How a new identity-focused ideology has trapped
the left and undermined social justice
Review: The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power
in Our Time – Yascha Mounk
Published:
November 15, 2023 8.04pm CET
Author
Hugh
Breakey
Deputy
Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law. President, Australian
Association for Professional & Applied Ethics., Griffith University
Yascha
Mounk’s new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time,
explores a radical progressive ideology that has been taking the world by
storm. From its unlikely beginnings in esoteric scholarly theories and niche
online communities, this new worldview is reshaping our lives, from the highest
echelons of political power to the local school classroom.
Mounk
argues that the new identity-focused ideology is not simply an extension of
prior social justice philosophies and civil rights movements; on the contrary,
it rejects both. He contends that those committed to social justice must resist
this new ideology’s powerful temptations – its trap.
While The
Identity Trap focuses on the political left, Mounk’s two previous books – The
People vs. Democracy (2018) and The Great Experiment (2022) – considered the
dangers of the illiberal right.
His
critique of identity-focused progressivism thus comes from a place that shares
many of its values. He aims to persuade readers who are naturally sympathetic
to social justice causes that those causes demand a rejection, not an embrace,
of identity-focused politics.
A tour de
force of intelligent argument, The Identity Trap covers a lot of ground. Mounk
explores the intellectual history of the scholarly theories that support this
new worldview. He interrogates its plausibility, explains the shifts in social
media and news media that have amplified it, clarifies its key commitments and
raises the alarm on its likely consequences.
To critique
this perspective, Mounk must first name it. He settles on “identity synthesis”,
in an attempt to avoid the more common but contentious term “identity
politics”. His term refers to its synthesis of a range of intellectual
traditions, including postmodernism, postcolonialism and critical race theory.
These theories focus on ascriptive categories such as race, gender and sexual
orientation.
One
question that immediately arises is why the identity synthesis focuses heavily
on some types of marginalised identities and not others. The lack of focus on
class – that is, hierarchies built on wealth, income, education and closeness
to elite institutions – is particularly surprising. After all, economic
marginalisation has baked-in inequalities and power differentials.
As Mounk
tells it, the Soviet Union’s moral and political collapse saw the concept of
class struggle fall out of fashion on the scholarly left, empowering cultural
concerns to take centre stage.
There is
also a curiosity here that Mounk doesn’t dwell on, which is why this worldview
requires naming at all. Most political ideologies – liberalism, socialism,
libertarianism, conservatism – are reasonably well defined and understood. This
is less true of the worldview that concerns Mounk. The vague term “woke”, which
has its origins in African American vernacular, was once used to refer to those
who had woken up to their world’s systemic inequalities. But the term is now
mainly used in a pejorative sense.
This has
given rise to the perplexing phenomenon of an ideology that dares not speak its
name. Perhaps those who think of contemporary progressivism as simply the truth
are reluctant to name it as a specific position and turn it into an “ism”.
Core themes
Capturing a
nestled group of moral commitments, political views, theoretical bases,
activist strategies and online practices, Mounk distils the identity synthesis
into seven core themes.
Scepticism
about objective truth: a postmodern wariness about “grand narratives” that
extends to scepticism about scientific claims and universal values.
Discourse
analysis for political ends: a critique of speech and language to overcome
oppressive structures.
Doubling
down on identity: a strategy of embracing rather than dismantling identities.
Proud
pessimism: the view that no genuine civil rights progress has been made, and
that oppressive structures will always exist.
Identity-sensitive
legislation: the failure of “equal treatment” requires policies that explicitly
favour marginalised groups.
The
imperative of intersectionality: effectively acting against one form of
oppression requires responding to all its forms.
Standpoint
theory: marginalised groups have access to truths that cannot be communicated
to outsiders.
There is
always a worry when commentators take it upon themselves to outline an opposing
view. There are dangers of misunderstanding and simplification, and of
caricature and straw-man arguments. But Mounk does his best to document the
prevalence of these themes.
Setting out
core concepts might also prove useful in allowing progressives to clarify where
they depart from his characterisation.
Read more:
Do universal values exist? A philosopher says yes, and takes aim at identity
politics – but not all of his arguments are convincing
The ‘Black’ classroom
Many people
are committed to the identity synthesis. Many of them wield considerable power.
How did this happen?
Mounk
explains how the identity synthesis grew out of scholarly theories taught at
many US universities. Graduates of these elite institutions have carried their
social justice commitments – and the determination to stand up for them – into
the corporations, media, NGOs and public service organisations that hired them.
The result has been the spread of a wide array of identity-focused practices
and policies.
Mounk
details many of these practices. His opening anecdote tells the story of a
shocked Black mother in Atlanta being told her son must be placed in the
“Black” classroom. He sees the incident as part of a wider trend, whereby
“educators who believe themselves to be fighting for racial justice are
separating children from each other on the basis of their skin color”.
Universalism, he argues, is being rejected in the name of “progressive
separatism”.
As an
ethicist, to me the most shocking of Mounk’s stories was the decision-making at
the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). A public health
expert from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) argued against the
life-saving policy of giving the elderly priority access to COVID vaccines. In
the US, the aged are more likely to be white, meaning such prioritisation would
disproportionately benefit whites.
The
“ethics” of the policy protecting the elderly was therefore given the lowest
score. This was despite the fact that the alternative (and initially selected)
policy would not only cost more lives overall, but more Black lives. As the CDC
knew, elderly Black people were vastly more likely to die from COVID than young
Black essential workers.
These
accounts provoke in the reader (or in this reader, at least) a sense that this
can’t be right. How could things possibly have come to this?
Genuine insights
Mounk
provides a detailed and powerful critique of the identity synthesis. Yet his
analysis is not entirely unsympathetic. A recurring theme is the way the
identity synthesis stemmed from scholarly research that has delivered genuine
insights.
For
example, Harvard law professor Derrick Bell was right to realise that legally
enforced school integration had done little to improve Black educational
outcomes. And he was insightful in drawing attention to structural racism.
Institutions could continue and even exacerbate the effects of historical
injustice, despite people’s good intentions.
Similarly,
the legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “critical race
theory”, was correct to observe that Black women could be subject to
discrimination that neither white women or Black men endured. She termed this
phenomenon “intersectionality”.
These
important findings were, however, taken in worrying directions. Rather than
concluding there were two types of racism – direct, intentional racism and
structural racism – the latter became understood as the only type of racism.
This implausibly tied racism exclusively to oppressive structures, making it
impossible to make sense of (for example) hate crimes performed on one
marginalised minority by another marginalised minority.
Rather than
acknowledging that the law is a necessary but insufficient tool for social
change, the conclusion drawn was that laws preferentially treating certain
identity groups were necessary. Likewise, the concept of “intersectionality”
has been used to justify many questionable claims, far removed from its initial
meaning.
Division and difference
Mounk
argues the identity synthesis is a “trap” because telling people to continually
focus on their ascriptive identities prioritises difference, and unequal
treatment only exacerbates divisions.
This is
especially so when dominant groups, such as white people in the US, are
encouraged to see themselves as white. Well established social science findings
suggest humans are powerfully motivated to favour their own in-group, and there
is a chilling capacity for cruelty against designated out-groups.
Recent
controversies in parts of the US – especially in elite universities – in the
wake of the Hamas attack of October 7 seem to back up Mounk’s concern.
Many people
harbour grave and longstanding moral concerns about Israel’s treatment of the
Palestinians. There is clear reason to fear the harrowing civilian cost of the
Israeli response.
Basic
ethics says there can never be an excuse to celebrate an atrocity, to applaud
the deliberate brutal murder of women and children, or to blame an entire
ethnic or religious group for a government’s policy. Yet university students
and professors have done all these things, invoking the language of
postcolonialism and oppression.
Many Jewish
progressives were shocked at universities’ reactions to the atrocity.
University officials failed to strongly condemn the Hamas attack. An open
letter from a coalition of student groups claimed Israel was entirely
responsible for the violence, while other student organisations used a picture
of the Hamas paraglider on their posters. One entry on the Sidechat app for
Harvard read “LET EM COOK” next to a Palestinian flag emoji.
Mounk’s
analysis suggests these outcomes are all too predictable. According to the
identity synthesis, everything must be viewed through the lens of oppressive
structures. Once it is decided that Palestinian people are the oppressed party,
and Israelis the oppressors, even the deliberate murder of Jewish children can
seem legitimate. Here, as elsewhere, ideology and in-group dynamics can so
easily trump humanity.
Read more:
Friday essay: Joanna Bourke, the NSW arts minister, and the unruly
contradictions of cancel culture
Insight without ideology?
Mounk does
not explore the possibility of an identity-focused progressivism that is
detached from scholarly theories and the ideological commitments underpinning
them.
This
detachment would not be an odd phenomenon. After all, most classical liberals
would, like Mounk, endorse John Stuart Mill’s arguments for free speech in On
Liberty, but would not necessarily subscribe to Mill’s particular version of
utilitarianism, which focuses on maximising “higher” forms of happiness.
In a
similar way, a progressive reader of Mounk’s work might be alarmed at some of
the stated themes of the identity synthesis. For example, they might accept
scientific facts regarding climate change and vaccine efficacy. They might
retain their commitments to universal values such as human rights. They might
care about democracy and the rule of law.
Yet they
might still harbour enough concern for marginalised groups to support some
identity-based practices, such as censoring offensive speech, calling out
“white privilege” and cultural appropriation, and demanding race-sensitive
policies.
Mounk does
not explicitly address this possibility. But his arguments suggest the
progressive view sketched above – which wants to be both humanist and
identity-focused – is incoherent. He shows that, without the rationales of the
identity synthesis, cancellation, censorship, moral intolerance and cynicism
about liberal-democratic institutions are far harder to justify ethically.
It is
inconsistent to have science when it suits and to decry it as oppressive when
it doesn’t. It is hypocritical to uphold democracy, free speech and the rule of
law against right-wing authoritarianism and simultaneously believe these
principles are merely tools of white supremacy.
Worse
still, it is self-defeating to embrace the divisiveness of identity separatism
and to somehow expect the age-old problems of in-group tribalism not to emerge
– with predictably devastating impacts on vulnerable minorities.
Mounk
builds a powerful case that the identity synthesis is indeed a trap. Genuine
insights, important realisations and progressive values lure the sympathetic.
But too often those insights are developed in extreme and implausible ways,
ultimately betraying the very goals they claim to value.
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Politics
Editor, Assistant Editor
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