Book review: The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity
Kwame Anthony Appiah (2019)
One of the issues that South African liberals have a stellar record of fighting against consistently is essentialism in the context of social identity – the idea that all people within any given social group share a certain ‘essence’ or ‘innate quality’ that makes them distinct from other social groups in society.
As liberals, we acknowledge that these identities are social constructs, that everyone is a unique individual, and that even within their respective social groups, every individual’s aspirations, character traits, reasoning capacities, and personality traits differ.
A book worth reading on this topic is The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity byBritish-Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, published in 2019. What makes this book worth reading is the persuasive and informative way in which it deconstructs social identities and argues against essentialism; a cause that resonates with liberals.
I would recommend this book to liberals and other like-minded thinkers, as it touches on most of the social identities imaginable to us, from religion to culture, and presents a well-informed analysis to make one think otherwise about them and combat stereotypes. For those who have already embraced individualism, this book helps to create stronger arguments against essentialism.
Appiah begins by discussing the theories behind social identities. A term that he introduced me to as a reader was ‘normative significance’. This refers to the ways in which people are expected to behave because they possess certain social identities.
‘Normative significance’
An example of ‘normative significance’ is when black and coloured South Africans feel pressurised to support the African National Congress in elections to avoid being derided as ‘puppets’ and ‘coons’. By naming this action, individuals are empowered to see beyond the shallow political rhetoric that is used as a means to control their behaviour.
He also addresses the social identity of ‘being foreign’, which, in South Africa, often manifests as xenophobia, a prominent socio-political problem. In The Lies That Bind, Appiah points out that a country’s borders are not natural, emphasising that they are socially constructed. He writes: ‘To be a nation, it is not enough to meet an objective condition of common descent; you have to meet a subjective condition, a condition that lies in the heart and minds of its members.’ Understanding this premise is useful in dismissing the xenophobic attitudes that buttress xenophobic violence. It conveys the idea that nationality is arbitrary to the common humanity that all individuals happen to share.
When it comes to our social culture as a society, we have to resist the temptation to give in to the impulse of identity politics, which seems to have seeped into our universities and much of our media. As liberals, we should continue to champion the idea that everyone should be judged on their individual merits, as opposed to being seen as a ‘facsimile’ of their larger group.
I recommend this book, as the arguments are insightful and empowering to liberals invested in opposing essentialism and collectivism in South Africa.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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