From Self to Selfie

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 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © yipengge / iStock / Getty Images Plus This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland 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 exclusively 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 Notes on Contributors Josie Appleton is the director of the Manifesto Club (www.manifesto- club.com), which campaigns for freedom in everyday life, and is the author of dozens of reports about contemporary civil liberties. She stud- ied sociology and politics at the University of Oxford (undergraduate) and the University of London (graduate). She worked as a journalist and editor for five years and has good contacts with political/current affairs desks on all major newspapers where her research is reported every three months or so. She is the author of Officious: Rise of the Busybody State (2016) and she writes about the history and philosophy of freedom at notesonfreedom.com Tim Black is the editor of the essay-and-review magazine, the spiked review, and a columnist at Spiked. He has also written for the EU Observer, the Australian, the Independent, La Republica, and others. He did a PhD at the University of Sussex on ‘The Ideology of Modernism’. Claire Fox is the director of the Academy of Ideas (AoI), which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival and initiated the Debating Matters Competition for sixth formers. She also co-founded the AoI’s residential summer school, the Academy, with the aim to dem- onstrate ‘university as it should be’. Fox is a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and is frequently invited to comment on developments xiii xiv Notes on Contributors in culture, education, media and free-speech issues on TV and radio pro- grammes in the UK such as Newsnight and Any Questions? and regularly appears on Sky News’ evening paper review. Fox is a columnist for TES (Times Educational Supplement) and MJ (Municipal Journal). She is the author of a book on free speech, recently republished as I STILL Find That Offensive! (2018), and No Strings Attached! Why Arts Funding Should Say No to Instrumentalism (2007). Fox is involved at a board level in the international debate network, Time to Talk. In 2018, she did a three- month residency as a presenter of the weekly three-hour radio magazine show Fox News Friday on Love Sport Radio. Frank Furedi is a sociologist and social commentator. Since the late 1990s, he has been widely cited about his views on why Western societies find it so difficult to engage with risk and uncertainty. He has published extensively on controversies relating to issues such as health, parenting children, food and new technology. His book Invitation to Terror: Expanding the Empire of the Unknown (2007) explores the way in which the threat of terrorism has become amplified through the ascendancy of precautionary thinking. It develops the arguments contained in two pre- vious books, Culture of Fear (2002) and Paranoid Parenting (2001). Both of these works investigate the interaction between risk consciousness and perceptions of fear, trust relations and social capital in contemporary society. His new book, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century, returns to his original theme—as most of what he predicted has come true. It seeks to explain two interrelated themes: why has fear acquired such a morally commanding status in society today, and how has the way we fear today changed from the way that it was experienced in the past? Furedi has also written extensively about issues to do with education and cultural life. His book Wasted: Why Education Is Not Educating (2009) deals with the influence of the erosion of adult authority on schooling. On Tolerance (2011) offers a restatement of the importance of this con- cept for an open society. Authority: A Sociological History (2013) examines how the modern world has become far more comfortable with question- ing authority than with affirming it. Furedi is committed to promoting the ideals of a humanist education, and his writings on higher education are devoted to affirming the value of the liberal arts. His book Power of Notes on Contributors xv Reading: From Socrates to Twitter (2015) outlines the case for a liberal humanist conception of a culture of reading. One of his most recent publications What’s Happened to the University? is devoted to a study of the infantilisation of the academy and its relation to wider cultural influ- ences. Furedi’s books and articles offer an authoritative yet lively account of key developments in contemporary cultural life. Using his insights as a professional sociologist, he has produced a series of agenda-setting books that have been widely discussed in the media. His recent book Populism and the European Culture Wars: The Conflict of Values Between Hungary and the EU argues that the EU Establishment has succeeded in distorting the true meaning both of populism and of the principle of national sovereignty. Furedi’s books have been translated into 13 lan- guages. Furedi regularly comments on radio and television. He has appeared on Newsnight, Sky News and BBC News, Radio Four’s Today programme and a variety of other radio television shows.

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