It is not every day that one gets the opportunity to listen to someone of the stature of Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, a brilliant philosopher and scholar of African Studies. Appiah, who studied at Cambridge University, taught at Harvard University in the 1990s, later moved to Princeton, and is currently at New York University, delivered a lecture on political identity at the University of Cologne on June 26. Appiah, also a novelist and poet, is a regular contributor to the New York Times, where he writes an ethics column that engages with the public. He is, thus, truly a public intellectual.
His first name, Kwame, reveals his Ghanaian roots, as Kwame means "Saturday" in Ghana. Those born on Saturday are given this name. Another famous Ghanaian, Kofi Annan, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006, was named Kofi, meaning "Friday-born."
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s father, Joseph Emmanuel Appiah, was a prominent Ghanaian lawyer, politician, and diplomat, and his mother, Peggy Cripps, was a British writer and the daughter of Sir Stafford Cripps, a notable British Labour politician. Given this pedigree, it is unsurprising that Kwame Anthony Appiah would be part of British and American elite academia. However, it is not his elite status that propelled him into this charmed circle, but his intellectual prowess and charming personality. He authored over twenty books.
I was moved by his optimism and cosmopolitanism. He painted a dark but realistic picture of the division in American society, where traditional markers of identity, such as race, have been surpassed by political partisanship. He quoted a study showing that Americans are more tolerant of inter-racial marriage than inter-party marriage. For a moment, I thought he was talking about Bangladesh. When I later checked with a friend in Bangladesh, he assured me that the situation in Bangladesh is not as dire, providing several examples of marriages across party lines between the Awami League and the BNP.
Despite this, the United States has been praised for bipartisan efforts in various legislations. For example, Washington National Airport was renamed after Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States and a Republican, under the watch of President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. It is unlikely, to put it delicately, that if Trump returns to presidency, he will name anything after President Joe Biden or former President Obama.
Appiah showed a video clip of two Republican supporters at a rally wearing T-shirts stating, “I would rather be a Russian than a Democrat.” This highlights the extent of political polarization in the United States.
Appiah delved into the psychological roots of such polarization, arguing that most people carry what linguists call “linguistic generics,” such as “tigers eat people.” While some tigers may eat people, most do not. Very few people say, “tigers have beautiful stripes,” even though it is universally true. Negative generics are more popular than positive generics, as Appiah explained with references from psychological studies. And belief in a set of lies often provides a basis of solidarity.
Polarization and partisanship were evident in the Covid-19 fatality rates in the United States, where 4% of the world’s population accounted for 20% of Covid deaths.
Not all Trump followers are crazy; they are quite diverse. An essentialist view would lump all in a group without recognizing the differences and diversity within it. As a philosopher, Appiah flagged the danger of “essentialism,” which broadly means unverified generalizations focusing on partial attributes of a group.
Appiah illustrated his point with a clip from the British TV series Skins. In one episode, a 17-year-old Pakistani-British boy invites his English friend to his house, and the friend insists that the Pakistani parents must be told in advance about his (gay) sexual orientation. Ultimately, the father of Pakistani origin hugs the English lad and welcomes him inside, despite his son’s warnings.
The point was that identity differences can be overcome through contact and association with others. Drawing from his own life, Appiah -- socialist-leaning during his Cambridge days -- shared how his friendship with a conservative relative persisted despite their political differences, emphasizing the importance of personal connections built over their common interest in trout-fishing.
Referring to psychologist Gordon Allport’s “contact hypothesis” from The Nature of Prejudice (1954), Appiah stated that long-term contact helps overcome polarization and differences. In the army, where people spend extended periods together amid adversities, they develop bonds that make them more accepting of one another.
A retired Biman official once shared his experience at a tax office where an officer declared “all Biman officials are corrupt.” This is a gross generalization. The Biman official, with a long career, managed to buy only a small, one-bedroom apartment in Uttara, unlike some tax officials with lavish homes making headlines recently. One must be careful not to generalize that all tax officials or retired police officers are corrupt and indulge in lavish lifestyles.
The question I wanted to ask Professor Appiah was how to implement contact between groups or parties on a large scale. I sought practical tips and guides, but my handler, a professor, dragged me out for our next appointment, which we were running late for.
Habibul Haque Khondker is a sociology professor at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi who previously taught at the National University of Singapore.
