This article is a critical discussion of Giddens’s claim that an extended
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tradition and culture, which once limited the options for self-understanding and
self-development. Giddens’s emphasis on the declining role of fate
concepts and the ascendancy of ‘active trust’ is argued to be
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of modern identity is still essential to an understanding of selfhood. Concepts of
fate are used to illustrate the persistence of a partially unreflexive relationship
between self-identity and culture. Popular spiritual self-help texts and a range of
contemporary examples are used as illustrations in providing an alternative
portrayal of reflexivity and self-identity. It is concluded that concepts of fate
are just one example of the ways in which self-identity is still meaningfully
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