The Home We Build Together

Book excerpt: Arguing that global communications have fragmented national cultures and that multiculturalism, intended to reduce social friction, is today reinforcing it, Sacks calls for a new approach to national identity. He envisions a responsibility-based rather than rights-based model of citizenship that connects the ideas of giving and belonging. We should see society as "the home we build together", bringing the distinctive gifts of different groups to the common good. Sacks warns of the hazards free and open societies face in the 21st century, and offers an unusual religious defence of liberal democracy and the nation state. This logical sequel to Sacks' award-winning The Dignity of Difference (Continuum), The Home We Build Together makes a compelling case for "integrated diversity" within a framework of shared political values.