On September 29, Library on Gazetny hosted a presentation and discussion of the book by one of the most influential American intellectuals of the second half of the 20th century, Lionel Trilling (1905-1975). The book was recently published by Gaidar Institute Press.
The event took place within the program of the festival «Moscow book week». The Trilling's Norton lectures, delivered in 1969-1970, were in the center of attention. As participants of the meeting noted, after more than half a century, the author's ideas not only did not lose their relevance, but became especially acute.
Irina Dudenkova, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, RANEPA Assistant Professor, and Viktoria Fajbyshenko, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Assistant Professor at St Philaret’s Institute, took part in the discussion. During the discussion, the experts emphasized that Trilling masterfully traced the evolution of mankind's moral demands. If the simple advice "be yourself" served as a starting point for centuries, then over time sincerity was replaced by a more complex and demanding ideal of authenticity. Navigating a line of succession from Rousseau, Robespierre, and Jane Austen to Hegel, Freud, and Joseph Conrad, the author shows how true selfhood has become the genesis of alienation and negation, i.e., continuous eradication of social artificiality and self-deception.