E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Tony Judt would be a fascinating reader of Identity Parade .  Perhaps he should be shown a copy, though the great American writer and thinker is sadly very ill with a debilitating disease.  Nontheless he has been dictating essays, and some of his recent writing has appeared in the latest The New York Review of Books .  There he discusses the identity of the edge ('Edge People', March 25, 2010), a cosmpolitan and fragmented identity that he advises intellectuals and academics to adopt, against what he decries as a very dictatorial attempt to define and delimit what is British identity (his own example), among others.  This essay is well worth checking out, to see a well-argued defense of what is basically my position - that strictly nationalist definitions of identity can be dangerous and even demagogic.  It has some wonderful quotes: '"Identity" is a dangerous word.  It has no respectable contemporary uses.'  Or, the conlduing paragraph: Being Dani...

To answer the comment about my cheering for Canada at the Olympics... people do have divided loyalties. I have a dual sense of identity - part-Canadian )where born), part British/Irish, where I live. As Morrissey sang, "Irish blood, English heart" (or was it vice versa?). My wife, who is Irish, cheers Canada, since we met there. We both have affection for Hungary and Hungarians, as we lived for a few years in Budapest. Why the need to pin down other people's identity? Dual citizens abound, with multiple passports - and in 19th century and before, as Paul Fussel reminded us, there were no passports (very few before the 1930s) - you just went and travelled. As Sydney Greenstreet once called himself, maybe poets are "citizens of the world". All this to say, be not confused - Eyewear sees double (at least).