Become a Better Neighbor. Avoid the Identity Trap.

Something has changed in the last decade or so. The change has been unthinkably rapid, incredibly widespread, and dangerously subversive.

One aspect of that change is, as Carl Trueman argues in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, that statements like “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” have gone from being obvious nonsense to considered inviolable statements of identity. But such statements, which are extreme fulfillments of expressive individualism, have moved from the fringes of internet chatrooms to the basis for laws, regulations, classroom rules, and corporate HR practices.

Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time documents the rise of the extreme emphasis on identity, identifies the ways that it makes the world unlivable, and provides a roadmap for avoiding the identity trap. The description and prescription are both enhanced by Mounk’s perspective as a progressive commenting on the excesses of the far left. Mounk’s analysis is helpful because he identified the Achilles heel of the identity movement––strategic essentialism—and points to a helpful solution—a return to universal idealism.

Strategic Essentialism

The identity trap is founded on the idea that distinct attributes of our existence are the most important ways to define who we are. This marks a drastic departure from the liberal universalist ideals that have been imperfectly embodied, but often aspired to in Western culture.

Civil rights activists like Martin Luther King, Jr. famously argued that character, not skin color, should be the means by which we evaluate people. Contemporary activists, especially on the left, have rejected that idea. Rather than universal humanity and character, the most significant claims to power and respect, they argue, are characteristics like sex, race, sexual preferences, physical disabilities, etc.

Even if they did not originate there, the concepts of preferential treatment for non-essential characteristics were made popular through the theory of intersectionality, a term which activist Kimberlé Crenshaw coined in a 1989 paper.

At one level, Crenshaw’s point is valid. There is no question that someone who is a racial minority and has a physical disability will tend to experience the world differently than a member of the majority culture with all natural capacities intact. Yet, problems with the theory quickly arise when identity markers that are primarily volitional—e.g., gender identity, modes of sexual expression—are added as supposed sources of unjust discrimination. Not that discrimination does not happen based on those chosen attributes, but Crenshaw’s solution to the compounding discrimination is at “restructuring and remaking the world where necessary” by “placing those who currently are marginalized in the center.” That solution creates a constant churn of newly marginalized voices as they fight for the claim to power based on the lack of power, a comic situation progressive Nellie Bowles mocks in one chapter of her Morning After the Revolution.

And, since the fragmentation produced by these competing versions of oppression prevents the sort of political unity needed to make change, identity activists resort to what Mounk calls strategic essentialism. This means that, though expressive individualism means there are no valid categories to classify people, activists choose some universal that provides a lever to fight their ideological opponents. Thus, activists who will in one breath argue (rightly) that race is a social construct will simultaneously lobby for “people of color” or “black and brown people” to band together for some collective purpose.

Back to Universals

Strategic essentialism is self-defeating in the long-term. That’s good news for civilization and the majority of the world’s population for whom the concerns of daily life are of primary concern. Unfortunately, until the movement tears itself apart, it is doing substantial damage as young people are sterilizing themselves, trust between neighbors is eroding, and economic and social policies are being enacted by activists with intent to disadvantage others.

The political right is, predictably, responding to the rhetoric of the identitarian left with their own version of identitarianism. Thus, we see the rise of overt racism (usually from anonymous accounts), Kinism (a version of racial identitarianism), arguments for “oikophilia” (the preference of one’s own race over others), and similar reactions to the left’s identity movement. In resisting the problematic left, the right is becoming its mirror twin.

Mounk’s solution is a recovery of classical liberalism, in an unabashed manner. As such, his diagnosis is a more original contribution than his proposed remedy. However, it is worth considering his six pieces of advice, which I will summarize here:

1.     “Claim the moral high ground” — Don’t allow the activists to presume to be morally superior. Argue for the superiority of presumed equality.

2.     “Don’t vilify those who disagree” — Avoid the activists’ methodology and rational arguments instead of ad hominin attacks.

3.     “Remember that today’s adversaries can become tomorrow’s allies” — Resist the scorched-earth methodologies of identity activists, which is contributing to the movement’s unraveling.

4.     “Appeal to the Reasonable Majority” — Don’t seek to appease the extreme voices. Like terrorists, that only empowers them. The fact is that if most people simply resisted identity synthesis, it would end nearly immediately.

5.     “Make common cause with other opponents of the identity synthesis” — Work toward building consensus around shared values.

6.     “Don’t become a reactionary” — Avoid the trap of becoming like the enemy you are resisting. This requires deep positive commitments, not simply a desire to negatively respond to the other side.

The identity movement is doomed to self-destruct—it is by its very nature incapable of sustained energy. Society can accept the destruction wrought by identity movements or work to weave a new fabric. Mounk’s perspective, and I tend to agree, is that we should use a principled liberalism that affirms the shared universals of the human experience as a way forward. It’s obvious that true equality between humans is a legal and social fiction, but it is a useful fiction in matters of law and justice that tends to curb the worst abuses of identitarianism.

The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

By Mounk, Yascha

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