It's the Brian Lairishow on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

With us now Harvard professor Michelle Lamont, who has a new book that adds to a fascinating

body of work about human dignity. The new book is called Seeing Others, How Recognition

Works, and How It Can Heal a Divided World. The book includes concepts like how people

use morality to validate exclusion, how members of stigmatized groups respond to rejection,

even a concept of inclusion she describes as a Trojan horse as used by stand-up comedians.

We'll explain. And it all builds on previous books with titles such as Dignity of Working

Men, a multi-racial examination of class and culture among non-college-educated men that

came out 20 years ago, but is so relevant to the politics of today. The culture war is

the UAW strike, work permits for migrants and more, and a previous book called How Professors

Think Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment. We'll get to that too.

Michelle Lamont is a professor of sociology, African American studies, and the Robert

I. Goldman professor of European studies at Harvard, interesting combination, African

American and European studies. And she joins us now. Thanks for coming on, Professor

Lamont. Welcome to WNYC. Thank you so much for having me. I'm

really appreciative. The title of the book again is Seeing Others, How Recognition Works,

and How It Can Heal a Divided World. Let's start by, I want to ask you what you mean

by recognition in the context of this book. When we think about recognition, one might

think of a use that looks like this. I recognize that this is the apple on the table, or I

recognize that this is Johnny on the street. But in the context of my book, it's really

about recognizing the value of others and the qualities that make them full members

of our society and included in our concept of us. Yes. And reading your book, I was thinking

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