beyond this, they are condemned to suffer the pain of low
self-esteem. An analogous point has been made in relation to
blacks: that white society has for generations projected a demeaning
image of them, which some of them have been unable
to resist adopting. Their own self-depreciation, on this
view, becomes one of the most potent instruments of their
own oppression. Their first task ought to be to purge themselves
of this imposed and destructive identity. Recently, a
similar point has been made in relation to indigenous and
colonized people in general. It is held that since 1492 Europeans
have projected an image of such people as somehow
inferior, “uncivilized,” and through the force of conquest
have often been able to impose this image on the conquered.
The figure of Caliban has been held to epitomize this crushing
portrait of contempt of New World aboriginals.
Within these perspectives, misrecognition shows not just
a lack of due respect. It can inflict a grievous wound, saddling
its victims with a crippling self-hatred. Due recognition
is not just a courtesy we owe people. It is a vital human
need.
In order to examine some of the issues that have arisen
here, I’d like to take a step back, achieve a little distance, and
look first at how this discourse of recognition and identity
came to seem familiar, or at least readily understandable, to
us. For it was not always so, and our ancestors of more than
a couple of centuries ago would have stared at us uncomprehendingly
if we had used these terms in their current sense.
How did we get started on this?
Hegel comes to mind right off, with his famous dialectic of
the master and the slave. This is an important stage, but we
need to go a little farther back to see how this passage came
to have the sense it did. What changed to make this kind of
talk have sense for us?
We can distinguish two changes that together have made
the modern preoccupation with identity and recognition in