Identity and Violence

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, by Amartya Sen, W. W. Norton Company, New York and London, 2006.

Part of a series, Issues of Our Times, Series Editor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The writer, Amartya Sen, is a Nobel prize winner in economics.

I've just begun the book. A witness of violence between Hindus and Muslims at the partition of India, Sen seeks ways to overcome the way rigid standards of identity and solidarity often result in demonizing people outside that identity.

Us and them: Too much US, can lead to trying to destroy THEM.

Sen invokes the many ways we identify ourselves, the many circles we belong to, as a clue to seeing each other as complex, struggling, loving human beings rather than as radical Others.

I'll post as I go along. Hope you'll read with me.