Toggle open close
In the current political and social climate, with its rapid changes and apparent volatility, numerous issues are particularly potent and divisive: abortion rights, the rise of pornography, the growing acceptance of euthanasia and reproductive technologies, the resurgence of radical racial politics, and issues such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Far from being discrete phenomena, connected, if at all, by some nebulous notion of social unrest or widespread cultural anxiety, there is an underlying unity to these different issues arising from the way in which people intuitively understand themselves and their relationship to others. In short, at the heart of our current cultural conflicts lies a shared notion of the self that is transforming our world, from our institutions to our understanding of morality.