My father asked me to review two books for this piece: “The Primal Teen” and “the Dignity of Difference” by Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of the Commonwealth.

For synthesising the scientific research on teenage brain development I am sure that “The Primal Teen” is the book to read, but I have ignored discussing “the Primal Teen’s” scientific implications in this piece and have instead taken Strauch’s basic theme – that “… teenagers may, indeed, be a bit crazy. But they are crazy according to a primal blueprint; they are crazy by design” – and used it as a springboard to discuss my own adolescence as an example of how important those few years of one’s life are in forming the adult self. “The Dignity of Difference” is a very different book.

“The Dignity of Difference” is about Globalization; it’s discontents, challenges, and hopes. It is a response to Samuel P. Huntingdon’s “The Clash of Civilisations” and Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” but approaches the questions of globalization from a religious angle. It is an honest and vital call for awareness.

Sacks premise is that we must live with globalization, as it cannot now be repealed like a faulty tyre. But globalization is not working in its current form – September 11 proved that, polarising the inequalities and frustrations globalization has created.

There is a vast disconnect between the west and the rest, between rich and poor, north and south. Globalization’s supporters see themselves as beneficiaries, uniting the globe triumphantly under an umbrella of Ones: One ideology, One religion, One culture: One way of living. But the world is immensely diverse (scientifically our existence and survival depend on biological diversity) and cultures of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, or Asia cannot be reined in with a western yoke without unleashing conflict and bitterness. “Our very dignity as persons,” says Sacks, “is rooted in the fact that none of us – not even genetically identical twins – is exactly like the other.”

Sacks titles the philosophy underlying universalism “Plato’s Ghost.” The true essence of things [for Plato],” Sacks explains, “is not matter, but form, ideas, not their embodiment in the world of the senses. That is where trees become Treeness, where men become Man and apparent truths become Truth.” Plato points to the heavens, a place of unity, far from the world of particulars and differences. He talks of human Truth, the same for everyone, everywhere. For Plato “The essence of things is universal.” But Sacks finds the universalism of Plato’s Ghost a deficient and destructive philosophy to guide us into the century. “My argument is far more fundamental,” he says, “namely that universalism is an inadequate response to tribalism, and no less dangerous…it leads to the belief that…if what I believe is the truth, then your belief, which differs from mine, must be an error from which you must be converted, cured and saved.” And from that kind of thinking, he reminds us, stemmed some of the greatest tragedies of history.

We cannot come to appreciate the universal, explains Sacks, without first the particular. “…It is precisely this nonuniversality, this particularity, that constitutes parenthood – the ability to feel a bond with this child, not to all children indiscriminately…this ability to form an absolute bond of loyalty and obligation to someone in particular as opposed to persons-in-general goes to he very core of what we mean by being human.” But Sacks does not dismiss universalism in support of the particular. He explains that the God of Abraham does not teach such simple oppositions: “We are particulars and universal, the same and different, human beings as such, but also members of this family, that community, this history, that heritage.” Philosophical ethics emphasises similarity: universalism. Biblical ethics, however, “is far more complex. It emphasises the dual nature of our moral situation.” This is why it is the responsibility of religion to help guide the ethical and moral philosophy of globalization.

Many who read “The Dignity of Difference” vigorously nodding their heads in agreement to his challenge of globalization, might suddenly find themselves surprised to see that Sacks supports the market economy, a usual target for globalization’s opponents. “The free market,” he asserts, “is the best means we have yet discovered for alleviating poverty and creating a human environment of independence, dignity and creativity.” He goes on: “…the market embodies an idea that is central to the argument of [“The Dignity of Difference”] as a whole, namely that difference is the source of value, and indeed of society itself.” But Sacks’ support comes with amendments, and it is here that he sees a role for religious morality. “What is…morally unacceptable about the new economy from a Jewish point of view is not the free market itself, but the breakdown it is creating in the sense of social solidarity.” The problem for Sacks is that the free market has created inequality and a growing division between rich and poor, when it has the potential of being a blessing on difference: “As long as we are each better at some things than others, we both gain by exchange, even if whatever you do, you do better than me.”

Sack’s religious answer to the inequalities the market creates is the biblical concept of tzedakah, that loosely signifies “what is often called ‘social justice,’ meaning that no one should be without the basic requirements of existence, and that those who have more than they need must share some of that surplus with those who have less.” He explains that the Bible insists on a free market governed by tzedakah, by “a just distribution of resources.” As with everything discussed in the book, Sacks seeks a balance. “We will not cure poverty by destroying a system of wealth-creation, any more than we will cure illness by abolishing doctors…[but] the freedom of the few may not be purchased at the price of the enslavement of the many to poverty, ignorance and disease.” The market is not responsible for the discontents of globalization. It is a “mechanism, no more, no less.” But in its present form it needs constraints. It is to be “judged by [its] impact on human dignity.” Afterall, for Sacks “an order that systematically deprives a significant proportion of mankind of fundamental dignities is indefensible.”

With massive advances in communication technologies the world is literally at our fingertips. So it follows that images of famine, genocide and civil war are easily accessible, and seen on a day-to-day basis. These images tend to have a numbing effect: we feel for the people on the screen, or in the newspaper, but they are usually separated by thousands of miles, language, race, religion, economic status. “Our sense of compassion…runs ahead of our capacity to act,” Sacks remarks. “Our moral sense is simultaneously activated and frustrated.” Human beings developed to interact ideally with around 150 other people. Empathy, love, attachment, commonality can all exist within such small numbers. But now that we are connected to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe our sense of community and commonality have become distorted. We find ourselves between the universal and the tribal, pulled two ways with little real attachment to either.

But “The Dignity of Difference” is ultimately optimistic. Though the future of our world depends on our ability to “realise the danger of wishing that everyone should be the same – the same faith on the one hand, the same McWorld on the other,” Sacks does not doubt the possibility of such a paradigm shift. The strength of his plea is that it takes a religious form, but remains multi-denominational and tolerant. He points to the problems, but refrains from pointing fingers of blame. His words are both firm, yet also tinged with humility. Rabbi Sacks holds everything in a balance while providing a religious, moral, and ethical guide for tolerance and recognition of the dignity of difference.

“The Dignity of Difference” is a book of immediate worth. Having reread the first half of this essay I realise how important this book would have been to me in my teenage years. I have already copied pages of it for friends, and have a list of people wanting to borrow my copy when I’m finally willing to give it up. What ties adolescence to the message of “The Dignity of Difference” is a quest for understanding. Sacks describes a global confusion that is very similar in its generality to the particularity of adolescent confusion. Just as teenagers must readjust and search their way into adulthood, so we as global citizens must reinterpret and recognise the importance of our connections to each of the world’s inhabitants. Barbara Strauch quotes a parent saying “…even though teenagers have the bodies of adults, they are not adults. We must keep that thought in mind – if we can.” This is an encouraging insight into what we must all try to achieve: the ability to recognise the dignity of our differences remembering, finally, that “difference does not diminish; [but rather] enlarges the sphere of human possibilities.”

Bibliography

Barbara Strauch, The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell us about our Kids, (New York, 2003)

Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, (London, 2002)

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