Human nature is contradictory, and the human self is a capacious and multiform thing. We can be, we are, many selves at once: We can be gentle with our children but harsh with our employees; we can love God but dislike human beings; we can fear for the environment and yet leave electric lights on when we leave the house; we can be peaceful souls who are driven, by our passion for a football team, to aggressive, sometimes even hooligan extremes. And no matter how strongly we may wish to defend the sovereignty of the individual self—an idea born in the Florentine Renaissance that may be Italy’s
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