The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity

by Kwame Anthony Appiah

Nowadays, when people speak about culture, it’s usually either Tylor’s or Arnold’s notion that they have in mind. The two concepts of culture are, in some respects, antagonistic: Arnold’s ideal was “the man of culture” and he would have considered “primitive culture” an oxymoron; Tylor’s model denies that a person could be devoid of culture. Yet, in ways we’ll explore, these contrasting notions of culture are locked together in our concept of Western culture, which many people think defines the identity of modern Western people. In this final chapter, I’m going to talk about culture as a source of identity, and to try to untangle some of our confusions about the culture, both Tylorian and Arnoldian, of what we’ve come to call the West.