From Self to Selfie: A Critique of Contemporary Forms of Alienation

236 Pages·2019·2.334 MB·English

by  Angus Kennedy, James Panton

Edited by
Angus Kennedy / James Panton
F R O M
S E L F
T O
S E L F I E
A Critique of
Contemporary
Forms of Alienation
From Self to Selfie
Angus Kennedy • James Panton
Editors
From Self to Selfie
A Critique of Contemporary Forms of
Alienation
Editors
Angus Kennedy James Panton
West Sussex, UK Magdalen College School
Oxford, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-19193-1 ISBN 978-3-030-19194-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19194-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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For
Maddy and Claudia
&
Mira and Alexandra
Personality implies that as this person: I am completely determined on every side
and so finite, yet nonetheless I am simply and solely self-relation, and therefore in
finitude I know myself as something infinite,—universal, and free.
—Hegel, Philosophy of Right
vii
Acknowledgements
This book is a collection of essays based on lectures delivered at the
Academy of Ideas Academy in 2017. All the chapters in this book were
originally delivered as a lecture or talk in some form. We have edited
them into prose, but inevitably many of them retain a more informal and
colloquial tone than might be expected in a publication intended exclu-
sively for an academic audience. We hope that will make the book—in its
broad brush, if not cursory, treatment of a hugely complex and difficult
subject—open to a wider readership, but we do seek to excuse neither the
limitations that result nor the errors our editing will have introduced.
We would like to thank all the contributors to this collection—many
of whom are long-term supporters of the Academy—for agreeing to
include their lectures and for their commitment of time and effort in
making them ready for publication. Frank Furedi and Claire Fox deserve
special mention for their ongoing inspiration and support. In addition,
we owe a debt to all those regulars at the Academy over the last eight years
without whose support, commitment, and intellectual input, these ideas
would not have developed in the way and at the pace they have.
We are very grateful to Sharla Plant at Palgrave Macmillan for enter-
taining the original idea and taking the project on board. And to Poppy
Hull and all the team there for making it a reality.
ix
x Acknowledgements
Gae Kennedy helped with transcribing two of the original lectures. We
would both like to thank Gae and Sara Beck for all their support in too
many ways than we have space to list here.
West Sussex, 2019 A.E.K.
Oxford, 2019 J.K.P.
Contents
Part I 1
1 Introduction: Classical and Contemporary Forms of
Alienation 3
James Panton
2 The Emergence of the Self in History 13
Frank Furedi
3 In Praise of Selfish Individualism 27
Jamie Whyte
4 Self-Enlightenment 45
Angus Kennedy
5 ‘Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Wellbeing.’
J.S. Mill and the Nineteenth-Century Liberal Individual 69
James Panton
xi
xii Contents
6 The Rise and Fall of the Rule of Law 85
Jon Holbrook
Part II 103
7 Autonomy and the Birth of Authenticity 105
Tim Black
8 Self, Society, Alienation: From Marx to Identity Politics 129
Josie Appleton
9 Anti-humanism and the Deconstruction of the Liberal
Subject 147
James Heartfield
10 Narcissism and Identity 167
Claire Fox
11 New Forms of Alienation 193
Frank Furedi
12 Conclusion: The Self and Its Prospects 207
Angus Kennedy
Index 225