De leugens die ons binden: Een nieuwe kijk op identiteit

by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Maarten Polman (Translator)

Wie ben ik en waar hoor ik bij? We zijn man, vrouw, moslim, christen, zwart, wit – en daaraan ontlenen we onze eigenwaarde. Het zegt iets over onze dromen, verwachtingen en beperkingen, over onze familie, nationaliteit, cultuur en religie. Maar waarom gaan we op zoek naar bevestiging van een enkele identiteit, terwijl we bestaan uit meerdere?

Bestsellerauteur Kwame Anthony Appiah schreef een opzienbarend boek over de identiteitspolitiek die onze huidige samenleving polariseert. We benadrukken maar al te graag de verschillen met anderen en de overeenkomsten met gelijkgestemden. Maar die generalisatie brengt ons niet verder, aldus wereldburger Appiah. Levendig en met veel persoonlijke anekdotes, historische, culturele en literaire voorbeelden ontleedt hij de verhalen die we onszelf vertellen – en hoe we op dat vlak verkeerd redeneren. Zo gaat religie lang niet alleen over geloof, gaan racistische gedachten terug op achterhaalde wetenschap en zijn we als mensen niet herleidbaar tot een paar benamingen, maar zijn we zoveel meer.

Appiah presenteert met De leugens die ons binden een nieuwe manier van denken, waardoor onze blik op onszelf en op onze gemeenschappen radicaal zal veranderen.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, Psychology, Sociology, Race, History

335 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2018

About the author

Kwame Anthony Appiah, the president of the PEN American Center, is the author of The Ethics of Identity, Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, The Honor Code and the prize-winning Cosmopolitanism. Raised in Ghana and educated in England, he has taught philosophy on three continents and is a former professor at Princeton University and currently has a position at NYU.

Series:
* Sir Patrick Scott Mystery (as Anthony Appiah)

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kwame Anthony Appiah's thesis is straightforward: when we fixate on singular identities and use generalizing classifications to describe human beings, when we seek to reduce human beings to symbolic representation, we are engaged in a fool's errand. The goal of this book is a simple one: to demonstrate the complexity of human identity. We come from so many places. No person is one thing; no person equals their country, class, creed, or color. All of those labels can be ambiguous, elastic, fluid; they can change over time. Even the cultures we belong to are the result of so many cultures that came before. Identity is many things, not a single fixed label. There, done.

Appiah's perspective is that of an old-fashioned progressive. Emphasis on "progress" - human history is a progression and things will always change (even when that change appears circular). His viewpoint rejects essentialist nonsense frequently peddled by the far-left and the far-right.

None of this was new to me - I'm an old-fashioned progressive as well - and so I didn't really learn any edifying lessons per se. Rather, the book served to provide even more support for my value system. Despite the lack of lessons learned, this was still a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The author is a wonderful storyteller who shares the lives of many fascinating people throughout time. I may not have learned new things about identity, but I sure did learn a lot about a wide range of interesting human beings.

3.5 stars, rounded up.


PROGRESS NOTES

Chapter 1: Classification

The opening outlines the discussion to follow: it will be about, as Appiah titles a subsection, Labels and Why They Matter. The author uses as a jumping point the idea of biological sex being essentially binary (numerically speaking, at least), a matter of chromosomal makeup, then notes the wide range of exceptions to that XX/XY binary, finally connecting that point about binaries to the very au courant topic of gender and how gender may be expressed outside of established classifications, using examples of communities that do not fall within that binary (e.g. kothis & hijras in India; nádleehí & dilbaa in Navajo culture).

His point established, he then provides three defining attributes to how we perceive and display identities:

(1) Habitus and bodily hexis. How we literally deploy our bodies, based on our identities.
(2) Essentialism. How we classify people into groups that share specific attributes and behaviors.
(3) Clannishness. How we are invested in differentiation between groups as in-group vs. out-group.

I don't have a lot of thoughts on this chapter, other than it was pure pleasure to read. I love Appiah's brisk but conversational and often humorous style, full of small anecdotes and mini-histories. Now this is a fellow who would be an important addition to any dinner party.

I did not learn a new way of thinking about identity (yet), because I am already in agreement with the arguments here. Based on how sympathetic my response was to this chapter, I wonder if this will be a 5-star book for me. Simply because this book's perspective may be my own perspective. That feels like a very self-satisfied reason to give a book 5 stars, but hey I'd probably give myself 5 stars too lol.

Chapter 2: Creed

Appiah lays out the three dimensions of creed:

(1) Body of belief
(2) Practice
(3) Community/fellowship

His main point being that "creed" is as much about behavioral and cultural patterns and practices as it is about subscribing to specific beliefs/credos/doctrines. A simple and straightforward point e.g. the Jewish community also includes those who are "culturally Jewish" but do not follow the tenets of the Torah. Followed by another basic observation: the language and therefore often the meaning of sacred texts will often change - and often ambiguously - with the passage of time, the variances of translation, the inclusion or removal of parts of those texts, and the lack of a true ability to verify if the meaning or even the words of that text were 100% accurately represented.

He then makes a surprising but very logical assertion: fundamentalists share much in common with those outside of a faith who use the tenets of that faith as the basis of a cultural critique. He uses Islam as a cogent example. Fanatical fundamentalists who are Muslim adhere to their own version of the Koran, cherry-picking those parts that speak to their goals; Islamophobes also cherry-pick elements of the Koran in order to use those examples to tar all Muslims. I loved all of this.

"Scriptural determinism of this kind... is mobilized both by outsiders to indict Islam and by insiders to defend practices they favor."

Using essentialism to define an individual or a cultural group is always a foolish endeavor.

Chapter 3: Country

The author spends time in pluralistic places like the former city-state Trieste, the current city-state Singapore, and the homeland of his father, Ghana. Quite a bit about Scotland as well. He emphasizes that, by their very nature as settings that frequently contract and expand their borders, rename themselves, vary their ethnic populations over time, add and subtract languages, intermix with other such settings, etc., that the word "country" is an intrinsically ambiguous one:

"...the reality of linguistic and cultural variation within a community... can be in tension with the romantic nationalist vision of a community united by language and culture.'

He reviews how the ideas of "territorial integrity" and "the principle of self-determination" can be picked up and dropped and interchanged, all depending on the goal whichever person or country currently has in using such phrases. The Russian invasion of Crimea is provided as a particularly relevant (and upsetting) example, as it was officially predicated on a (very questionable) majority vote by the majority of Crimea's residents that they would prefer to be a part of Russia e.g. the principle of self-determination was used... while the majority of Ukrainians would have doubtless voted to retain Crimea e.g. that Ukrainian territorial integrity be respected. And of course we see now that one of the reasons that Russia chose to invade Ukraine again is due to its supposed concerns regarding its own territorial integrity.

Overall, Appiah's recipe for a successful pluralistic country is that people need to relax that nationalism, recognize the inherent variability of what constitutes a country, and realize that a nation is not about shared ancestry but rather about different communities sharing an overarching identity. A nourishing recipe and a laudable hope of course, but easier said than done. People are dumb and prefer to feast on their illusions.

This was another chapter rich in absorbing stories and in ideas with which I completely agreed. But there were a couple of weaknesses as well. I found his idea that nationalism is a relatively modern development that began with Romanticism (which itself began as a reaction to the Enlightenment) to be unconvincing. The attributes of pre-Romantic patriotism sounded very similar to the attributes of Romantic nationalism. I also thought he missed a golden opportunity in not dissecting the United States, a nation which has pluralism at its core. Certainly the fact that all Americans automatically and often proudly have two identities - "American" and the place of their lineage (and thus an American can also be African-American, Irish-American, Native American, etc. et al) - well, not to be too America-centric, but this could have been a centerpiece for his argument.

Chapter 4: Color

Appiah starts and ends this chapter by describing the life of Anton Wilhelm Amo, a Ghanian-born German philosopher who was enslaved as a child and brought as a gift to Duke Wilhelm in 1707. The Duke freed him and gave him the family name; Anton later achieved much distinction as an author, professor, and the first African to become a student at a European university. About 40 years later, possibly unhappy with Germany's increasing illiberalism (and having been publicly lampooned in a play that featured a character with his name being rejected by a white woman), he returned to Africa to live out the rest of his days. This was a very compelling story.

The point is clear: it is usually nurture not nature that defines a person (or at the very least, individual rather than group-level genetics); color is simply a trait, one that has no bearing on anyone's ability to adapt, learn, succeed. It is a good point, of course. I wish the rest of this chapter had been equally compelling, at least on an intellectual level (I continued to love reading the historical anecdotes). In between telling the beginning and ending of Amo's story, the author discusses the evolving concept of "race" and focuses on a range of familiar topics. In particular, how 19th century ideology offered supposed proof of the inferiority of any non-white races (which served handily as a slave trade rationale for anyone whose pesky morals were bothering them). That idea held sway over the minds of many, despite the work of people like abolitionist French priest Abbé Grégoire, Czech monk Gregor Mendel in the field of genetics, and of course the writings of internationally famous black intellectual W.E.B. DuBois. Appiah also provides ample proof that racism as a root cause of genocide is well beyond any kind of black/white binary (i.e. Armenian genocide, Hutus versus Tutsis, Holocaust of Jews and Romany, etc.)

Unfortunately, the chapter just didn't land in an interesting or provocative way for me... I wasn't challenged nor did I see much that expanded my own thoughts. Perhaps the problem is that Appiah and I are clearly on the same page when it comes to the intellectually and morally bankrupt idea that race or color should be seen as the defining trait for individuals or groups, let alone as the sole reason for things like individual achievement or group failures. I do wish he hadn't hand-waved aside modern explorations of biological race concepts that "uncover patterns among individual genotypes that reflect shared ancestry" because this is an area where I am at a loss and only have feelings about, rather than any actual thoughts. I assume he was referring to folks like Charles Murray, but am unsure.

Chapter 5: Class

This chapter is all over the map. Appiah visits the life of class analyst Michael Young (including his time at Utopian-inspired Darlington Hall), Karl Marx, Max Weber, various female English prose writers including Jane Austen, and his own Ghanian lineage. Even J.D. Vance makes an appearance.

Because there were so many references, few solid points emerged from this section. It felt almost as if the topic itself is such an overwhelmingly ambiguous and malleable one that the author couldn't find a throughline. It also has to be said that Appiah's own upper class background, on both his English and his Ghanian sides, was present in a way that made me wish that this section was written by someone with a bit more grit, a bit more personal experience across class systems. Well, perhaps the confusion and the ambiguity of this chapter makes its own point: class is complicated and it is hard to pin down. It is not just about money, about capital. It is about ways of being.

Certainly the Marxist idea of a world divided between proletariat and bourgeoisie is patently incorrect; there are far too many groups outside of that binary for it to be a true portrait of society. The author makes this point well. I also appreciated his brief focus on the arrival of "working class pride" when class analysis came into the public eye. And his thoughts on an educational structure that truly sorts people according to their abilities, one that exists within an overarching system where generational wealth is not the primary determinant of a young person's eventual "merit" and their potential to even have certain abilities... well, that was aspirational in the best sort of way. A combination of the ideas on education that I've gleaned from two very different writers, John McWhorter and Asad Haider. Also probably wildly unrealistic, alas.

It was amusing to learn that the very word "meritocracy" - coined by Michael Young - sprang from a satirical work of fiction. One whose main point is that a truly meritocratic society is an impossibility in today's world; generational wealth will arm the middle and upper classes with tools and support systems that are often beyond the reach of other classes. A depressing but resonant point, and a reality check. Although bootstrappers will no doubt disagree!

Chapter 6: Culture

"Identities can be held together by narratives, in short, without essences..."

This chapter starts with a familiar contrast between the two writers who first defined "culture": Edward Burnett Tylor and Matthew Arnold. The latter defined culture as a heightened sensitivity to finer things, to intellectualism, to critical thought and appreciation of the arts; the former put forward the then-radical idea that every society has its own culture, one that can to an extent be understood and appreciated by outsiders, after careful study. Basically, the elitist and the humanist. It should go without saying which man has Appiah's fullest sympathies. Appiah closes the chapter with a discussion of cultural appropriation, noting both the tunnel-vision of that phrase (literally all cultures have appropriated from each other) and its occasional relevancy (in those instances where cultural appropriation veers into exploitation, disrespect, or trivialization).

In between is a lengthy excoriation of the very idea of "Western civilization" - an argument that I am very much here for. (Although I was a bit surprised at the mono-focus!) The author traces the ideas and ideals of what supposedly constitutes Western civilization, noting its transfer from Greece to Rome, its safekeeping by Muslims during the European Dark Ages, and its current embrace by Western Europe, North America, and parts of Oceania. He notes as well the frequent hypocrisies displayed by so-called Western civilization in its various inequities, wars, and pogroms. Appiah also, albeit briefly, holds the equally ahistorical tenets of Afrocentrism to the flame. He sneeringly dismisses the idea that either Western Culture or Afrocentrism encapsulates and promotes pure, unsullied, enlightened value systems; the truth is that those values have existed throughout many cultures that would not be readily placed in either Western Europe or Africa.

I appreciated the sneers and the dismissals! The author is such a courtly, gracious writer throughout this book; his condescension in this last chapter was a surprising and refreshing tone switch. Tunnel-visioned viewpoints and ideologies that insist certain cultures (usually their own) automatically embody and enact elevated ways of being should be sneered at, and then laughingly dismissed. "Culture" come from many places; individuals within those cultures have the whole world to draw upon when determining their own value systems and modes of behavior. No individual and no culture is one thing; what they often are is a mixture of many things that have come before and that have come from many places. And, perhaps most importantly, no value system is maintained without constant work being done to actually uphold those values.

"Values aren't a birthright: you need to keep caring about them.

[Mehrsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more of a contemplation of identity--it's not really a "rethinking" so much because there's really nothing new here. Just thoughts about religious and racial identity and how those things shift and are culturally bound and can be shed. I like everything he said and I like his solutions (that it's better to conceive more broadly of our identities as opposed to creating small and warring identity groups), but I just didn't really learn much that was new. Still, I found myself nodding along mostly throughout the book so maybe it's because I agreed that nothing struck me as original.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Nightmare A Body's Got To Live With In The Daytime

Robert Coover's, recent novel "Huck out West" carries the story of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and related characters through the Civil War to 1876. The story is told in Huck's voice with many observations, some cutting but some insightful. Among the latter sort, Huck says in this book discussing what contemporary readers would recognize as the concept of identity:

"Tribes"... They're a powerful curse laid on you when you get born. They ruin you, but you can't get away from them. They're a nightmare a body's got to live with in the daytime." ("Huck out West", p. 215)

I was reminded of Huck's pithy observation in reading philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah's thoughtful and learned book, "The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity" (2018) which is based on lectures he delivered for the BBC in 2016 titled "Mistaken Identities". Huck's statement could almost serve as a theme for Appiah. Appiah recognizes the importance of identity to individuals in terms of growth and self-understanding. Individuals are born into groups and we rely on one another in particularized surroundings to meet needs. Still, identities can turn into nightmares of rigidity in thinking of oneself and one's own group or "tribe" and in separating oneself and one's group from others, sometimes demonizing them.

Some philosophies and religions are skeptical of concepts of personal identity and would try to do away with them, but that is not Appiah's way. Instead, Appiah tries to loosen but not eliminate ties of identity and to reformulate the understanding of identity in several critical areas of life where identity thinking is at its highest. Broadly, Appiah encourages the reader to eliminate views of essentialism and fixity in understanding one's identity commitments in favor of a more fluid view that recognizes change in what otherwise might seem as a fixed identity and continuity rather than otherness between oneself and others. The approach is broadly cosmopolitan. At the end of the book, Appiah quotes from the dramatist Terrence: "nothing human is foreign to me". Showing a commendable openness, Appiah says the aim of his book is to "start conversations, not to end them". More importantly, he tells the reader that "philosophers contribute to public discussions of moral and political life, I believe, not by telling you what to think but by providing an assortment of concepts and theories you can use to decide what to think for yourself. I will make lots of claims; but however forceful my language, remember always that they are offered up for your consideration, in the light of your own knowledge and experience."

The book opens with a chapter discussing among other things the nature of labeling and essentialism in human identity formation. The chapters which follow discuss and try to modify understandings of identity in five broad areas: religion/creed, country, color, class, and culture, each of which is a sensitive subject for many people. Appiah tries to show problems in common essentialist understanding of identity in each area and often ties these problems into various developments in thought in the 19th century which have outlived their usefulness.

Although not receiving a chapter of its own, Appiah discusses throughout perhaps an even more pervasive identity concept: the nature of gender and of one's sexuality.Although Appiah stresses what he sees as mistakes in understanding gender and in maleness and femaleness, I found this the weakest portion of the book and less convincing than the discussions in the remaining five chapters.

For me, the most persuasive and important identity discussed in the book was creed and religion. Appiah does not try to persuade his readers for or against religion or a particular religion. Rather he points out insightfully and well that people tend to overestimate the importance of belief and creed to religion. He finds that religion is more a shared, changing practice of a group over time even when this shared practice facially involves elements of a creed, such as the recital of articles of faith. Appiah suggests how understandings may change while practices remain shared. He wants to discourage a heavy investment of personal commitment to creedal content and to a fixed separation of oneself from others. The discussions of the remaining four identity components, country, color, class, culture, also are important and worthwhile, although the section on religion had the most to say to me.

The book proceeds in various ways, and Appiah's writing is often passionate, personal, and beautiful. The book offers argument and various forms of analysis, but it is more effective on a personal level and in its use of the work of other writers. Appiah uses many details from his own life, as the child of a British mother with ties to peerage and a father from Ghana with ties to Ghana's elite and to Ghana's winning of its independence. His own life shows the nature of loosening but not eliminating ties of identity in favor of a breadth of human understanding, where possible.

The book is perhaps even more impressive in the range of learning Appiah shows and the use he makes of the lives and work of others. Appiah calls many other writers and books as witness to his development of a fluid concept of identity, including, for example W.E.B. DuBois, Matthew Arnold, Cavafy, Sir Edward Burnet Tylor, and Philo. He discusses at length Anton Wilhem, a distinguished philosopher and the first African to earn a PhD in philosophy from a European university. But the figure who appears closest to Appiah's heart in this book is the novelist Italio Svevo (Aron Ettore Schmitz) whose novel "Zeno's Conscience" is a modernistic classic. With a background in both Judaism and Christianity and ties to many nationalities, Svevo developed a cosmopolitanism and an openness to shared identity that appears to be a model for Appiah's own. In one of several passages discussing Svevo and "Zeno's Conscience", Appiah writes:

"Although he once referred to Trieste as a crogiolo assimilatore -- an assimilating crucible, or melting pot -- Svevo knew how much remained unmelted. His Zeno is, above all, a walker in the city, a boulevardier and rambler, moving from one neighborhood to another. He is also a man always struggling with his own irresolution, always smoking his 'last cigarette', always betraying his ideals, and forever scrutinizing his own prejudices and preferences like a quizzical ethnographer. He wants to confront uncomfortable truths -- to side with reality, however much it stings." (p86)

Appiah clearly writes from the more liberal end of the political spectrum, but enjoying and learning from this book does not involve a commitment to a political creed. Appiah has written a provocative, thoughtful account of the nature of identity and of hot-button issues in identity that helped me and may help others with this treacherous subject. Perhaps, with modification, loosening, and thought, identity does not have to be the "nightmare a body's got to live with in the daytime" that Huck found it to be in Coover's novel.

Robin Friedman

[Juliet Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. So the title does not truly match the contents of the book. This focuses on elements that lead to how we identify in our world, however, the author wanders off into history more than focusing how these elements play a part in our psyche. It's a drawn out delve into stories which only slightly scratch the surface of the psychology of identity. Each segment could be summarized down to a couple paragraphs. What would have made an interesting essay became a muddled group of historical stories which didn't connect the dots. The author is clearly intelligent and perhaps got in his own way on this one.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is a Ghanian/ British philosopher who has spent most of his career in the US. He gets a little academic at times, but does a brilliant job of dissecting and debunking ideas of identity around "creed, country, color, class and culture," showing how too much of our thinking about those things are left over from bad 19th century ideologies.

He doesn't think we can get rid of identity in the sense of social groups, but "the problem is not walls as such but walls that hedge us in; walls we played no part in designing…walls that block our vision and obstruct our way." Rather than use our identities to separate ourselves, we can use them to define our own freedoms and connect ourselves with the larger world. If "identity politics" and the fragmentation and polarization of the world trouble you, this is worth picking up.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

” Le poesie, come le identità, non hanno mai una sola interpretazione. “

Io sono Giorgia
Sona donna
Sono madre
Sono cristiana
Sono italiana

Il tormentone tanto amato dagli italiani e le italiane che lo interpretarono come spontanea presentazione di un personaggio politico (finalmente sincero e determinato) è palesemente frutto di una precisa strategia di comunicazione.
Un' identità così determinata per genere e credo religioso a cui è aggiunto il valore materno non può che catturare l' attenzione di chi si riconosce in quel determinato gruppo.

Il filosofo Kwame Anthony Appiah in questo agile volume ci racconta di come queste definizioni siano tutte frottole o, perlomeno, riduzioni di una complessità molto più intricata di quello che si voglia credere.

Spesso il senso di identità è figlio di storie famigliari e si basa su cinque punti cardinali:

1) religione
2) nazionalità
3) colore
4) classe sociale
5) cultura

Un’esplorazione del tema identitario è quanto mai attuale ed importante per comprendere il nostro mondo soprattutto perché:

” L’elemento più pericoloso riguarda il modo in cui le varie forme di identità – religione, stato, etnia, classe e cultura – ci dividono e ci oppongono gli uni agli altri. Possono diventare i nemici della solidarietà umana, provocare guerre devastanti, essere i cavalieri di una moderna apocalisse che va dall’apartheid al genocidio.”


Le società del passato e del presente si sono nutrite e basate sulle categorizzazioni.
Etichette che sintetizzano attuando, giocoforza, una semplificazione che agisce sul riconoscimento e compone un sistema comportamentale a cui attenersi determinando quelli che chiamiamo stereotipi.

Quindi, ad esempio:

” Se vieni identificato come uomo, nella maggior parte delle società si presuppone che ti piacciano le donne, che cammini e usi le mani in una maniera “maschile”, che sia fisicamente più forte di una donna ecc.”

Ma i cinque punti cardinali s’intersecano e quindi, ad esempio:

” Essere cinese e gay sarà diverso se si è originari di San Francisco piuttosto che di Zhumadian, nella remota provincia cinese dell’Henan, dove, non molto tempo fa, un ospedale ricoverò un uomo per “disordine della preferenza sessuale” e lo obbligò a sottoporsi a una terapia di “conversione”. Il peso sociale di un’identità può variare in base al reddito, l’età, l’aspetto fisico, il lavoro e qualunque altra coordinata vi passi per la mente.”


A ciò si aggiungono tre principi psicologici che agiscono creando ulteriore complessità:

a) habitus (un insieme di modalità di reazione più o meno spontanee e inconsce al mondo esterno in determinate circostanze.)
b) essenzialismo ( la convinzione che certe categorie hanno un sostrato di realtà o una natura autentica che non si può cogliere direttamente,)
c) in group- out group (l’essere dentro o fuori da un determinato gruppo)


La realtà è che siamo creature claniche, ossia tendiamo a raccoglierci in territori circoscritti da paletti- etichette (” Io sono Giorgia /Sona donna/Sono madre/Sono cristiana/Sono italiana) che isolano ed escludono e, insomma, i risultati sono attorno a noi…

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kwame Anthony Appiah, whose "identity" (those are scare quotes) as a "black (or at least not white)", "gay," academic who speaks what he calls "the Queen's English," infuses every aspect of this smart, useful book on the way we use labels to define ourselves and those we come in contact with. His take-home point is basic, clear and true: every label is a radical simplification that leads us and others to deny parts of all of our complexity. His chapters on creed, country, color, class and culture reveal the actual complexities veiled by the way those terms are deployed, almost always in the media and by politicians and frequently even in ostensibly serious intellectual work. He's careful to emphasize that this "anti-essentialist" stance (to invoke the academic phrasing--you could also call it, as he does briefly in the "Coda," "existentialist") doesn't mean labels don't matter. He recognizes how terms like "white," "Muslim," "working class" (and on and on) create mind sets and institutions that put a premium on identifying with a list of criteria we may or may not share. And the label imposed on you most definitely shapes how you're treated--ask any young black man in a hoodie walking the streets in an affluent suburb how the police are likely to treat him.

One of the strengths of this clearly written, mostly jargon-free, book is Appiah's clear understanding how much of the analytical perspective is shaped by feminist thought of the last quarter century or so, which has broken down the seemingly fixed meanings of male, female, homosexual, transsexual and pretty much everything else.

How you'll respond to The Lies That Bind will depend in large part on how deeply you've thought or read about these issues previously. I honestly didn't learn anything much from it, but that's because, as a scholar and writer of about his age working in a cousin discipline, I've tracked many of the same discussions from the 60s to the 21st century and has read many of the same sources. I don't think he does a particularly good job with "class," in large part because he's so deeply grounded in British understandings and traditions. But for the vast majority of readers this will serve as a clear introduction to a useful way of thinking about issues that are usually submerged in about three and a half fathoms of murk.

[Robert Stevenson · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book starts off with a decent beginning about how identity as a word evolved out of Erik Erikson sociological research in the 1960’s and then it adds nothing. After the intro, the book quickly descends into a confusing epistemological labyrinth of religious interpretation, broad historical summary and gross generalizations.

I could not finish it, even after three or four tries and I found myself wondering why Zadie Smith endorsed the book. Glad it was public library book and I didn’t waste money on it.

[Jon Stout · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kwame Anthony Appiah sets out to examine the various parts of our culture which make up group identities, the way we categorize ourselves or characterize others. He identifies five kinds of group identity: creed (religion), country, color, class and culture. My first impression is that he does a job of deconstruction on each of the kinds of group identity, showing that there are so many internal contradictions, and the history of each category has evolved so radically, that it is meaningless to think that any of the categories define anything.

For example, a creed such as the ten commandments varied even among different versions in Exodus, and the meaning of “worshipping other gods” or of “honoring the Sabbath” has had widely varying interpretations in the course of history. Countries morph in the course of history like oil slicks. Appiah uses the example of the city of Trieste, which has been variously Slav, German and Italian, with citizens identifying accordingly. The concept of (racial) color varies drastically, depending on who’s talking and what contrast is being made. And so on with all the categories. It seems that none of the terms we throw around to identify ourselves has any precise or enduring meaning.

While the deconstruction of the terms we use to identify ourselves is disconcerting and disorienting, I generally applaud Appiah’s effort to show that tribal attitudes are misguided, and that we face each other as individuals with complicated histories. His approach is an antidote to the nativism and xenophobia of the Trump era. Appiah argues against “essentialism,” in this context, the idea that individuals have essential natures which determine (not just statistically) their actions. By “essential natures,” in this context, he is referring to creed, country, color, class and culture, and not to our biological natures (as animals, for example). He says that the existentialists were right that first we find ourselves in the world, and then we attempt to describe ourselves.

Appiah argues for a kind of “cosmopolitanism,” the attitude of the city dweller who encounters people of all different backgrounds, and acquires a tolerance for differences. Appiah, as the child of aristocracies of both Ghana and England, is well suited to arguing the relativity of any parochial national or racial point of view. I too, though no aristocrat, have found my most liberating life experiences in multicultural encounters, as when I lived in Mexico or Nepal. There are ways of using our various self-definitions in constructive ways, without dividing ourselves from one another.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book thinking this was perhaps another criticism of "identity politics" that has become so trendy on both the left and the right; I've typically found these critiques self-serving and vague ("identity politics" is never very well defined, and the alternative always aligns with the political presuppositions of the author), so I guess I keep wondering if I'll find one that treats the concept fairly.

Anyway, that's not what The Lies That Bind is. It's indeed a critique of identity politics, but a critique of that form of identity politics that critics of identity politics seem most to overlook: straight white male nationalist identity politics – or, if you will, neofascist or Trumpist identity politics.

Appiah marshals an impressive array of research and anecdotes from cultures across the globe, ranging from South Asia to Africa to Western Europe, in defense of the thesis that identities matter for individual meaning and group cohesion – but that efforts to recover a mythical pure, uncorrupted specific identity, whether religion (e.g., Christianity) or culture (e.g., the West) or nation (e.g., America), are futile. Appiah opposes identity essentialism, the idea that you can distill a specific essence of a particular identity given the messy, interwoven history of humanity. On the other hand, Appiah also argues that some identities are more meaningful than we realize, particularly class.

The Lies That Bind is an easy read, with a conversational style that belies the book's depth and importance. It's highly relevant to the current crisis of identity that seems to be taking place throughout the world – more relevant certainly than those shallow critiques that can't escape their own ideology.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. This book adds nothing to the conversation. It feels like it's decades old. I can distill it into one sentence. We are all human! Now you don't have to read it.

[Jackie Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divided into five main sections – creed, country, colour, class and culture – The Lies That Bind is a philosophical exploration of what is meant by identity in our contemporary world. To better understand how fluid any definition will inevitably be it is necessary to delve into history, and to consider how people choose to interpret different aspects of their inherited place, upbringing and potential. The author argues that:

“labels belong to communities; they are a social possession. And morality and political prudence require us to try to make them work for us all.”

“As a rule, people do not live in monocultural, monoreligious, monolingual nation-states, and they never have.”

The book opens with a brief introduction followed by a section on classification. This lays the groundwork for all that is subsequently discussed.

“Identities […] can be said to have both a subjective dimension and an objective one: an identity cannot simply be imposed upon me, willy nilly, but neither is an identity simply up to me, a contrivance that I can shape however I please.”

The author writes of clannish tendencies and habits, of how children have manners drilled into them that enable them to fit in with their home society. The way they walk, talk and dress offers acceptance and safety. ‘Others’ may be regarded as threatening and suffer suppression.

“In many places in the world one ethnic or racial group regards its members as superior to others, and assumes the right to better treatment.”

What though is an identity? The section on creed discusses how the major religions developed, how their holy books were created, and how interpretation of texts changes over time. Like everything else that is important in human life they evolve. Fundamentalists defend practices they favour and try to force them on others.

“Heretics aren’t killed because they differ in arcane theological details; they’re killed because they reject, and threaten, the authority of their theocratic rulers.”

Religion, it is argued, is not so much about belief but rather practice and fellowship. It is a verb more than a noun.

If identity requires acceptance and a feeling of belonging, the section on country challenges what this could mean in terms of place. It explores how borders change over time and how citizens travel and settle elsewhere. A country of birth may cease to exist due to mergers and divisions. The language used to educate may then be changed alienating the next generation.

Colour also presents challenges of classification as so many, including the author, have forebears from multiple lands. Birthplace or family ties offer little in the way of answers to certain prejudices.

The discussion on class is also complex encompassing as it does financial, social and cultural capital. Education may offer a chance of mobility but resentments can fester when success is perceived as unearned.

“It is no accomplishment to have been born on the finish line.”

Appiah enjoyed a privileged upbringing with influential contacts in Britain and Ghana. Although recognising the advantages to wider society of a meritocracy, of fairness of opportunity, there is recognition of the difficulties in achieving this ideal.

“being able to give money to your children incentivises a parent”

Wealth acts as a gatekeeper to elite education and the opening of doors to certain respected careers.

The final section, on culture, explores what differing groups and individuals regard as of value and influence, and how sections of society try to claim ownership.

“we should resist using the term ‘cultural appropriation’ as an indictment. All cultural practices and objects are mobile; they like to spread, and almost all are themselves creations of intermixture.”

Appiah accepts that intellectuals have a tendency to suppose that the things they care about are the most important things.

In talking of Western culture he argues that the division is not so much between nations as between Christianity and Islam. Despite the historic conflicts involving the two religions, there has been more sharing of knowledge and ideas over the centuries than may be credited.

The traits men use to distinguish themselves from others are shown to be self-serving and often contradictory. Identity offers the benefit of belonging, but with who can be difficult to define or agree.

Appiah’s arguments are cogent – conversation starters rather than prescriptive. Despite the complexities of the subjects pondered, this is a digestible read.

“I am human, I think nothing human alien to me.”

[Andrew]

Of all contemporary philosophers I can think of, Kwame Appiah is the most "commonsense," and while I would normally use that as a disparagement (superficial verifiability and playing into the biases of an ovine readership displacing the unmasking of deeper truths), here I use it as a compliment. Simply put, the concept of identity is malleable and fluid, but also requires a certain amount of skin in the game (note how when the right froths at the mouth about kids-these-days identifying as trans, they completely forget all the shit they have to deal with for accepting that label). For someone like me who's been immersed in these arguments for some time, Appiah's writing is hardly revelatory, it's merely an extremely well-written, eloquent argument. But, as I've said many times 'round these parts, I would recommend it to my mom -- this maybe isn't the sort of thing she's used to encountering.

[Darnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings on this. I felt like it meandered around the periphery of well-established conversations, only selectively engaging with previous work. At times this led to some novel thoughts, but other times I felt like the statements were grandly proclaiming conclusions and ignoring a whole field of arguments. The book isn't really "rethinking" identity unless it means thinking about it for the first time after taking it for granted.

[Kamila Kunda · Rating 4 out of 5]

We live in the times when more people than ever before have a voice and don’t hesitate to use it, even if they have nothing interesting or important to say. We tend to speak more and listen less. We too often focus on our particular and personal identities. That’s why reading “The Lies That Bind” by Kwame Anthony Appiah was a refreshing experience as the book is devoted to social constructs of identities, not individual particulars.
I read it slowly, taking breaks to read other books, and process information at my own pace. I listened to the author with an open mind.

Appiah split the contents into chapters focusing on creed, country, colour, class and culture, analysing how social identities are wrapped around them. His explanations on why social identities matter are simple yet spot on. In a a nutshell, identities give us reasons for doing things, but they also give others reasons for doing things to us. They determine who we are but also who we are not. These simple facts can be liberating, empowering, but also destabilising, humiliating, unfair. In many cultures we cannot escape our identities shaped for us by others (vide e.g. the current plight of Muslims in India).

Still, by being aware of how our social identities work, to our benefit and against our wellbeing, we can, to a certain extent, choose how we want them to affect us and whether we want to use them to succeed in life (“(...) living well means meeting the challenge set by three things: your capacities, the circumstances into which you were born, and the projects you yourself decide are important”.). We have enormous power as we can - and we do - change what is hidden behind social identities. Social roles of men and women have changed in many cultures, for instance, or the understanding of what being Western or European means.

What Appiah is especially good at, is presenting a truly global perspective. He moves across continents, historical periods, various aspects of gender, perspectives on skin colours. He does not make easy assumptions. Never have I felt that his tone is patronising or self-righteous. I am humbled by this book and extremely grateful as it let me reach beyond my world.

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

<> ▪️Expliqué en otra publicación de dónde nace mi interés por leer este libro y es que leyendo <> de Simone de Beauvoir, no paraban de surgir preguntas en mi interior en relación a mi identidad como mujer. Y entre todos esos pensamientos, surgió uno con más fuerza y es que quise comprender si es posible entender quién sería yo si consiguiera arrancarme todo el peso que lleva cada etiqueta identitaria que poseo. Evidentemente, no he encontrado una respuesta a la ancestral, maravillosa y complicadita pregunta de "¿Quién soy yo"? pero sí he encontrado una auténtica joya divulgativa. <> desgrana de una forma muy amena todas aquellas etiquetas que nos definen: el género, la raza, la religión, la nacionalidad, la clase y la cultura. Mezcla sus propias experiencias con temas tan históricos como las ideas sobre la raza surgidas en el XIX hasta debates mucho más contemporáneos como la "apropiación cultural". Ha sido una lectura muy rica, llena de revelaciones y todo un manifiesto filosófico que se va directo a mis favoritos de los leídos en lo que llevo de año. Algo que destaco y que el escritor remarca mucho es la forma en la que solemos dar por hecho que todo aquel que pertenece a determinado grupo identitario comparte unas semejanzas específicas con los otros miembros del grupo. Y lo hacemos sin querer, de forma inconsciente, delimitando así ciertos límites o preferencias. Es importante entender esto y comprender cómo se crean las identidades y es que aunque no podamos librarnos de ellas sí podemos, en última instancia, re-configurarlas o analizarlas de forma en que entendamos que muchas de nuestras asociaciones persona-identidad, son prejuicios. Y aunque es también inevitable poseer esos prejuicios, que menos que intentar conseguir identificarlos y que estos no nos enfrenten. Como señala el mismo autor: "Los existencialistas tenían razón; la existencia precede a la esencia, antes de ser algo en particular, somos." Yo espero que dentro de nuestras mil y una identidades encontremos siempre las formas indicadas de entendernos y respetarnos. 🌹

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appiah examines the concept of identity. His take was rather obvious to me, but not necessarily to everybody. Part of his premise is that we overly essentialize many identities, race, religion, gender, nation, but underestimate how much class plays into things. I've been saying this for years.

[Luke McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of preaching to the choir, as I basically agreed with everything proposed here, but this is a very well-written problematising of identity that at the same time does not deny the necessity and importance of having one. Lots of fruitful historical evidence.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a big hit at philosophy professor dinner parties.

There's some food for thought here, but it's neither particularly filling nor novel. The highlight for me was the joke below about how we define ourselves by opposition to things, which I will absolutely mistell at my own, philosophy-free dinner parties.

p.41 "There's an old joke about a Jewish man shipwrecked on a desert island. Over the decades he builds three buildings. When he's found, his rescuers ask him what they are. 'This is my house. This is the synagogue I go to. And this ... this, is the synagogue I don't go.'"

p.67 "For none of us creates the world we inhabit from scratch; none of us crafts our values and commitments save in dialogue with the past. Dialogue is not determinism, however. Once you think of creedal identities in terms of mutable practices and communities rather than sets of immutable beliefs, religion becomes more verb than noun: the identity is revealed as an activity, not a thing. And it's the nature of activities to bring change."

p.97 "When the state gazes at us - with its identity cards, educational stipulations, and other instruments of recognition - it invariably fixes and rigidifies a phenomenon that is neither fixed nor rigid. I have called this the Medusa Syndrome: what the state gazes upon, it tends to turn to stone. It sculpts what it purports merely to acknowledge."

p. 174 "[Michael Young] lamented that educational institutions had been enlisted into a newly calcifying form of social stratification. 'With an amazing battery of certificates and degrees at its disposal, education has put its seal of approval on a minority, and its seal of disapproval on the many who fail to shine from the time they are relegated to the bottom streams at the age of seven or before.' What should have been mechanisms of mobility had become fortresses of privilege."

p. 177 "The central task of ethics is to ask: what is it for a human life to go well? The answer, I believe is that living well means meeting the challenge set by three things: your capacities, the circumstances into which you were born, and the projects you yourself decide are important. ... But because each of us comes equipped with different talents and is born into different circumstances, and because people choose their own projects, each of us faces his or her own challenge, one that is, in the end, unique."

p. 182 "... may tempt us further to suppose that in the absence of penury and restraint, people offered adequate educations will find a level set by their natural talents: each natural poet will find her inner Milton, each tyrant his waiting inner Cromwell. What's missing here, though, is the massive contingency of human life. Not knowing who could be a Milton, we do not know which parents should immerse their children in the world's great ocean of poesy; to prepare the next Einstein, you'd need to know what talents it will take to make the next great breakthroughs in physics. If we knew that, we wouldn't need the next Einstein."

p. 208 "That's why we should resist using the term 'cultural appropriation' as an indictment. All cultural practices and objects are mobile; they like to spread, and almost all are themselves creations of intermixture. ... This isn't to say that accusations of cultural appropriation never arise from a real offense. Usually, where there's a problem worth noticing, it involves forms of disrespect compounded by power inequities; cultural appropriation is simply the wrong diagnosis."

p. 218 "We all have many things to 'do out there' in the world. And the problem is not walls as such but walls that hedge us in; walls we played no part in designing, walls without doors and windows, walls that block our vision and obstruct our way, walls that will not let in fresh and enlivening air. The modes of identity we've considered can all become forms of confinement, conceptual mistakes underwriting moral ones. But they can also give contours to our freedom."

[Stephanie Froebel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book. In some ways, I still do. Maybe I read this book too quickly or didn't process his writing to its full extent... or maybe I'm just making excuses for why I did not enjoy this book as I expected (there are a lot of variables here).

The question of identity is no easy one to pinpoint. I like the direction Appiah is going with his chapter headers of class, creed, color, culture, etc. However, not each of these chapters was written with the same prolific analysis as I would have hoped. There seemed to be one overarching claim for each chapter, a bunch of jumble in the middle, and little analysis to get to any bigger idea or connect the middle jumble to the original claim. I think if this book had more sociology and psychology embedded, the arguments would hold greater merit or at least connect more than various anecdotes.

I do believe Appiah made good points. I had my colored pencil highlighting a good amount, but it definitely became rare and few in the last 3-4 chapters.

There are certainly lessons to be learned from this book, but they could probably all fit in a single chapter at most with the content he currently provided. From my reading experience, there are far better analyses into what shapes personal identity beyond this one. Specifically, I would skip the color chapter altogether and instead read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson. Not only is her writing much more engaging (which is rare for a longer book compared to this shorter one), but the content is more thorough and backed up with more relevant examples and evidence.

Maybe I will like this book if I read it again, possibly more closely. I guess we will have to see.

[Serge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent follow up to Cosmopolitanism that argues convincingly that we should abandon the essentialism at the heart of many of our chosen identities. All civilizations are the result of an historical interplay that promoted mixture and coexistence. Appiah argues that Western Civilization is an unhelpful caricature that perpetuates some of our worse biases against others (always barbarians from our vantage point). I particularly appreciated his argument in favor of making meaning together to uphold the self-worth and dignity of all as opposed to the meritocratic impulses of neo liberal globalization. Culture is hard work that we are all enjoined to undertake for our shared welfare.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book about how religion, country, colour, class and culture form common sources of identity and how these elements are oftenbuilt on fictions and contradictions. Appiah's overall argument is that we should promote flexible and multifarious conceptions of identity over rigid attachments to narrowly conceived thoughts on class, colour or nationality. It is written in a very accessible manner and draws on both theoretical and practical insights. A good introduction I would say to people who are interested in starting to think more deeply about what identity is.

[Pavol Hardos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wise, erudite, and a trifle boring.

There might have been a bit too many examples to make simple - but much needed - points about the fluidity and social construction of identities. But you won't be able to recall the brilliant examples when you will most need them, and those who most need to read a book like this probably never will.

[Marrije · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting. I think I learnt something new about history and the relative recency of concepts like race and national identity on each page of this smashing book.

[Fons Mariën · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik heb de laatste tijd al meer boeken over identiteit en identiteitspolitiek gelezen. Dit boek van Kwame Anthony Appiah mocht zeker niet aan mijn lijstje ontbreken. De auteur is verbonden aan de universiteit van New York als professor filosofie. Wat in het kader van het onderwerp belangrijk om te weten is, is dat hij een Ghanese vader heeft en een Britse moeder. Dat beïnvloedt Appiah's kijk op identiteit grondig.

In de inleiding poneert de auteur het volgende: "Wij leven met de erfenis van manieren van denken die hun huidige gedaante hebben aangenomen in de negentiende eeuw, het is hoog tijd die te onderwerpen aan het hoogste gedachtengoed van de eenentwintigste eeuw." In dit boek onderzoekt hij vijf terreinen waarrond identiteiten zich vormen : geloof, land, kleur, klasse en cultuur. Volgens de titel zijn dat "de leugens die ons binden", m.a.w. we voelen ons wel verbonden omwille van een zekere gelijkheid op een of meer van deze terreinen (bijv. omdat we hetzelfde geloof hebben), maar tegelijk is die verbondenheid ook gebaseerd op leugens. Want bij elk van deze terreinen maakt de auteur veel kanttekeningen.

Telkens weer grijpt Kwame Anthony Appiah naar voorbeelden die niet in "één hokje" passen. Zo bijvoorbeeld schrijft hij in het hoofdstuk 'land' over de situatie van Triëste en meer bepaald van Aron Ettore Schmitz : "Zijn vader en moeder waren joden van respectievelijk Italiaanse en Duitse oorsprong." Deze man kennen we uiteindelijk beter als de schrijver Italo Svevo, in deze schrijversnaam vinden we zowel de link naar Duitsland als Italië terug. In de loop van Svevo's leven behoorde Triëste tot verschillende landen en ten slotte ,tot Italië. Maar Svevo bleef zichzelf, los van die staatsrechtelijke kwesties. Met zulke voorbeelden wil Appiah ons duidelijk maken dat er flink wat kanttekeningen te plaatsen zijn bij ogenschijnlijke eenduidige criteria voor identiteit.
De auteur is erudiet en put uit zijn uitgebreide kennis van geschiedenis om telkens weer relativerende voorbeelden te vinden. Zo haalt hij in het hoofdstuk over (huids)kleur het voorbeeld aan van de vijfjarige Axim uit de Afrikaanse Goudkust, die in 1707 meegenomen wordt naar Europa, uiteindelijk bij een Duits gezin belandt die hem een degelijke opleiding versterkt zodat de man uitgroeit tot de eerste zwarte professor filosofie. Een grote uitzondering als je weet dat Afrikanen toen als slaaf in Amerika belandden.

Het is duidelijk dat Appiah's eigen gemengde afkomst hem ertoe brengt naar die voorbeelden en situaties te zoeken die een eenduidige formulering van identiteit relativeren. Deze visie is eenvoudig te formuleren als "niet alles past in één hokje". Hij doet de lezer daarmee nadenken over die gronden waarop hij/zij zijn/haar identiteit baseert. Hij doet zulks zonder te vervallen in goedkoop cultuurrelativisme. Daarvoor put de auteur uit zijn heel rijke kennis van de domeinen die hij bespreekt, zodat haast een tweede lectuur zich opdringt om de rijkdom van dit boek ten volle te laten doordringen.

[Sivananthi T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appiah's treatise on identities takes apart the idea that any identity is one rooted in permanence. Well worth following through his argumentation and though true, does not help us unpack why the power of identities continues to persist to be powerful.

[Joseph Pfeffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no such thing as identity.

Humans cannot exist without identity.

Therefore, to be human means having something that does not exist but without which we are nothing.

So one might sumarize the message of Kwame Anthony Appiah's engaging, humane, wide-ranging, book, one which tries, and largely succeeds, to embrace all humanity in its optimistic vision. Appiah's inclusiveness, his love of strange hereditary and cultural combinations, his cosmopolitanism in the best sense, comes from his own background, and he spends a good deal of the book discussing it. His father is Ghanian, his mother English in some delightfully essential sense even though Appiah rails against essentialism. The point is, though, that his parents come from families that carry with them a a very strong sense of very different identities, and Kwame had to make sense of that as he grew up. His solution: to become a kind of nondogmatic postmodern philosopher, a deconstructionist who reconstructs by way of language, which does not make his creations any less real than if they somehow existed indpendently "out there."

Appiah critiques and reconstructs identity through what he calls the six C's: classification, creed, country, color, class, and culture. Each C gets its own chapter, then is followed by yet another, the coda. In each instance, Appiah shows how identity forever shifts, how it means one thing to one generation (being "English" is a good example. Being Muslim is another. And proving how up to date he is, defining one's gender is a third.) The "essentialist identity" he goes at most vigorously, with the undertone of someone whose father's identity was shaped in part by colonization by his mother's country, is "Western," which he shows is an incoherent mess that ultimately really does have no meaning.

But even this is treated with extraordinary good will, humor, and magnanimity. Kwame Anthony Appiah, who teaches philosophy at NYU, comes across in his own identity as the archetype of the guy you'd love to spend the afternoon with in an old style East Village coffee house, whiling away the hours in endlessly fascinating conversation about what the world is like and where it's headed. He would listen to you as attentively as you would to him, and at the end of the day you'd have a head full of new ideas you couldn't wait to explore. He ends his book with the sentence, "As I said at the outset, my aim is to start conversations, not to end them." There could be no better way to start and enjoy and learn from conversations than to read The Lies that Bind.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book! Picked it up at the AAC&U conference last week, where the author spoke at the opening night forum. Been reading him for years in the New York Review of Books, so I was very excited to get to see him in person, and he was wonderful. Such a pleasure to listen to him, and he was great at Q&A after his talk, too. So it's no surprise that the book is so good. I'll be reading more of his work.

Definitely give this one a read, if you have even the slightest inkling of interest in issues of creed, country, color, class, or culture (yes, those are chapter titles). It will be worth your while.

[k-os]

LIES THAT BIND is Appiah's polite broadside against essentialism: "we fall into an error...of supposing that at the core of each identity there is some deep similarity that binds people of that identity together" (xvi). He sets out to challenge that assumption in creed, country, color, class, and culture in order to "reconfigure them; though he admits that identities "can be the enemies of human solidarity, the sources of war, horsemen of a score of apocalypses from apartheid to genocide," he still realizes that "at their best, they make it possible for groups, large and small, to do things together" (xvi). It felt a little basic for 2018, but def a helpful primer on identity.

[Wim Reinalda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een goed, maar complex boek over wat onze identiteit vormt: naast geslacht: geloof, land, kleur, klasse en cultuur. Hij beargumenteert overtuigend dat de meeste ideeën over identiteit op evidentie misvattingen berusten, maar hij laat ook zien dat het denken over onszelf onvermijdelijk gaat in termen van identiteit. Het debat gaat dus door... De belangrijkste valkuil is die van het essentialisme: een enkel kenmerk (bijvoorbeeld huidskleur) gaat automatisch gepaard met een aantal meestal negatieve kenmerken.