Summary of Amartya Sen's Identity and Violence

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The sense of identity can be a source of strength and confidence, but it can also be a source of exclusion and even violence. It can help us warmly welcome others, but it can also lead to the exclusion of others.
#2 The world is full of examples of how identity conflicts can lead to violence. For example, the Sudanese Islamic identity combined with exploitation of racial divisions to lead to the raping and killing of unarmed victims in the south of that militarized polity.
#3 We must recognize the power of competing identities to challenge the force of a bellicose identity. We must also understand that none of our identities is supreme, and that we can choose which ones we want to be a part of and which ones we want to ignore.
#4 The existence of choice does not mean that there are no constraints restricting choice. Every choice in any field is made within particular limits. The freedom to determine our loyalties and priorities between the different groups to which we may belong is a particularly important liberty that we should recognize, value, and defend.

Sujets

• Islam
• Political Science
• Histoire
• Theory
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 14 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822509672
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Amartya Sen's Identity and Violence
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The sense of identity can be a source of strength and confidence, but it can also be a source of exclusion and even violence. It can help us warmly welcome others, but it can also lead to the exclusion of others.

#2

The world is full of examples of how identity conflicts can lead to violence. For example, the Sudanese Islamic identity combined with exploitation of racial divisions to lead to the raping and killing of unarmed victims in the south of that militarized polity.

#3

We must recognize the power of competing identities to challenge the force of a bellicose identity. We must also understand that none of our identities is supreme, and that we can choose which ones we want to be a part of and which ones we want to ignore.

#4

The existence of choice does not mean that there are no constraints restricting choice. Every choice in any field is made within particular limits. The freedom to determine our loyalties and priorities between the different groups to which we may belong is a particularly important liberty that we should recognize, value, and defend.

#5

When we want to be seen in a certain way, we may have a hard time convincing others to see us in that way. The assertion of human commonality has been a part of resistance to degrading attributions in different cultures at different points in time.

#6

The foundations of degradation include not only descriptive misrepresentation, but also the illusion of a singular identity that others must attribute to the person to be demeaned.

#7

The use of reasoning may be replaced by uncritical acceptance of conformist behavior, which typically has conservative implications. The unquestioning acceptance of a social identity may not always have traditionalist implications.

#8

The Clash of Civilizations thesis is based on the idea that humanity can be preeminently classified into distinct and discrete civilizations, and that the relations between different human beings can be seen without any loss of understanding in terms of relations between different civilizations.

#9

The limitations of such civilization-based thinking can be just as treacherous for programs of dialogue among civilizations as they are for theories of a clash of civilizations.

#10

The West’s approach to global terrorism and conflict is particularly ham-handed because it relies on religious classification to define people, which then tends to make the Western response to global terrorism and conflict peculiarly blunt.

#11

The response to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism is also complicated when people fail to distinguish between Islamic history and the history of the Muslim people. While it is true that Islam, as a religion, does not obliterate the choice to be tolerant of heterodoxy, it is also true that many Muslims do not share this tolerance.

#12

While Akbar was free to pursue his liberal politics without ceasing to be a Muslim, that liberality was not mandated by Islam. Aurangzeb could deny minority rights and persecute non-Muslims without failing to be a Muslim.

#13

The insistence on a single, unchanging human identity not only diminishes us all, but it also makes the world much more volatile. The alternative to the divisivity of one preeminent category is not any unrealistic claim that we are all the same.
Insights from Chapter 2