By the early nineteenth century, most of the elements of the modern concept of identity are present: the distinction between the inner and the outer selves, the valuation of the inner being above existing social arrangements, the understanding that the dignity of the inner self rests on its moral freedom, the view that all human beings share this moral freedom, and the demand that the free inner self be recognized. Hegel pointed to a fundamental truth about modern politics, that the great passions unleashed by events such as the French Revolution were at base struggles over dignity. The inner
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