are confronted with54.
An immediate objection to my basic line of argument is that it fails to account for the great similarity in individual responses in a number of identity-related fields. For instance, how do we account for phenomena such as large-scale demonstrations or the continuing existence of very dogmatic, political parties? First of all, the fact that many people react the same way does not necessarily mean that they have not made a choice. It may simply mean that they have been facing a special choice situation, involving emotional simplification. Regarding identity-issues, it is likewise easy to lose sight of the choices behind identical identifications. Secondly, I therefore suggest we talk about ideal-type situations that may serve as identity-activators. Such activators do not cause reason to stop functioning, but just confront citizens with a special kind of affective choice situation that simplifies choices. But even very emotional appeals do not necessarily elicit the same response from citizens. We would expect citizens to react in broadly similar ways in a crisis situation. And yet, to take the case of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, European sympathy with Americans following the attack on the twin towers was very short-lived, soon to be followed by ideological clashes and clashes of interest. To take an example from another world, the fact that some commercials have no noticeable effect on individuals and the fact that some human beings do not even want to look at commercials shows how, in many everyday choice situations, human beings react very differently.
I thus end this chapter with the proposition that holism generally has to be downgraded or abandoned in Political Science and particularly in studies of identity. Political Man ought to be conceived in broad terms as a being that combines rational and non-rational behaviour, and as a being that has a durable inner Self and makes existential choices about cultural identity. My integrist ontology points towards a theory of liberal culturalism in that it accords key importance to cultural factors but within the framework of a “liberal” approach broadly defined. The term liberal should however not be misunderstood: Far from conceiving human beings in narrow utilitarian terms I suggest a new approach combining “thick” individuality with “thin” community. Culture is choice – but, it must be added, choice is also culture.
1 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000.
2 See Jerrold Seigel, op.cit. p. 171ff.
3 See the discussion in Bruce A. Buchan, “Situated consciousness or consciousness of situation? Autonomy and antagonism in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness”. History of European Ideas, Vol. 22, no. 3. 1996.
4 Edgar Morin, Penser L’Europe. Paris: Gallimard, 1987.
5 See Jonathan Webber, “Sartre’s Theory of character”. European Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 14/1. 2006. As is well known Sartre was later in life to embrace radical left-wing views. However, his early writings are perfectly compatible with more moderate, political views.
6 Sartre’s understanding of life-projects does not quite correspond to our ordinary notion of the word, but clarifying Sartre’s concept of projects would require a long discussion that cannot be – and need not be – undertaken here.
7 Ibid. p. 102.
8 Seigel. Op.cit. p.518.
9 Ibid. p. 531.
10 Ibid. p.523.
11 Buchan, op.cit. p. 207.
12 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973, p. 35 and 45.
13 Ibid. p. 37.
14 Ibid. p. 316.
15 Ernest Renan, “What is a nation?”. In: Geoff Eley and Ronald Suny (eds.), Becoming Nation: A Reader. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
16 Ibid.
17 Merje Kuus, “Ubiquitous identities and elusive subjects: puzzles from Central Europe”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geography, 2007.
18 Occasionally Kuus’s argument borders on the obscure, as when he writes that “approached as a performative practice, the consistency of what is described as a ‘core’ of identity is not the source but the effect of identity discourses”, ibid. p. 93. This begs the question of how the outlook of individuals can be moulded into consistency by discourses?
19 Ibid. p. 97.
20 Kuus quotes Nietzsche as saying famously that “the deed is everything”.
21 Gerard Delanty & Rumford., Rethinking Europe. Social Theory and the Implications of Europeanization. London: Routledge, 2005.
22 Ibid. p. 15.
23 Ibid, p. 17.
24 Michael Herzfeld, “The European Self: Re-thinking an attitude”. In: Anthony Pagden (ed.), The idea of Europe. From Antiquity to the European Union. Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 140.
25 Cécile Laborde, op.cit. points out that both Anglo-American liberalism and French Republicanism have in recent years been challenged by a quite powerful “culturalist turn” in political theory and that both lines of thinking are currently on the defensive. Culturalism has so far failed, however, to develop a new, coherent view of Political Man based on individualist assumptions.
26 Delanty & Rumford, op.cit. p. 52.
27 Op.cit. p. 54.
28 Ibid.
29 See Emmanuel Mounier, Ecrits sur le Personalisme. Paris: Editions de Seuil, 2000.; and Emmanuel Mounier, Comunismo, Anarquismo, personalismo.
