Astrid von Busekist

Uses and Misuses of the Concept of Identity

In international politics as in the domestic management of collective claims, everything today is a question of ‘identity’: identity-based demands, identity-based mobilizations, ethnic, religious, social and professional identity, etc. Recourse to the term ‘identity’, whether by the group concerned or from distant analysts, is the most immediately evocative and the most effective packaging in its appeal to common sense. It is as if there were a legitimacy immediately attached to identities: ‘oppressed identities’ (oppressed by the state, by the big and powerful, by the West, by globalization or by market liberalism) always fit the bill. Martyrs or liberators, opponents of the order in power and self-proclaimed holders of an alternative identity are all situated in a face-to-face situation that at once ensures them if not sympathy, then at least understanding. The only clear dividing line between perceptions of ‘identity-based movements’ is the recourse to violence: if one recognizes the legitimacy of work...In international politics as in the domestic management of collective claims, everything today is a question of ‘identity’: identity-based demands, identity-based mobilizations, ethnic, religious, social and professional identity, etc. Recourse to the term ‘identity’, whether by the group concerned or from distant analysts, is the most immediately evocative and the most effective packaging in its appeal to common sense. It is as if there were a legitimacy immediately attached to identities: ‘oppressed identities’ (oppressed by the state, by the big and powerful, by the West, by globalization or by market liberalism) always fit the bill. Martyrs or liberators, opponents of the order in power and self-proclaimed holders of an alternative identity are all situated in a face-to-face situation that at once ensures them if not sympathy, then at least understanding. The only clear dividing line between perceptions of ‘identity-based movements’ is the recourse to violence: if one recognizes the legitimacy of working for a community-based culture and an identity that is shielded from the great process of global homogenization, then the use of (terrorist) violence must be condemned.

The Languages of Nationalism

What the eye is to the lover, language is to the patriot.1 Summed up like this the union between language and nation promises eternity. Of all modern couples, it is without contest the most united and the most solid, insensitive to the prevailing climate and to threats of dissolution in puta-tive postmodernism. More than elective affinities, this indestructible tie is a question of logic. If one accepts that nationalism is political—and that politics is language, then the nation, and as a consequence national-ism, are indissociable from language. But what is the precise nature of the ties holding together the couple in question, and above all: which language are we speaking of? The logos? The ‘national’ language? The militant language of nationalists? The messianic language of the national Promised Land? The dialect destined to become a national language? The particular lexicon of the intellectual, military or religious elite aspir-ing to national power?

« Nous sommes peut-être beaucoup moins libres que nous le pensons »

Resume Dans cet entretien, Quentin Skinner revient sur son parcours et sur la maniere dont se sont articules son enseignement, ses recherches et son travail d’editeur. Il precise la maniere dont il concoit l’articulation entre contexte social et contexte discursif dans l’etude de la pensee politique, ses positions vis-a-vis d’autres programmes de recherche comme celui de Leo Strauss ou le programme fort de la sociologie des sciences, et evoque la reception de son travail. En revisitant plusieurs thematiques qui jalonnent son oeuvre 202 - Entretien avec Quentin Skinner comme l’histoire de la conception neo-romaine de la liberte ou celle de la tradition rhetorique, il explicite enfin son rapport a la philosophie contemporaine.