Identity: one of our age's great challenges

"The three central challenges of the future are already quite apparent, and they have been apparent for a couple of decades: inequality, unsustainability and identity."
- President Bill Clinton

The first two are more predictable. The third is a concise and insightful way to describe religious wars, ethnic battles, immigration debates, and all kinds of conflict borne out of how we identify Us and Them. Clinton talks about it in political terms, but it's equally true in economic and consumer terms. More than ever we buy our identities. One of many great interviews in Rolling Stone's 40th anniversary issue.
SecondFloor | 12.14.07