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ead0b2e
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We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others--our parents, for instance--and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live.
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life
self-identity
dialogue
self
parents
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Charles Taylor |
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2d94f04
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E]ach of our voices has something unique to say. Not only should I not mold my life to the demands of external conformity; I can't even find the model by which to live outside myself. I can only find it within.
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individuality
individuals
self
uniqueness
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Charles Taylor |
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d38ee7f
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There is a certain way of being human that is way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for .
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life
individuals
self
uniqueness
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Charles Taylor |
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d311de3
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To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand.
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self-identity
self
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Charles Taylor |
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7f06ea9
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M]y discovering my own identity doesn't mean that I work it out in isolation, but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt, partly internal, with others.
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self-identity
self
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Charles Taylor |
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3fb8969
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We become full human agents, capable of understanding ourselves, and hence of defining our identity, through our acquisition of rich human languages of expression.
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self-identity
self
humans
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Charles Taylor |
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379beca
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It's not just that people sacrifice their love relationships, and the care of their children, to pursue their careers. Something like this has perhaps always existed. The point is that today many people feel to do this, feel they ought to do this, feel their lives would be somehow wasted or unfulfilled if they didn't do it.
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Charles Taylor |
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74cf49c
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What should have died along with communism is the belief that modern societies can be run on a single principle, whether that of planning under the general will or that of free-market allocations.
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politics
society
principles
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Charles Taylor |
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71497f7
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There is a widespread sense of loss here, if not always of God, then at least of meaning.
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loss
meaning
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Charles Taylor |
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a8c948e
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Herder put forward the idea that each of us has an original way of being human. Each person has his or her own "measure" is his way of putting it. This idea has entered very deep into modern consciousness. It is also new. Before the late eighteenth century no one thought that the differences between human beings had this kind of moral significance."
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Charles Taylor |
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4386cc8
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But an important point is that, once again as with "scientific" proofs of atheism, it is not the cast-iron intellectual reasoning which convinces, but the relief of revolt."
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Charles Taylor |
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daab3c7
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liberalism can't and shouldn't claim complete cultural neutrality. Liberalism is also a fighting creed.
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Charles Taylor |
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b4c9931
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The rise of the buffered identity has been accompanied by an interiorization; that is, not only the Inner/Outer distinction, that between Mind and World as separate loci, which is central to the buffer itself; and not only the development of this Inner/Outer distinction in a whole range of epistemological theories of a mediational type from Descartes to Rorty;' but also the growth of a rich vocabulary of interiority, an inner realm of thoug..
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Charles Taylor |