Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, there has been a growing awareness in the United States of serious problems with a far-left progressivism whose mostly young adherents rushed to condemn the Israeli military response before it happened and now blame Israel itself for the terrorists’ atrocities. This appalling reaction did not occur in a vacuum. It was a result of an ideology, particularly widespread at elite colleges and universities but also influential in a wide range of other intellectual and cultural institutions, which sees everything through the prism of identity-based oppression and hierarchies of privilege — and ignorantly equates racially diverse Israel with “white supremacy.”
The problems with this ideology — groupthink, rigid “social justice” dogma, and a knee-jerk embrace of a simplistic analysis of complex issues — are explored in a timely and relevant new book, “The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time,” by Yascha Mounk, a professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University.
The ideology Mounk flags has been variously labeled as “wokeness,” "social justice,” “critical race theory,” and “identity politics.” Mounk uses the term “identity synthesis,” referring to the fact that this movement purports to advocate against all forms of identity-based oppression.
Resisting oppression is, of course, a noble goal. But as the situation in Israel and Palestine shows, oppressor and oppressed are not always simple categories. Hamas, which enforces a brutal form of radical Islamism, is arguably less a champion than an oppressor of Palestinian people in Gaza — but many of the “woke” see it as fighting the Israeli oppressor. What’s more, while the situation in Israel and Gaza unquestionably involves horrific tragedy and suffering for everyone involved but day to day identity-based progressive activism often concerns itself, as Mounk documents, with the trivial pursuit of hyped-up offenses.
The policing of “cultural appropriation,” which bizarrely reframes cultural mixing as a form of oppression, is a particularly striking example. "The Identity Trap” features a mind-boggling anecdote from a Florida public school: A teacher of Nigerian background asked several students to wear the ceremonial clothing of his ancestral tribe to a multicultural show-and-tell. Two of the students were white and were promptly accused by some classmates and teachers of appropriating and mocking African culture. Despite the teacher’s intercession, the "culprits" were suspended.
One consequence of such petty bullying is that progressive organizations end up spending a lot of their time embroiled in internal squabbles over wrong words, wrong clothing, and other irrelevances.
“The Identity Trap” offers not only a convincing account of how the “identity synthesis” acquired its influence, but a blueprint for how to get out of this trap without becoming a reactionary who self-defines in opposition to whatever progressives support. While a lot of critiques of identity politics come from conservatives, Mounk reminds us that many people on the right practice their own identity politics — defending a special status for “the ethnic, cultural, and religious groups that traditionally dominated their countries.” Mounk’s prescription is classically liberal: freedom of speech, intellectual exchange which rejects the notion that ”oppressed” identity confers superior authority, and rejection of segregation, even the supposedly benevolent segregation of race- and ethnicity-based “affinity groups” to discuss racial issues.
Today, we can see more clearly than ever that identity politics are leading us down the wrong path. The liberalism of individual rights points the way forward.
Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.
Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.
Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
