Ebook: Critical Humanism and the Politics of Difference

The most influential theories of oppression have argued that belief in the existence of a shared human essence or nature is ultimately responsible for the injustices suffered by women, First Nations peoples, blacks, gays and lesbians, and colonised people and have insisted that struggles against oppression must be mounted from the unique and different perspectives of different groups. Jeff Noonan argues instead that such difference must be seen to be anchored in a conception of human beings as self-creative. Unless freedom and self-determination are accepted as universal values, the moral force of arguments against exclusion and oppression is lost.