The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Creed, Country, Color, Class, and Culture
Professor of Philosophy and Law, New York University
Dissects the essentialist fictions behind modern religious, national, racial, class, and cultural identities while explaining how shared identities still anchor moral life.
Gender. Religion. Race. Nationality. Class. Culture. Such affiliations give contours to our sense of self and shape our polarized world. Yet the collective identities they spawn are riddled with contradictions and cratered with falsehoods. Celebrated philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Lies That Bind explores these contradictions and challenges our assumptions about how identities work. In advocating for a theory of human identity that recognizes but transcends our divisions, Appiah transforms the way we think about who—and what—“we” are.