Plural Identities

Mary Douglas

I remember reading Purity and Danger when I was a teenager and thinking it was fascinating.  Reading the obituary of the author of it, the anthropologist Mary Douglas, by Geoff Mulgan on Prospect's web exclusive section has made me feel I should re-read it, and other books of hers besides.  Going by Mulgan's summary of her cultural framework and its use by Michael Thompson and Marco Verweij in their book on public policy, I am struck by how much of an 'Individualist' ( as opposed to being egalitarian, hierarchical or fatalist) I am in terms of my views on climate change and immigration.  But I believe in a spot of hierarchical  intervention to tame individualists like me, a mix of policy approaches, which is also what Mulgan, Thompson and Verweij conclude.

I am also intrigued by her theory on enclaves and how this could affect strategies for dealing with terrorist cells.  It sounds very plausible that these enclaves are fragile, prone to splits and sectarianism, and strengthened by feeding off the hostility of outsiders to the enclave. So defeating terrorism may involve being less hostile to and not attacking enclaves head on with declarations of war, as this only strengthens their 'wall of virtue'.

Vapourbooks

About five years ago I thought very seriously about writing a book debunking the globalisation myths perpetuated by the anti-globalisation movements.  But serious thinking and collecting material was all I ever got round to, and then I saw that Philippe Legrain, far more obviously qualified than me to write on the subject, having been at the World Trade Organisation, wrote just such a book, in 2002.

I've recently been thinking that there should be some kind of book looking at European immigration and migration, maybe debunking or analysing anti-immigration fears and, yes, Philippe Legrain has just published a book on that.

I was amused to see that he also thinks, as do I, that Thomas Friedman's book 'The World is Flat' is one of the most overrated books of last year. In fact I was going to call my third vapourware book, based on my previous blog 'Hightext', 'The World is Bumpy', a guide to communicating virtually across borders (e-mails, teleconferencing etc), which, I think, despite what Friedman says, is anything but smooth and flat.  Well the book's not entirely vapourware, as I have written an outline and a few thousand words of it.  I better get on with it.