is not self-evident that you can choose autonomously your identity in every social situation. If people are being humiliated, disrespected or denigrated it is virtually imposible to construct a positive relation to yourself as Axel Honneth writes in his famous Struggle for Recognition. Maybe it is good to emphasize ones ability to choose his/her identity as a pedagogical strategy so that people would question the nationalist or fundamentalist identies that causes violence. It is also important to see in what social conditions "autonomous" identity formation is realistically possible for example through education. Sen criticized for example Charles Taylor for overemphasizing the social dependens of human identity. It seems however Sen have not understood very well Taylors thinking.   hide