The collectivist identity politics that have taken precedence in our national discourse has been only making matters worse.
George Floyd’s tragic death in police custody demands a return to individualism and the ideals that promote the inherent worth of every human being regardless of skin color. Unfortunately, the backlash on the collectivist Left has been quite the opposite. Calls for abolishing the police, racially segregated “no-cop zones,” and disastrous violence and looting are all seemingly justified reactions to real or perceived racism. This kind of behavior is justified by arguments that elevate a person’s collective identity over individual character and actions. This should not be surprising, as it is in the nature of identity politics to revert to violence and intimidation to achieve its ends. But we should not lose hope. A return to individualism and a rejection of collectivism is a better approach to easing racial tensions.
Modern identity politics does not merely claim that it is in the interests of certain racial or ethnic groups to coalesce around particular policy proposals or social concerns, but that one’s immutable characteristics are what should define the worth of a person above all else. This, its proponents argue, is because every person, no matter what his or her individual character or beliefs or prejudices may be, occupies a rung of the oppressed or oppressor hierarchy. If you are a straight white male, you are an oppressor no matter what. If you are a gay, black woman you are oppressed no matter what. Individual circumstances are absolved, instead allowing one’s membership in a certain racial or sexual or class collective to take precedent over individual experience.
Feminist philosopher Joanna Williams put it well when she defined identity politics as “defining ourselves based on the most biological, the most boring aspects of our identity and not being able to move beyond. This is not transformational; this is limiting.” Identity politics may have started out as a seemingly innocuous movement to include the personal experiences of people from marginalized communities in our political discourse. But it has become a dangerous, collectivist movement, which, when carried to its logical conclusion, justifies the kind of violence and atrocities that destroy societies and harm the very communities they claim to help.
On the Joe Rogan Show, Jordan Peterson, a Canadian professor of psychology known for his book 12 Rules for Life, warned of how authoritarian regimes have exploited racial or class identity to pit collectives against each other. The Soviet Union, he said, “Started categorizing everybody according to their ethnic or sexual or racial identity and then made that the canonical element of their being.” This is, he added, “murderous pushed to its extreme.”
Sarah Weaver – The American Spectator – July 19, 2020.
