A crowd of one: the future of individual identity

"The individual is not what he or she was. During the Enlightenment, the individual was the antidote to the unruly mob, the locus of rights and freedoms, a check on the power of the state, and the way to unleash the power of the free market. But the Enlightenment trampled over some old truths -...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Clippinger, John Henry (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York PublicAffairs 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:Table of contents only
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Summary:"The individual is not what he or she was. During the Enlightenment, the individual was the antidote to the unruly mob, the locus of rights and freedoms, a check on the power of the state, and the way to unleash the power of the free market. But the Enlightenment trampled over some old truths - the power of the community, a sense of "common stock" - now newly relevant and confirmed by the science of evolutionary biology and social physics." "John Henry Clippinger shows that we are, in fact, much less individualistic than we have been taught. Our personal identity, like our biological identity, is derived from our relationships to others, knowing how to recognize social signals of trust and deceit; security comes not from exclusion or narrow self-interest but a capacity to recognize and embrace mutual self-interest. Social emotions are fundamental to the success of free market success and civil society. The capacity to understand the intentions of others and to find common purpose is a the root of human evolutionary success." "The hardwiring of our brains has predisposed us to derive a sense of self through our interactions with others; in isolation, a child's growth is stunted, and those qualities we deem most distinctly human - language and empathy - fail to develop. There is no such thing as the noble savage; we are a crowd of one."--BOOK JACKET.
Item Description:Includes index.
Physical Description:XII, 227 S. graph. Darst.
ISBN:1586483676
9781586483678

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