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Quote by Anthony Giddens

Work

Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age

This book delves into the complexities of self-identity as it intersects with societal changes in the late modern era, examining how individuals navigate personal identity in a rapidly evolving social landscape. more

Author

Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens

Anthony Giddens is a British sociologist and political theorist, born on January 18, 1938. He is one of the most influential sociologists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, known for his work on structuration theory and the study of modernity. more

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“We live fragmented, compartmentalized lives in which contradictions are carefully sealed off from each other. We have been taught to think linearly rather than comprehensively, and we do this not through conscious design or because we are not intelligent or capable, but because of the way in which deep cultural undercurrents structure life in subtle but highly consistent ways that are not consciously formulated.”

“We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In wilderness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.”

“Individuals inherit a particular space within an interlocking set of social relationships; lacking that space, they are nobody, or at best a stranger or an outcast. To know oneself as such a social person is however not to occupy a static and fixed position. It is to find oneself placed at a certain point on a journey with set goals; to move through life is to make progress - or to fail to make progress - toward a given end.”