The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity

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.