From Jonah Goldberg at National Review, The Problem of Identity:

If one fears to be judged on your own merits because you know, deep in your soul, you’ll be found wanting, you’ll attach yourself to some abstract identity that gives you meaning you did not earn. The man who never served who claims to be a veteran, the veteran who never saw battle who claims to have fought bravely, the loser who falls back on his white skin to claim to be better than others, the minority who blames his failures or bad luck on the innate evil of the majority, the young activist who insists she must be listened to solely because she was born more recently than her more-informed elders: These and so many others are types of people who want to buy status on the cheap. And it is the very cheapness of the identity that causes us to cling to it ever more angrily. Women are more liberated than ever before, but they grow louder about their oppression. White supremacy has been erased from most hearts and from the law books alike, but we are told that this has only freed the menace to grow.

“An affiliation is not an experience,” Wieseltier writes. “It is, in fact, a surrogate for experience. Where the faith in God is wanting, there is still religious identity. Where the bed is cold and empty, there is still sexual identity. Where the words of the fathers are forgotten, there is still ethnic identity. The thinner the identity, the louder.”

HKO

I recommend the entire article- one of the best exposés on the problem of identity politics.  While group identity served useful functions in the past, it is corrosive in a modern society and subverts individuality to the role of a conscripted solider.  It substitutes blame and victimhood for responsibility.  It is the collective without the moral imperative.

 

print