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Intelligence Squared

Mistaken Identities: The Conflict Over Culture, Class, Gender and Nation with Kwame Anthony Appiah and John Gray

Intelligence Squared

Intelligence Squared

News, Society & Culture, Arts, News Commentary

4.21.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2018

⏱️ 62 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Race, religion and identity are being talked about as never before. While minority groups raise their voices for recognition and inclusion, others feel that their culture is being eroded. In these increasingly febrile times, Intelligence Squared brought together two of the world’s most prominent thinkers to debate the issues that are polarising our society. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy at New York University, unpicked the very notion of identity. He argues that our outdated prejudices taint the way we understand concepts of race, class, nationality and sexuality. Race, he claims, is a fiction based on Victorian-era pseudoscience. Appiah urges us to question and rethink our assumptions in order to build a more tolerant and accepting society. But how helpful is this viewpoint to those who face the reality of racism and feel the brunt of discrimination on a daily basis? In conversation with Appiah was John Gray, one of Britain’s most provocative and original commentators. In contrast to Appiah, Gray argues that categories like race are not just ‘mistakes’; they come about as the result of concrete political situations which cannot just be wished away by a philosopher in his ivory tower. Gray also contends that liberals who seek to undo traditional notions of identity have become even more dogmatic, intolerant and illiberal than the conservatives whom they criticise. In their hypocrisy, they have created a new hierarchy of identity which privileges ethnicity, gender and sexuality over nation and religion. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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1:00.2

Hello and to discuss mistaken identities, the conflict over culture, class, gender and nation.

1:16.0

Hannah Kaye is the producer of this event and joins me now.

1:18.8

Hannah, tell us why we're doing this event.

1:20.9

Well Farra, when I heard Kwame Anthony Appier's wreath lectures on mistaken

1:25.6

identities in 2016, I thought they were really interesting. So when I heard that he was expanding

1:30.9

the lectures into a book called The Lies That Bind

1:34.3

Rethinking Identity. I was very keen to get him for Intelligence Squared, and Appia

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