Identity Reframed

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Ain't Sayin' He's a Golden Nugget Digger

Kwame Anthony Appiah's focus this go around was the identity of the West. What exactly does it mean to have Western values, ideals and ways?

To answer that question, Kwame went to what he calls the golden nugget theory of Western civilization. It's the thought that some treasured idea was dug out of the old world and made it's way around the globe, probably starting with Alexander the Great, and eventually landing at Harvard University and permanently embedding itself in the U.S. university system. He admits it's a silly story but one that seems to underlie Western civilization.

And that concept of a gold nugget that holds together and defines the core of an entire civilization has become nationalized. The problem with the story, says Kwame, is that it requires a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of history.

The notion that Western nations are held together by some sort of spiritual core, or set of ideas, is a mistake, says Kwame. He took us through five errors with this golden nugget theory

The Five Errors of the Golden Nugget

The birthright error: leads us to talk about the situation of the modern west in relation to Alexander the Great and other such figures. We think we’re connected to this history and we exaggerate our connectedness

The only ideas matter error: exaggerating the role of ideas. What holds us together is not just ideas. It’s also institutions, for one example.

The determinist error: what we have been fixes what we’re going to be. Because this is who we are, we can’t lose it. Liberty is an American idea. And there is no guarantee to rights that are ideas.

The organicist error: overstating the wholeness of cultures

The nationalist error: overstating the relationship between cultural and political identities