Arlie Russell Hochschild
Harvard sociologist Michèle Lamont has written a landmark book that unpacks how 'recognition chains' work in politics, culture, and in our day-to-day interactions with others. Seeing Others will change the way you see the world, and yourself.
Thomas Piketty
Equality is not only about income, wealth and the power to decide about your own life. It is also and mostly about recognition and dignity, mutual respect and empathy, deliberation and participation. In this powerful new book, Michèle Lamont illuminates how recognition must be part of the post-neoliberalism agenda. A must-read!
From the Publisher
A thoughtful recipe for building social justice."
—Kirkus
Henry Louis Gates
"Centering dignity in too often undignified times, Michèle Lamont has given us a powerful new lens for seeing each other, as a way toward seeing a better, fairer, and more just future for all. She achieves this brilliantly through an astonishing array of interviews with change agents across our social spectrum who understand the challenges of our moment and the potential for reframing them through narratives of radical inclusion. Meaningful healing, these pages reveal in compelling detail, must come through the universal recognition that everyone struggles, everyone dreams, everyone matters, and everyone wants to be seen. It is difficult to imagine a more timely and original work of social analysis, or one more welcome in these troubled times."
Robert D. Putnam
Michèle Lamont is one of the most prominent analysts of culture and identity in the world today. In this new book she brings her expertise as scholar to a new role as public intellectual. She shows that asking how we see others and how they see themselves has important implications for inequality and for practical efforts to address that growing scourge of contemporary society.
Joey Soloway
"Michèle Lamont's book Seeing Others is so important for this time we're living through — as our country grapples with changing ideas of "who matters" and how we can move to a more equitable and understanding nation. Her extensive research encompasses the intersectionality that is the key to making a better world for us all. A must read."
New York Times bestselling author Arlie Russell Hochschild
Seeing Others will change the way you see the world, and yourself.”
Kirkus Reviews
2023-07-05
A Harvard sociologist examines how inequality plays out in categorizing people in such a way as to render some voiceless—and effectively invisible.
Lamont, the author of How Professors Think and The Dignity of Working Men, is a longtime student of inequality and marginalization, and she shows how both have helped promote “some of the factors driving the far right and white nationalism.” Attitudes toward marginalized communities are malleable, notes the author, precisely because they are artificial constructs. For example, “in 1973…90 percent of Americans disapproved of homosexual relations, but by 2019 that number had fallen to 21 percent.” Much of society seemed to say, “we see you; we value you, and we invite you to take a seat at the table alongside us.” Now, with economic precarity and the feeling of so many middle-class Americans that they are losing ground to people they perceive to be less worthy, such a declaration is more needed than ever to destigmatize poor, immigrant, and outlier communities—and, she adds, for those in more comfortable circumstances to try to stop denigrating those who are struggling, regardless of political affiliation. “All of these—narratives, stigmas, stereotypes, and social hierarchies—are produced by human beings and thus changeable,” writes Lamont. Although the prescription is doubtless one that many people on all sides will find difficult, the author believes “we can all cultivate a wider range of friends and relationships across class and racial boundaries,” which may help reduce automatic, negative reactions to those who are “perceived as the losers of the system.” There’s no Pollyannaism in Lamont’s decidedly left-leaning program, though one wonders whether, given the increased divisiveness of America, it’s in any way practical. One hopes. Though not as deeply insightful, Lamont’s book complements Anand Giridharadas’ The Persuaders.
A thoughtful recipe for building social justice by being less judgmental.
