"...they don’t have to reconcile the contradictions in order to cope..."

I love reading Adam Gopnik, because he's so often funny and wise at the same time. This is from his review in the current New Yorker of Louis Begley's new book "Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters":

It is a condition of being modern that our double and triple identities look weird from the outside but are the only kinds that feel authentic from the inside. The passionately nationalist Québécois who listens exclusively to Metallica and AC/DC; the Muslim fundamentalist with the satellite dish — from outside, we wonder how they reconcile the contradictions. But they don’t have to reconcile the contradictions in order to cope with reality. The contradictions are themselves the form that a reconciliation with reality takes.