Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution

Rather, it is for the purpose of setting the experiences and the feelings recounted within the context of God’s great truths.

Freud essentially says yes, religion is childish nonsense, but if people believe it, then it does at least offer a speciously transcendent basis for the sexual morality that keeps society civilized.

than that. And that means that the story of the modern self

is achieved by acting outwardly in accordance with one’s inward feelings.

answers those last three questions in the affirmative. The modern self assumes the authority of inner feelings and sees authenticity as defined by the ability to give social expression to the same. The modern self also assumes that society at large will recognize and affirm this behavior. Such a self is defined by what is called expressive individu

speak of “imaginary” (i) because I’m talking about the way ordinary people “imagine” their social surroundings, and this is often not expressed in theoretical terms, it is carried in images, stories, legends, etc. But it is also the case that (ii) theory is often the possession of a small minority, whereas what is interesting in the social imaginar

[The culture of authenticity is one where] each one of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from outside, by society, or the previous generation, or religious or political authority.2 In short, the modern self is on