DAVID SIDORSKY
561
Like the recognition of the inevitability of the facts of nature and the
constraints of history, the realization that a choice among alternative
ends is unavoidable in the exercise of human freedom is a truism. Yet tru–
isms or platitudes demand affirmation in those contexts where they are
being denied . For in the contemporaneous politics of identity, there have
been various ideologies of liberation that assert claims which contradict
the platitudes of nature, history, and plural ends. Yet it is relevant to note
that truistic statements have taken on the character of platitudes because
they embody enduring truths about the human condition.
The third concept of liberty represents a formulation of the perennial
ideal of freedom that has special bearing in the peculiar circumstances
of our own age. In the new international context, after the rigidities of
the long struggle between two antagonistic power blocs, there has been
increased room for change in the formerly fixed boundaries of national
and ethnic self-identification. In a period of global economic transfor–
mation with rapid advances in information technology, there has been
greater space for individual self-definition . Yet whether that torch of lib–
erty will function as a guiding light or as a burning sun will depend
upon the ways in which its application is carried out with an awareness
of the bonds of nature, the burdens of history, and the plurality of val–
ues that are implicit in the achievement of a free society.
The Sixth Annual Irving Howe Memorial Lecture'
GEORGE KATEB
Princeton University
"Undermining the Constitution"
Thursday, November 15, 2001
6 p.m., Proshansky Auditorium
CUNY Graduate Center, Fifth Avenue at
34th
Street
Free and Open to the Public
Sponsored
by
the Center for the Humanities
For more information call 212-817-2005 or email
.
