Sen began his lecture by calling the Mother Theresa moniker the "least favorite remark about me I've ever heard," which evoked a laugh from the crowd. He then launched into his lecture, "Identity and the Violence of Illusion," by citing Langston Hughes' autobiography. Exhilaration seized Hughes, said Sen, when the poet left America for Africa by boat. Returning to the homeland of his people, Hughes felt "like [he was] throwing one million bricks out of his heart." Sen went on to explain that identity can be a source of pride, joy and strength, like in the Hughes example-but it can also kill.
Many conflicts, especially today's, are organized around group divisions. Sen called hating an art, with identity as the weapon of choice. People often define their own group by the group they hate; Sen illustrated this with an example from his own childhood in India amidst the tumultuous 1940s struggles before and after independence. The Muslim-Hindu conflict in particular saw "hundreds of thousands killed ... on behalf of their 'own people.'"
Sen said that the problems of identity deserve further study if only because its positive contributions have been so thoroughly researched. Sen noted that identity often causes people who identify with one another to help one another. At the same time, Sen encouraged a "basic recognition that a sense of identity can exclude people while it embraces others."
Sen then gave contemporary examples of identity causing violence. In the Sudan, in the Israel-Palestine conflict, Al-Quaeda and at Abu Ghraib, people have hurt one another in the name of identity, said Sen, and we cannot place the blame squarely on "a few bad apples." Human beings consistently act with such cruelty in the name of identity, obscuring their shared membership in the human race. "Where can the remedy be found?" he asked.
It would be impossible and undesirable to eliminate identity altogether; rather, we must recognize that everyone, including ourselves, has multiple identities. Sen's basic thesis is that to eradicate "identity-based violence," we must see the role of choice in identity. Sen frequently referred to the Rwandan genocide and gave the example of a Hutu laborer who is not only a Hutu but also a Kigalian, a laborer, an African and a human being.
Sen moved closer to home by pointing out that we are able to see ourselves as members of a variety of groups without contradiction, yet we often have difficulty seeing others that way. As an example, he listed a wide range of identities an imagined person could possess, ranging from funny to vegetarian to female to long-distance runner to teacher and, finally, eliciting laughs, a belief in the existence of intelligent beings in outer space with whom we must communicate-in English.
"We are all constantly making choices, if only implicitly [about which identity will be most important]," said Sen. He presented this view in contrast to that held by communitarians like his friend, Harvard University Professor of Government Michael Sandel.
Sandel claims that the self comes to be not by choice but by realization, a point with which Sen very fervently disagrees. Though Sen acknowledges the role of discovery in identity, "decisions have to be made even when discoveries occur," and these choices matter.
The economist came into view when Sen called the limits of choices "budget constraints" and remarked that what is true in elementary economics also holds true in making identity choices. Sen then gave an example from the late-19th century Bengali novel Gora, whose title character believes himself to be Indian until adulthood, when he learns that he is actually the son of an English couple who died. Gora has to reconsider his own political views which discriminate against himself. While Gora discovers a new identity, he must choose how he is going to make it fit with his other identities.
Because we do not see the role of choice in identity, we often accept traditions unquestioningly, said Sen. He called attention to the problem of women's subservience. At the same time, however, if we do not see identity as a choice it can also cause a radical reorientation without rational scrutiny, which Sen termed unreasoned identity shifts, like the violent riots over partition that took place in India in 1946. Unquestioning acceptance of identity causes "abdication of responsibility," said Sen.
He then discussed the problem of the identities others make for us or see us as. In South Africa before apartheid, for example, whites would only identify a non-white woman in terms of race rather than occupation or sex or other salient qualities. It is not uncommon for people to have difficulty seeing us as we want to be seen. Sen gave an example from his own past of a professor who stereotyped all Indians as rude. Sen felt unable to speak out against the stereotype because he feared that he would be feeding it instead. Indeed, at both the personal and the political levels, ignoring choice in identities "adds greatly to the flammability of the world in which we live," according to Sen.
Sen shifted tack to discuss the current "clash of civilizations" thesis regarding the post-9/11 world in which religion is the only relevant system of divisions and that the differences among world religions makes conflict inevitable. However, Sen finds this thesis blatantly untrue not because we are all the same but rather because of the plurality of differences that exist between people. Furthermore, "clash of civilizations" presumes that humanity is separated into different civilizations. Sen called this a "foggy perception of world history" that overlooks the relevant diversity within groups and "reduces many-sided human beings into one" dimension.
Working solely with religion also magnifies the voice of religious authority. Rather than relying strictly on religion-based identities, Sen argued for "diversified diversities." He gave the very timely example of Saddam Hussein becoming the leader of the Muslim terrorists in the eyes of the American government. Americans see the Arab world as identifying only with Islam, ignoring a history rich in other contributions such as very important mathematical ones. Indeed, this identification currently "extracts a very heavy price."
"[The] alternative is not any unreal claim that we are all the same," said Sen. Rather, we must recognize that plurality of identifications exist, and that our identifications cut across one another. We do not live in a world of choiceless singularity. Sen concluded on a positive note. "We can do better than this," he said.
The 20-minute question-and-answer session saw questions mainly from students at the College who challenged Sen on a few points. Afterwards, the audience assembled outside the Red Room for a reception in Sen's honor.
Sen is formally trained in economics but also studied philosophy while on a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics. Sen is currently the Lamont University Professor at Harvard University where he teaches philosophy and economics.