Frederick J. Ruf. "“James’s ‘On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings’: The ‘Riven’ Self as an Answer to ‘Blindness’"." William James Studies 3.1 (2008).
In "A Certain Blindness in Human Beings" William James observes that humans are blind to what is strange, most especially to strangers. He both forbids a quick judgment of strange lives and urges "tolerance, respect," and "indulgence." And yet James does more. By modeling a strange self, himself, through the style of his essay, he displays a self that has the capacity "to be grasped" by the strangeness of others. Similarly, of four novels that were written in the wake of 9/11, by Richard Ford, Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo, only that by DeLillo is responsive to the event, and he does so by means of the Jamesian remedy: stylistically embodying the "riven self."
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