That is Charles Taylor, pictured. He is a philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and is an emeritus professor at McGill University. The image was obtained from a book review published in the June 24, 2024, edition of The New Yorker. Taylor's book is titled, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment.
If you'd like to read The New Yorker review, which is by Adam Gopnik, click the link I provide in the final sentence in this paragraph. The review is titled, "Unshattered" in the hard copy version of the magazine. Online, Gopnik's book review is titled, "How the Philosopher Charles Taylor Would Heal the Ills of Modernity." Regrettably, I can't promise you a "no paywalls" experience if you do click!
As is often the case, I focused upon just one phrase from Gopnik's book review, and that phrase is what impelled me to type out this blog posting. Under the picture of Taylor, reproduced above, Gopnik wrote the following: "Liberalism, in Taylor's view, has neglected the socially embedded nature of the self."
Most of the review, frankly, is a bit beyond me, with references to poetry, music, and philosophy that are not really things I know very much about. I do think I have some familiarity with "politics," though, and Gopnik tells us that "the last fifty pages of Cosmic Connections pivot decisively from the intricacies of poetic imagination to the specifics of contemporary American and Canadian (and, secondarily, European) politics ...
A successful self-governing republic, Taylor believes, requires a community of shared purpose and a common space of deliberation. Antagonistic groups must go beyond the narrow aspiration of winning a contest against adversaries and come to one another with a sense of mutual recognition and regard."
"Individualism," in other words, the driving force of most of our activities, including "politics," fails to understand the "socially embedded nature of the self."
"Polarization" is heading in the wrong direction, too, and won't get us to where we need to go.
A successful "politics" can't forget that. I usually put it this way:
We're In This Together
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment!