“One reason we define ourselves and others on the basis of class, religion, race, and nationality, or even childhood influences and subconscious drives, is to gain control over the contingencies of the world and insert ourselves in the myriad ways people have failed and succeeded in human history. But this control is illusory and deceptive, existentialists insisted. It might be an alluring distraction from our own fragility but it eventually yields a pseudo-power that corrodes our ability to live well.” – Boston Review