The Architects of Dignity:
Vietnamese Visions of Decolonization
The Architects of Dignity is the first book in political theory to engage Vietnamese political thought. It is under review at Oxford University Press.
It traces an intergenerational debate among six key Vietnamese thinkers with competing visions for how the Vietnamese should strengthen themselves to stand up to French colonialism (1858-1954). As theorists from a periphery, they struggled to identify a national cultural heritage to be proud of or take guidance from. Rather than despair, they harnessed feelings of shame for their nation-building projects. In doing so, they offer conceptions of shame and dignity that depart from mainstream conceptions in existing scholarship.
Whereas postcolonial theory typically views shame expressed by colonized peoples as destructive or false consciousness, these thinkers show how a nation can harness shame in self-directed, productive, anticolonial ways.
And whereas political theory typically views dignity as 1) something inherent in individuals, 2) as a justification for rights, and 3) as requiring recognition, these thinkers saw dignity as 1) a property of nations, 2) as rooted in the duties a nation’s people embrace instead of in the qualities of persons, and 3) as something to be asserted by the nation instead of being dependent on recognition by colonizers.
It traces an intergenerational debate among six key Vietnamese thinkers with competing visions for how the Vietnamese should strengthen themselves to stand up to French colonialism (1858-1954). As theorists from a periphery, they struggled to identify a national cultural heritage to be proud of or take guidance from. Rather than despair, they harnessed feelings of shame for their nation-building projects. In doing so, they offer conceptions of shame and dignity that depart from mainstream conceptions in existing scholarship.
Whereas postcolonial theory typically views shame expressed by colonized peoples as destructive or false consciousness, these thinkers show how a nation can harness shame in self-directed, productive, anticolonial ways.
And whereas political theory typically views dignity as 1) something inherent in individuals, 2) as a justification for rights, and 3) as requiring recognition, these thinkers saw dignity as 1) a property of nations, 2) as rooted in the duties a nation’s people embrace instead of in the qualities of persons, and 3) as something to be asserted by the nation instead of being dependent on recognition by colonizers.
