In "Passion: An Essay on Personality", Unger explores the individual and his relation to society from the perspective of the root human predicament of the need to establish oneself as a unique individual in the world but at the same time to find commonality and solidarity with others. This exploration is grounded in what Unger calls a modernist image of the human being as one who lives in context but is not bound by context. Unger's aim is to level a critique, expansion, and defense of modern thinking about the human and society.