Passion makes explicit the modernist image of man, defends it, criticizes it, develops it, and draws out its constructive implications for our personal and social ideals and for our theories of personal and social change. As an analysis of the elementary forms of human connection, the book probes the many sides of our longing to be accepted by one another and to reconcile engagement in group life with individual independence. As a moral vision, it recasts the relation between our ultimate ideals of love and empowerment. As a philosophical argument, it suggests a way to reconstruct the ancient and universal practice of seeking moral guidance in conceptions of personality and society. As a cultural-political polemic, it provides a basis on which to connect the modernist critique of personal relations with the leftist critique of social institutions.