In a paper titled ' Notes on Amartya Sen’s interpretation of cultural identity' Kathrin Bouvot & Gianluigi Segalerba write-
Introduction In our study, we shall analyse some aspects of Sen’s criticism of specific interpretations of cultural identity.
Nobody has ever had the crazy 'interpretations' which Sen attacks.
We shall refer to Amartya Sen’s book Identity and Violence. The Illusion of Destiny. We would like to introduce our inquiry with a quotation from Sen’s book:
“The insistence, if only implicitly, on a choiceless singularity of human identity not only diminishes us all, it also makes the world much more flammable.
Human beings are uniquely linked to one and only one physical body. This diminishes us all. Why can't you be a bird as well as an elephant while continuing to have a body which has a job as an actuary? Also, did you know that if you pour kerosene on yourself and light a match, your body would burn up? That's why it is wrong to have 'choiceless singularity' when it comes to occupying only one physical body.
The alternative to the divisiveness of one preeminent categorization is not any unreal claim that we are all much the same.
Our bodies are pretty similar. That's why most of us can buy readymade clothes at the mall.
That we are not. Rather, the main hope of harmony in our troubled world lies in the plurality of our identities,
Hitler had only one body. Mahatma Gandhi had many bodies. He was a nice man. Hitler- not so much.
which cut across each other and work against sharp divisions around one single hardened line of vehement division that allegedly cannot be resisted.
Why is it that when America went to war with Germany, it did not permit German soldiers to say they were actually cute little babies from Texas and thus should not be shot at?
Our shared humanity gets savagely challenged when our differences are narrowed into one devised system of uniquely powerful categorization.
e.g. identifying me with my body. You are literally condemning me to death by doing so because my body is bound to become weak and disease ridden as I get older.
Perhaps the worst impairment comes from the neglect – and denial – of the role of reasoning and choice, which follows from the recognition of our plural identities.
People should be able to reason out for themselves that they should have multiple identities as a number of billionaire playboys aged 22 with rock hard abs. Then they can choose various super-models to have sex with.
The illusion of unique identity
e.g. that only I can legitimately spend my own money. I should accept that there may be people in Nigeria who are just as much 'me' as I am. I should give them access to my Bank Account.
is much more divisive than the universe of plural and diverse classifications that characterize the world in which we actually live.
Thus the fact that I am not also Elon Musk is more divisive than the fact that he is classified as rich and handsome while I am classified as poor as shit.
The descriptive weakness
of saying 'that dude is dead'
of choiceless singularity
e.g. the fact that the dead dude can't come to the Christmas party because he is fucking dead mate.
has the effect of momentously impoverishing the power and reach of our social and political reasoning.
But the power and reach of social and political reasoning based on the notion that the dead dude is also a living giraffe and a Tesla car, is totes shit.
The illusion of destiny exacts a remarkably heavy price.”
Very true. Sen was told that it was his destiny to die. This caused him to cry and cry. Why can't he continue to exist as a giraffe and a Tesla car even after his body taken to the crematorium? The answer is that some evil philosophers and economists stipulated that human identity be uniquely linked to one and only one human body.
We shall see that, in Sen’s view, different interpretations of cultural identity can be given.
Sen has an identity as a cultured Bengali. Identity here means interchageability for a specific purpose. Thus, suppose the University has invited Prof. Smith, the leading scholar of Tagore, to give a talk about Tagore's cultural milieu and, at the last minute, Smith is unable to attend, Sen could be asked to step in. Since he grew up in a cultured Bengali home, he can give just as good an introduction to Tagore's milieu.
Thus, we shall find interpretations of identity which are mutually incompatible.
No. We will find there are predicates applied to a unique human body which may be contradictory. We might say 'Sen is average height'- which is true in India. In Holland, however we may say 'Sen is below average height'. But the contradiction here is easily resolved.
The incompatible concepts of cultural identity are the following: − The first conception of cultural identity considers any cultural identity as the result of many components which have had a development, have a development, and will have a development.
This could also be said of farting. It is not an informative statement.
All cultural identities as such are phenomena having a development.
All phenomena, as such, have a development. This is not informative.
Cultural identities do not arise as a system which is complete once and for all.
Nor do farts. So what?
Cultural identity is as such a plurality of elements.
Farts can be noisy and smelly. So what?
Cultural identity, since it is something which lives, absorbs elements from other cultures.
It may do. It may not. Farts absorb elements from other cultures- more particularly after eating Punjabi or Mexican food.
Cultural identity does not exist as an absolutely original system.
Nor do farts.
Since the cultural identity is a plurality of components, and since every component can receive a different degree of importance from the individual with his free choice, the cultural identity is relativised.
Not really. We say Sen is more steeped in Bengali culture than Basu who grew up in Delhi. True, Basu may have devoted more time to the study of Bengali. We then say Basu is more erudite than Sen when it comes to Bengali culture but the fellow is more of a Delhite.
Any cultural identity develops; it is not something rigid or static.
Like farting.
This interpretation of cultural identity is the flexible, dynamic, and inclusive view of cultural identity: it corresponds to Sen’s interpretation of cultural identity.
Sadly, nothing in the real world corresponds to this interpretation. Sen has Bengali cultural identity. It is a matter of 'oikeiosis' arising from birth, education, first marriage etc. It can't be taken away from him even by his own choice. I may mention my own ambition, on first arriving in the UK, to become so thoroughly White and Aristocratic that I would be welcomed into the Royal Family. This was because I wanted to fulfil my father's prediction (made to my Mum) that I would grow up to be a big, fat, Queen. Sadly, Prince Charles prefers blondes.
Sen’s investigation is an attempt to protect the freedom of the individual:
from death. If one body dies, your other identities as giraffes or Tesla cars survive.
if the individual is considered as completely belonging to his cultural identity, his group, his nation, his culture, and his language, if the individual is considered as an entity completely determined by the previously mentioned factors, then the individual is no longer a being which can determine itself.
Very true. How come I didn't get to choose to be Queen Elizabeth's eldest son? That way I could be King of Engyland.
He does not possess either mental freedom or mental free spaces.
I don't even own one or two nice palaces.
On the contrary, his mind is completely occupied by the cultural components which he possesses.
Why can't I write poems in Chinese?
− The second conception of cultural identity interprets cultural identity as a monodimensional system.
This is useful. Bengali peeps have Bengali culture. One or two may also have Chinese culture, but you are on a safe wicket appealing to Bengali peeps in the Bengali language and by invoking the cultural treasures of that beautiful part of the world.
What is useless is to say 'Bengali people may also be giraffes and Tesla cars. Thus, if seeking to persuade Bengalis to buy your product, you should not communicate with them only in Bengali. They will be miffed that their giraffe identity, or Tesla car identity is being ignored.
This is the rigid, static, and marginalising conception of cultural identity.
It is useful and corresponds to what the Greeks called 'oikeiosis'.
The second concept of cultural identity corresponds to the aim of producing individuals, peoples, and groups as mutually isolated systems.
No. An 'aim' is not a 'concept' though the 'aim' may cause a 'concept' to be instrumentalized for a particular purpose. Thus, if my company wants to sell bicycles in Bengal, it hires copywriters and visualizers to come up with a Bengali language campaign which uses tropes from Bengali culture which will cause our product to be seen as quintessentially Bengali. Here Bengali cultural identity has been instrumentalized for a commercial purpose.
This concept is connected to the political action of isolating individuals, peoples, and groups from each other:
e.g. getting people to hate Trump or Modi or whoever else it is that Sen hates.
it has the potential to provoke hatred, violence, and conflicts.
As does the fact that some people want to rob and rape and murder other people. We must ban dicks, money, and death so as to prevent such things.
In this view, the cultural identity is absolutised since it is isolated from all other cultures:
Some cultures were completely isolated from all others. This did not 'absolutise' anything. The fact is, we can imagine meeting intelligent beings from another planet. Indeed, there were films about humanity deciding to end war after being contacted by such aliens. This shows human culture, which now exists in isolation, isn't 'absolutised' at all. The thing is impossible.
it is considered as something original which has never had, does not have, does not need to have, and – most of all – should not have any exchange with other cultures.
Pathogen avoidance may militate for the same outcome. Currently, Bhutan is seeking to severely limit cultural exchange with its larger neighbours. This may be a sound strategy.
Cultures emerge as complete systems. Any form of contact of a culture with other cultures is interpreted as a contamination of this culture.
Sadly, indigenous people may face population collapse when they encounter other cultures and thus different pathogens as well as products like alcohol.
In his inquiry, Sen aims to illustrate that the possibility of a reciprocal dialogue between individuals, groups and people consists in finding the intersections of the different cultural identities.
Points of similarity aren't 'intersections'. The fact that you like cats and I like cats does not mean we have intersected or dissected each other.
Intersections are common aspects between individuals and groups.
They are merely predicates which can be applied to assorted things. I think Bengali culture is nice. I also think cats are nice. This means Bengalis are intersecting or dissecting cats.
Consequently, they are points of contact between different individuals and between different groups.
There may be contact. But there may be points of similarity even without contact.
If, on the other hand, a kind of society comes about that consists of parallel communities which do not want to have anything in common with each other,
this is impossible. All communities want to continue to exist. One that devotes itself to suicide will disappear from the earth.
this society is condemned to find difficulties in the mutual communication between its citizens.
Nope. If the State provides Law & Order, different 'millats' may co-exist well enough. Under the Brits, Muslims and Hindus lived peacefully side by side in East Bengal.
This society is therefore condemned to be exposed to a climate of potential violence between the different groups.
If Law & Order collapses or elected Bengalis take power from British civil servants- but there may also be big big famines- e.g. 1943 and 1974.
“One of the central issues must be how human beings are seen.
More particularly by the law. Thus if I kill a man and am arrested for murder I should not be set free just because my other identities are as giraffes or Tesla cars.
Should they be categorized in terms of inherited traditions, particularly the inherited religion, of the community in which they happen to be born,
Yes- unless they have formally renounced that religion. This matters when it comes to those who die intestate. If the chap was born a Hindu and never converted, then Hindu law applies. If he was born Muslim, even if he did not practice that faith, Muslim law applies. It is very useful for Society to make such distinctions and thus quickly and effectively settle disputes based on 'uncorrelated asymmetries' which give rise to eusocial 'bourgeois strategies'. Sadly, Indians of Sen's generation did not read the work of Haldane's protege- John Maynard Smith even though Haldane was very popular in India (he took Indian citizenship and was close to Mahalanobis).
taking that unchosen identity to have automatic priority over other affiliations involving politics, profession, class, gender, language, literature, social involvements, and many other connections?
This is useful. Suppose I am arrested for killing a man in Manchester. I prove I wasn't in Manchester at the time. I am acquitted even though the Prosecution may put forward the notion that I have multiple identities- one of which was in Manchester and had means, motive and opportunity to carry out the slaying.
Or should they be understood as persons with many affiliations and associations the priorities over which they must themselves choose (taking the responsibility that comes from reasoned choice)?”
Under this understanding my Bank could transfer all the money in my savings account to a giraffe in Kenya because, after all, it might actually be me.
2 Sen’s inquiry proves to be a detailed study of the absolutisation of cultural identity and of the psychological mechanisms connected to some interpretations of cultural identity.
No. It is crazy shit. Still, we get that he resented having to run away from his ancestral home. But he can't say- 'Muslims hate kaffirs. They keep trying to cut off our heads.' because then people might think he supports Narendra Modi.
Throughout his investigation, Sen shows that any cultural identity can be used to marginalise all those who do not belong to a specific cultural identity.
We know he means religious, not cultural, identity.
This kind of cultural identity is built to divide individuals from each other, to divide groups from each other, and to divide peoples from each other.
Just as a PhD in Economics is meant to divide economists from ecologists.
Through his analysis, Sen is fulfilling an enlightenment process: he is showing the potential destructivity which is connected to certain interpretations of cultural identity.
Interpreting human identity as something uniquely linked to a physical body is potentially very destructive and deadly. If such interpretations were banned, everybody would be immortal.
Sen’s analysis is a study of the complexity of concepts too. For instance, Sen shows that cultural identity is a complex concept,
No. It is a simple 'Tarskian primitive'.
i.e., it consists of different components: any cultural identity is the result of processes of development.
We may say the same about farting. This simply isn't informative.
Individuals are complex entities,
No. Complexity may be imputed to them. But so may simplicity. Individuals fart. How fucking complex is that?
since they have different components in themselves, although it can happen that individuals are not aware of their complexity.
Especially when they fart.
In Sen’s view, individuals can be easily manipulated.
He got stupid people to attend his worthless lectures and buy his nonsensical books.
Individuals can be led to believe that they have only one closed culture
like their 'closed' body
although they do not have on closer inspection only one closed culture.
because they are also giraffes and Tesla cars.
Cultural identity can be used to create a group which, as such, either does not exist at all or is not so homogeneous and so uniform as those who support this concept of cultural identity aim to let appear.
Groups can indeed be created. If recruits are sought from those with specific cultural traits we may say that the group asserts a particular cultural identity. Thus the Bengali Cultural Association is interested in recruiting Bengalis, not Chinese people.
A group is created artificially
which ones are created 'naturally'. The answer those created by oikeiosis- i.e. being born into a particular family in a particular territory. But those with the same 'cultural identity' are likely to have a common oikeiosis arising out of sharing an 'oikos'. True, there may be immigrants. We say, 'he tries to be British, but his accent gives away his Tamil identity. However, his son is as British as warm beer.'
through the invention of a cultural identity in which exclusively specific elements are isolated in order that some individuals are included in the group, whereas other individuals are excluded from the same group. The artificial group which is created through this artificial cultural identity is then incited against other groups.
Sen is describing nation formation. His people were safe in East Bengal when it was part of the British Empire. They had to run away once Nationalism triumphed.
The process consists therefore in two fundamental steps: - isolation of specific cultural elements;
Religion, not culture, mattered in East Bengal.
- incitation of all those who possess specific cultural elements against all those who do not possess these cultural elements.
Sen was chased away from Delhi by Hindi speaking Hindus- right? At Cambridge, the other Dons would often spit at him and tell him to fuck off back to Pakistan.
This kind of cultural identity is a cultural identity which is functional to the fomentation of enmity and hostility, of division and separation, of discord and dissension.
British cultural identity permitted British people to bring peace to the Indian subcontinent. Because of Nationalism, they fucked off.
Sen is an atheist who, in youth, had to pretend to like Communism. Thus he can't admit that noxious ideology was responsible for horrible wars and man-made famines.
Religions too can be used as a weapon if the religious identity is absolutised.
As Marxism was 'absolutised'.
The concept of cultural identity is not necessarily founded on religious faith. Nonetheless, we can find in Sen examples of conflicts due to the absolutisation of religious identities: through this process of absolutisation a religion is used against other religions;
when Sen was finishing high school, the Commies thought they had to defeat the Indian state to take power by forcible means. Nehru killed a few and jailed a few. This brought them to their senses.
the members of religious groups are incited to be hostile towards and to hate the members of other religious groups.
Later the Communist movement split. Different factions wanted to kill each other.
Thus, also religious identities can be absolutised and used to exclude from a specific religious group all those who do not belong to a specific confession of faith .
Not with Hinduism which claimed any Indian not a follower of an Abrahamic faith.
Like all forms of cultural identity, religious identities can be used to exclude or to marginalise individuals and groups; they can be used to incite hatred against people.
So can saying those people are White. Also, they have money. Let's kill them and take their money.
A way of interpreting religions as absolute systems which are isolated and must remain isolated from all other religions, would bring about a reciprocally hostile disposition between religions which would be always ready to explode.
This wasn't true of Hindu India or the Britain I live in- though sometimes Muslims may run amok stabbing Jews or other kaffirs.
As mentioned, in Sen’s view, there is a precise responsibility of the individual as regards the disposition which the individual has in relation to his cultural components.
No there isn't. He is no more responsible for them than he is for being born to his mummy and daddy.
The question is whether the individual aims to privilege an element of his components or whether he is ready to acknowledge himself as a being composed of different elements.
The former. You have to privilege going to school over playing truant if you want to make something of yourself. Also, you have to privilege taking a shit in the toilet rather than fudging your pants.
This difference means, for the individuals, different ways of living their own culture: the first individual absolutises a component of his cultural identity to the detriment of all others (he denies that his cultural identity has different components).
It doesn't. Sen is a cultured Bengali. This is because of only one 'component' to his identity- viz. his being born and raised in Bengal by Bengalis. True, he may claim to be a distinguished Chinese Lesbian but nobody will believe him.
The other individual relativises all components since he recognises that his cultural identity has many components and is the result of development.
Very true. When Sen is asked if he can take the place of a speaker scheduled to talk about Tagore's cultural milieu- he replies 'I am a giraffe. Fuck would a giraffe know or care about Tagore?'
The individual’s responsibility cannot be forgotten: the individual is responsible for the way in which he lives and chooses to live his cultural identity.
You live your life, not your identity. It is a different matter that a devout Christian may say 'life is the gift of the Lord. I seek to live my life in a Christian manner for it is He who granted me this precious gift.' But this is merely a manner of speaking. You are saying 'I'm a devout Christian. I won't fuck your wife.'
“With suitable instigation, a fostered sense of identity with one group of people can be made into a powerful weapon to brutalize another.
This can happen any way for economic reasons. One may as well say, 'with suitable instigation, hands can be used to punch people thus brutalizing them.'
Indeed, many of the conflicts and barbarities in the world are sustained through the illusion of a unique and choiceless identity.
i.e. the fact that people have just one physical body. If people realized that when you kill Hitler you are only killing one of the many bodies Hitler occupies, you will stop wanting to kill Hitler. After all, he is probably also a giraffes. I like giraffes. They are so cute.
The art of constructing hatred takes the form of invoking the magical power of some allegedly predominant identity that drowns other affiliations, and in a conveniently bellicose form can also overpower any human sympathy or natural kindness that we may normally have.
Sen's people ran away from East Bengal because Muslims were taught by their religion that God Almighty didn't like kaffirs. Kill or chase them away by all means.
The result can be homespun elemental violence,
e.g. in Dacca in 1947
or globally artful violence and terrorism.”
like America's war on terror.
In this passage, we can observe the roots of violence.
No we can't. Its roots are the same as the roots of economics- viz. scarcity.
Sen is aware of the dangers of the absolutisation of cultural identity. Hence, for the absolute concept of cultural identity, there is one and only one cultural identity for each person.
Just as there is one and only one body. Consider a person- like Sen- who is just as fluent in Bengali as in English. Does he have an English or American cultural identity? No. He has an anglophone Bengali cultural identity.
In this interpretation, every person belongs to a culture: first comes the culture, then comes the person; the individual is subordinated to his culture.
He may be. He may not. Still, even if he emigrates, some traces of it will remain in him.
Moreover, every person belongs to a culture and only to a culture. Every person has exclusively one cultural identity. Cultural identities are isolated systems. The person does not choose her cultural identity; on the contrary, the person is possessed by her cultural identity.
No. A person has one and only one body. Her upbringing and education will determine her 'cultural identity' though she may, by her own efforts, acquire considerable knowledge and fluency in some other culture.
The correct interpretation of cultural identity is, in Sen’s view, that everyone has in himself a plurality of cultural components, i.e., a plurality of cultural identities.
We have many organs in our body. Thus we must have many bodies.
The main aspects of Sen’s position are the following: -
Cultures do not determine. There is no cultural determinism as regards the historical or economic development of individuals, groups, peoples, and countries.
Culture is linked to habitus, education, occupation etc. This correlates very well with historical and economic outcomes. This may not be 'causality' but it is 'Granger causality'.
Cultures have several aspects: they cannot be considered as systems which influence an individual in only one direction.
Very true. That's why many kids growing up in Bengal end up speaking Chinese.
There can be no cultural determinism since every culture is made up of different components.
Did you know that a Chinese man- Tong Ah Chew- brought in a hundred Chinese workers to set up a sugar mill in Bengal in the eighteenth century. Sugar (called 'chini'- i.e. Chinese) is a component of Bengali culture. That is why many Bengali kids suddenly start speaking Chinese to their parents.
- Cultural identity does not consist in an absolutely original system; culture is not something which arises and grows up as an isolated system.
It may do. It may not.
Every culture takes elements from other cultures, it derives from pre-existing cultures, and it gives elements to other cultures. There is an interchange between cultures. Any cultural form changes. The idea of the purity of a culture proves to be, on closer inspection, a myth (besides being a danger).
It is less of a myth than the notion that some Bengali kids in Bengal speak Chinese, not Bengali.
- Cultures experience modifications, changes, additions, and losses. There is no culture which arises and exists as an isolated system.
What about the culture of the Jaravas in the Andamans?
- Cultures are not made and are not determined once and for all. Cultures have a development.
So what? When my head is cut off, I will die. That is 'bodily determinism'. True my body developed from a single fertilized egg over many months and years. Still my relationship with my body is deterministic. Stab it and I feel pain.
- Individuals possess a composition of different cultures: they have mutually different cultural identities.
No. People with the same cultural identity have other difference. This cultured Bengali is a scholar of Chinese literature. That cultured Bengali is the leading expert on Flaubert.
- All attempts to convince the individual that he has only a cultural identity, that this cultural identity ought always to be defended against contaminations from outside, that all other components are irrelevant, that he ought to discover or rediscover his cultural roots, and that he ought to go back to his true origins, turn out to be, on closer inspections, attempts to manipulate the individual, to imprison the individual in a group, and to let the individual disappear as regards his individuality.
Nonsense! Granny said to me 'remember your ancestral culture. Don't put tomato ketchup on your masala dosa. Also, it isn't true that Tyagaraja sang 'I'm jus' bluffin' with my muffin'.' Was Granny trying to 'manipulate' or 'imprison' me or efface my individuality? No. She was saying something sensible. If you put tomato ketchup on your masala dosa, people will think you are uncultured. It will be difficult for you to find a wife. Also, it was Lady Gaga who sang 'Poker face' though, no doubt, the original lyrics were penned in Urdu by Asadullah Khan Ghalib.
They correspond to the strategy of secluding the individual into a specific group, of isolating this individual from other groups,
e.g. putting criminals in prison
and of excluding from this specific group all the individuals who do not have the specific cultural identity corresponding to the group.
OMG! Culture is a prison! Granny is my jailor! I will run away and join the circus.
- The individuals ought not to be dissolved into groups. The centre of society is the individual. Groups come thereafter.
Very true. First there was me. Then I chose a nice Mummy and Daddy for myself. They had previously chosen nice Mummies and Daddies for themselves. Sadly, it turned out Granny was actually trying to jail me and manipulate me!
- The absolutisation of the cultural identity aims to dissolve the individual into the group, into the nation, into the community, and into the state by contending that the individual has no relevance in comparison with the cultural identity.
Groups solve collective action problems. Sadly, if everybody has an alternative identity as a giraffe they may refuse to pay for public goods. That is why it is a good idea to insist people have just the one identity and stick with it though, no doubt, if you are Batman and battle crime by night, an exception can be made.
- The individual can choose between the different components of his cultural identity.
No. I really can't chose to be a great Carnatic singer or Bharatnatyam dancer.
He has the responsibility too for the choice which he makes as regards his cultural components, i.e., for the choice which he makes as regards the cultural component to which he wants to give greater importance. -
I suppose I could chose to pretend to be a great Carnatic singer. Look at TM Krishna.
The individual ought not to become or be the prisoner of an element of a cultural identity.
Nobody is such a prisoner though I might say 'Sen is the prisoner of his buddhijivi culture. This is apparent because he can't write a single sentence which isn't foolish or ignorant or both foolish and ignorant. Had he been Punjabi, he wouldn't have been such an utter waste of space.
- The concept of rigid cultural identity is functional to the manipulation of the individual.
Nope. It is useless. I have a concept of Sen's rigid cultural identity but I can't manipulate him into sending me all his money.
- No individual may be reduced to a single scheme, i.e., to a monodimensional cultural identity; no individual is absorbed by a single tradition (unless the individual is manipulated).
Anybody can be reduced by anybody to any fucking scheme whatsoever.
“Our shared humanity gets savagely challenged when the manifold divisions in the world are unified into one allegedly dominant system of classification
e.g. 'shared humanity'.
– in terms of religion, or community, or culture, or nation, or civilization
or species
(treating each as uniquely powerful in the context of that particular approach to war and peace).
Nations go to war. Citizens may be subject to conscription. Enemy aliens may be interned.
The uniquely partitioned world is much more divisive than the universe of plural and diverse categories that shape the world in which we live.
Partitioning the dead from the living is highly divisive. It is also the reason I can't have sex with Cleopatra.
It goes not only against the old-fashioned belief that “we human beings are all much the same”
biologically- sure.
(which tends to be ridiculed these days – not entirely without reason – as much too softheaded) but also against the less discussed but much more plausible understanding that we are diversely different.
because we have different bodies.
The hope of harmony in the contemporary world lies to a great extent in a clearer understanding of the pluralities of human identity,
if only Obama had understood that Osama was also a giraffe and a Tesla car, he wouldn't have had him killed. Sadly, in a world where everybody had that understanding, our species would starve to death within a month or two.
and in the appreciation that they cut across each other and work against a sharp separation along one single hardened line of impenetrable division.”
Sen grew up in Shantiniketan- which had been set up by the hereditary head of a mystical sect. In Hinduism there is the notion of the 'Yogijiva' who can simultaneously exist in more than one body. A more advanced mystical stage is the realization that all souls are actually one and the same soul. To adepts of this sort, there would be no difference between one's mother and a street prostitute. You would show both the same reverence.
Sen is giving us a secularized version of this nonsense. If only everybody realized they are also giraffes, they would be nice to each other.
The shared humanity is annulled through the manipulation strategy of those who support the absolutisation of cultural identity.
This is paranoia. Why did my pussycat die? The answer is that there are some evil Professors who say that all organic life can die. If only we could tell those Professors to fuck the fuck off, death would disappear. Also my cat would have been able to breathe underwater like Aquaman. That would have been cool.
“The politics of global confrontation is frequently seen
for some useful purpose- e.g. predicting how countries will vote in the UN general assembly
as a corollary of religious or cultural divisions in the world.
Thus Muslim countries vote for a Muslim country which has a dispute with a non-Muslim country.
Indeed, the world is increasingly seen, if only implicitly, as a federation of religions or of civilizations, thereby ignoring all the other ways in which people see themselves.
One may look at those 'other ways' for particular purposes- e.g. Elon Musk looks at people in different countries who have the money to buy Tesla cars.
Underlying this line of thinking is the odd presumption that the people of the world can be uniquely categorized according to some singular and overarching system of partitioning.
For any given purpose, they can indeed be so partitioned. That is why there is a demand for Statisticians and Econometricians.
Civilizational or religious partitioning of the world population yields a “solitarist” approach to human identity, which sees human beings as members of exactly one group (in this case defined by civilization or religion, in contrast with earlier reliance on nationalities and classes).”
No it doesn't. Anyway, civilizations and religions existed before there were 'nationalities and classes'.
Sen denies that the world (or a state) can be viewed as a composite of religions, civilisations, or communities.
Yet, such was the case in the India where he was born. What is the point of denying obvious facts?
The components of society are the individuals, who cannot be reduced to their belonging to this or that group.
But that's exactly what happened! Does this cretin really not understand why Mummy and Daddy ran away from Dacca?
The individual constitutes an irreducible entity:
Nonsense! The individual can be killed and his body cut up into pieces.
therefore, individuals cannot be reduced to something else which is superior to them.
This cretin's daddy and granddaddy were indeed reduced to the status of subjects of a King Emperor who lived far far away. It is notable that when India got too hot for Sen (because he ran off with his best friend's wife) it was to Engyland that he came. Being ruled over by White dudes beats living under Hindu or Muslim rulers.
The basis of society is and remains the individual.
That was what Mrs. Thatcher said. Is Sen a closet Thatcherite? No. He is too stupid.
Sen criticises the communitarian positions too as the following passage can attest: “Many communitarian thinkers tend to argue that a dominant communal identity is only a matter of self-realization, not of choice.
Because, after a certain age, you can always move.
It is, however, hard to believe that a person really has no choice in deciding what relative importance to attach to the various groups to which he or she belongs,
in which case the groups are pre-existing and are 'discovered'. A friend of mine was passing a synagogue when it began to ran heavily. An elderly Jewish man asked him to help form the 'minyan' for collective prayer. My friend said he hadn't been brought up in the faith. Indeed, his parents too had not been observant. The old man said this was no barrier. My friend suddenly found himself attracted by his ancestral religion. He discovered there were many people like himself in London and joined a neighbourhood group for young people like himself. Though not particularly strict, he and his wife ensured their two children received Hebrew instruction and bar and bat mitzvahs.
and that she must just “discover” her identities, as if were a purely natural phenomenon (like determining whether it is day or night).
It is a 'natural' phenomenon. A child given up for adoption may track down his birth family and find he has many affinities with them.
In fact, we are all constantly making choices, if only implicitly, about the priorities to be attached to our different affiliations and associations.
In fact, we are creatures of habit, not rational choice.
The freedom to determine our loyalties and priorities between the different groups to all of which we may belong is a peculiarly important liberty which we have reason to recognize, value, and defend.”
We have no reason to do stupid shit. I recall going up to Professor Sen and saying 'I will defend to the death your right to kill yourself you stinky sack of shit.' Sadly, I spoke to him in Chinese because I put 'chini' in my 'chai' and thus have a strong Chinese component in my cultural identity.
Sen’s opposition to communitarian thinking comes out clearly in this context.
Where is the 'opposition'? This is just ipse dixit stipulation.
According to Sen, communitarians hold the following views: 'There is a dominant cultural identity; there is one and exclusively one cultural identity and not a plurality of identities.'
e.g. Bengali people are Bengali not Punjabi.
The individual recognises that a dominant cultural identity exists and that he belongs to that cultural identity.
Even Sen speaks Bengali when in Bengal.
The individual plays only a secondary role if he is compared with the cultural identity and with the group. Groups and cultural identities, not the individuals, are the centre of society.
Just as Sen's identity as a savant is tied up with 'groups' and 'institutions'. He got a PhD in Econ to be recognized as an economist- albeit a shit one.
• The impression which the reader receives from the description of the communitarian positions is that communitarians see the individual as something to be dissolved into an entity which transcends him .
Which is what happens when you decide you are an economist or a philosopher rather than a guy who just happens to like talking bollocks.
• Communitarians interpret the kind of relationship of the individual with his cultural identity as a matter of discovery and of recognition of a pre-existing cultural identity.
Which is why Sen mentions reading Adam Smith and Karl Marx and Ken Arrow in his autobiography. He omits mention of his reading of graffiti in the LSE toilets- to which I contributed greatly.
There is no free choice. In this interpretation of cultural identity, the individual can only accept his cultural identity.
or deny it and pretend to be a giraffe.
The individual cannot distance himself from his cultural identity: the cultural identity constitutes his very nature.
Man really is a social animal. I may wish I had never had any contact with humans. What would I be like then? The answer is I would be like whichever animals had brought me up.
Sen believes that any form of cultural identity is never something whose content has been determined once and for all.
It is an 'intension' whose 'extension' is unknown. But this also means you are likely to commit an 'intensional fallacy' when you talk about it. But Sen is incapable of doing anything else.
A society characterised by flexible cultural identity has different groups present in itself and is open to the presence of different groups.
This is false. A country with an inflexible cultural identity- e.g. Saudi Arabia- may host millions of foreigners from different countries. America certainly has a cultural identity. Kamala Harris and Vivek Ramaswamy are as American as apple pie.
Individuals can be members of groups, but they are not property of the groups.
They may be if the thing is a cult.
They acknowledge that any culture whatsoever is the result of different components;
I am the result of Daddy putting his pee in Mummy's chee chee place. Yet neither are components of me. Still, we may say they contributed genes to me. Similarly we may say that a particular culture derives traits from different countries- e.g. the Indian tea drinking habit deriving ultimately from Chinese culture.
they acknowledge that cultures have a steady development. They can and are ready to recognise that their cultural identity is something which has had changes, is changing – even though the individual is not aware of the changes – and will change. There are no definitive results as regards cultural identities.
Yes there are. This fact is of great importance to advertisers of global brands. They need to ensure that the slogans they use are culturally sensitive and appropriate. Apparently the slogan 'Coke adds life' was translated into Chinese as 'Coke brings your ancestors back from the dead'. This actually boosted sales.
In mathematics, an identity functions returns the same result as the argument. For some purposes, two different objects may be interchangeable and so the identity function may have a bigger range than the domain or vice versa. Cultural identity defines a class in a manner useful for some purposes not others. Thus, suppose if I want to find out about some particular fact about Bengali culture I may ask 'who on this campus is a cultured Bengali?' and be given a list of names. I consult one or two such people and get a good enough answer. True, there may be no such person and so I am directed to a Punjabi who, however, lived for some years in Bengal. In this case I might seek further confirmation.
Sen has been writing ignorant nonsense for many years now. I suppose he thinks that he is the successor of Tagore and Mother Theresa. But they believed in God. His secular version of their mystical message is illogical nonsense.
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