Yascha Mounk, an academic and political commentator on the state of democracy, has just written a new book called The Identity Trap. Mounk’s new book wades into the culture wars on issues of identity, group rights, historical oppression, and what too many people refer to as “woke” or “anti-woke”. These last words are thankfully largely absent from the book.
What is really at stake here, in Mounk’s book and for those he engages with, is how to handle the historical legacy of racism in America as it was practiced through chattel slavery, then Jim Crow segregation, and in ongoing problems pertaining to poverty, police brutality, and mass incarceration. Additional concerns include how to assess the fact that American women were de jure and then de facto second-class citizens until arguably sometime in the 1970s, as well as other issues pertaining to homophobia and transphobia. According to Mounk, how these injustices are understood and addressed has changed dramatically in recent decades among those who are left of center.
These are important topics with significant real-world consequences. They deserve to be considered thoughtfully, with empathy and care. The current obsession among right-wing politicians and pundits with denouncing “wokeness’ is a great example of how not to do this.
A better example is set by Current Affairs editor Nathan Robinson, who rightly acknowledges that when people and institutions want to address racism, sexism, and other injustices, their hearts are in the right place. We should listen sympathetically before we judge.
And as Mounk notes, the goals of most of the thinkers and activists he discusses are admirable, indeed necessary. It should go without saying that we must have racial equality, gender equality, the ability for people to live openly and equally regardless of sexual orientation, and so on. And it’s hard to capture quantitatively how much things have changed for the better on at least some of these points. When I was a kid growing up in the 1990s “faggot” was still a common slur and insult. I can still hear the common refrains of “that’s so gay” through high school, used as a common criticism of anything considered stupid.
I’m not saying that things are perfect now. But there truly has been radical change on attitudes towards homosexuality and gay marriage, as well as important legal developments. Not only is gay marriage legally protected throughout the United States but Gallup polls now consistently show more than 70% of Americans support it. Just two decades ago this was considered something of a radical position. Such rapid, welcome change.
I remember Obama publicly supporting gay marriage during his reelection campaign in 2012 and Republicans criticizing him for adopting this position in order to gain votes with the American public, a claim that would have seemed insane less than ten years prior.
There have been similar, if uneven, triumphs regarding gender equality. Not only has the gender gap in education been eliminated, it has in recent years been reversed. Women now outperform and out graduate men on virtually every educational metric, from K-12, through college, and even in graduate school. Indeed, places like my own Political Science Department at UC Irvine, which had gender parity among both faculty and graduate students, would have been virtually unheard of a few decades ago.
None of this is to suggest that these concerns have been resolved. The progress on racial inequality has been more limited although here too there are some positive changes in racial attitudes, with Americans reporting overwhelming popular support for inter-racial marriage, willingness to vote for black politicians, and many gains for black representation in government.
Again, none of this is anywhere near perfect. Just consider the criminal justice system for a case study in the ongoing, terrifying reality of race and class oppression. But still, popular protests, movements, organizing, etc, have led to dramatic changes in laws, social practices, and attitudes. What we need is neither blind optimism nor dead-end pessimism, but realism regarding the past and present of oppression. In Mounk’s words, “there are many important reasons to gain an accurate view of reality, one that is neither blithely optimistic nor cynically pessimistic. Perhaps the most important is that we need an accurate assessment of recent changes to know whether the tools we have deployed to make progress are working.” (250).
Those of us to Mounk’s left have every reason to be as committed to realism as he is. So where is Mounk coming from and what is he doing? Basically, Mounk is arguing that liberal and leftist thought in recent decades has taken an unproductive turn away from universal claims toward justice and in favor of more identity focused claims about the wrongs suffered by various radically distinct groups, wrongs that the (white, male) majority supposedly cannot understand.
Mounk’s book is more detailed than Neiman’s (which I reviewed in an earlier blog post) and, working with this greater space, he does a better job than Neiman of carefully explaining the ideas of various thinkers concerned with historic injustice, what motivated them, the genuine insights they had, and how some of their ideas have mutated into something that is less helpful, or even counter-productive. His chapter on standpoint epistemology and feminism is a good example of this.
And he does effectively show how too many activists, thinkers, and corporate types have moved away from universal appeals for equality and toward strange claims that essentialize identities and suggest, or outright claim, that Americans are and forever must be divided by our ascriptive traits. This view must be rejected by the left and has more in common with the ethno-nationalism espoused by conservatives like Viktor Orbán than with the ideas of the left.
Some on the left might dismiss Mounk as too establishment. There is truth to this. Indeed, he sees himself as a member of the center-left and uses his connections to talk to the leaders of several non-profits and private firms. But Mounk is respectful of the great historical tradition of leftist political thought, admires the deep concern for injustice that motivated much of the shift toward identity concerns dating back to the 1970s (i.e. the desire to root out racism, sexism, homophobia, etc), and has important insights into how it may have turned into something unhelpful. Mounk also includes an appendix that demonstrates why the identity synthesis is not a form of Marxism, contrary to frequent accusations from the “anti-woke” crowd on the right.
(Other scholars are more critical of the origins of this identity focused thought—the recent collection of works from Adolph Reed and Walter Benn Michaels criticizes even this initial turn toward identity concerns and away from class among thinkers on the left in the 1970s and 1980s).
Having said this, what does this turn toward identity look like, according to Mounk? He calls this shift to focusing on identity the “Identity synthesis.” It has three main components. “First, the key to understanding the world is to examine it through the prism of group identities like race, gender, and sexual orientation. Second, supposedly universal values and neutral rules merely serve to obscure the ways in which privileged groups dominate those that are marginalized. And third, to build a just world, we must adopt norms and laws that explicitly make the way the state treats each citizen—and how citizens treat each other—depend on the identity group to which they belong.” (251). For those interested, chapter 14 discusses each of these components in more detail.
What should we think of these key features of the identity synthesis? For those like myself who are part of the historic democratic socialist left it can be hard to get our heads around these changes. Some subset of thinkers and activists, from center to left, have moved from the desire to unite humans across our differences to a new, frankly weird, ethno-essentialist, tribalized, and balkanized world in which we are fundamentally and permanently defined by our ascriptive identity traits (primarily race, and secondarily gender, sexual orientation, and cis or trans identity).
And boy are there plenty of examples within the corporate world of how these essentialist identity claims can lead to some really weird places in practice. Even Nathan Robinson, who as I mentioned above has been a thoughtful and sympathetic observer of these changes, has referred to many new corporate practices as instances of “neoliberal woke idiocy.” How else to describe highly-paid consultants lecturing highly-paid executives on their “privilege”, by which they mean their whiteness or maleness, not their class position in the process of production? Because to challenge their class position would be to challenge the hierarchal structure of the capitalist firm. On the other hand, asking the CFO or Vice President of Marketing to apologize for their “whiteness” challenges nothing. Which is precisely why many corporations have embraced key elements of the identity synthesis while remaining rabidly hostile to labor unions, firm democratization, and the other key priorities of the left.
Similarly, neoliberalism gives us universities with bloated managerial personnel but faculty consisting mostly of exploited adjuncts. The identity synthesis discussed by Mounk does nothing to change this, other than offering even more incentives for hiring more well-paid administrators. Self-flagellation classes for white members of the managerial class are hardly the most serious problem with neoliberalism. But they aren’t helping. Indeed, the psychology research on group dynamics suggests that the best way to develop solidarity across difference is to bring people together, treat them as equals, and have them work together on a shared project. (A jury is a good example of how this can work well in practice).
I should also say that, although much of Mounk’s criticism is compelling, I still think these practices are less widespread than he alleges. And anecdotes are hardly definitive but I will mention that I experienced little to none of these problematic elements of identity politics in my time as a graduate student and instructor in the University of California system nor during my later time as a faculty member in the Cal State system. Furthermore, we should unequivocally celebrate the fact that key American institutions, from schools to government to much of the private sector have become open socially to historically oppressed groups and those with non-normative identities.
But these welcome changes don’t help with the longstanding leftist demand to democratize the economy and make it radically more egalitarian. After all, a more diverse Wall Street is still Wall Street. High finance ultimately needs to be radically transformed, not merely diversified. And in some respects, to be detailed below, the identity synthesis may be making this project of collective action on behalf of all workers even more difficult to accomplish.
A world of permanent groups?
There are many important questions that follow from and add to these conversations. Mounk generally handles these topics with care, explaining how, for instance, important insights among feminists about the unique experiences of women contributed to a set of ideas known as standpoint epistemology.This line of feminist thinking, at its best, demonstrated how many women, even in a world of formal equality, were the primary caretakers and child-rearers at home, and that this might have given them an understanding of the world different from men who spent their days at the office and did little domestic work. This is an important insight.
But as Mounk points out, this argument regarding the distinct experiences people may have does not entail that it is impossible for us to understand one another. In his words, “this gives all of us a moral obligation to listen to each other with full attention and an open mind. But the point of this hard work is communication, not deference. As long as we put in the work, we can come to understand each other’s experiences, especially insofar as they are politically relevant.” (144). Indeed, at its best, standpoint feminists argued that women who had experience with domestic work and child-rearing could teach others specific forms of knowledge that they had gained, knowledge missed by those who did not do these tasks. This chapter (8) on How to Understand Each Other is quite good.
The pages ranging from the 130s through the 140s provide a valuable discussion of standpoint epistemology and the powerful insights of earlier feminist theorists on the specific things one can learn from experiences of oppression. (For a good summary see the paragraph on p. 146). Nevertheless, the popularized version of this, which Mounk calls “standpoint theory,” makes much more radical, and less defensible, claims on knowledge, group solidarity, and the ability of humans to understand one another. At its most basic, the popularized version, which predominates today in some activist and corporate circles, claims that we are permanently divided into separate groups that cannot ever fully understand one another. This claim is much stronger, and more problematic, than that made by the initial feminist scholars who Mounk rightly praises. And it seems that many progressives now want to embrace this stronger form of separatism.
Let’s continue with this line of thought. One problematic element of the identity synthesis is what Mounk terms progressive separatism. We could also call it permanent and essentialist ethnic separatism. The basic idea here is that the experiences of oppressed groups are so distinctly unifying for those groups, and so incomprehensible to outsiders (i.e. white people) that these oppressed groups should emphasize and embrace as essential their group identity and largely interact with their own group.
Corporate diversity consulting, from figures like Robin DiAngelo, lays the emphasis on having all groups, including white people, strongly identify with their ascriptive characteristics, especially race or ethnicity, and often then groups them by race into separate, race-specific trainings.
As Mounk rightly asks, “will a greater emphasis on the differences between ethnic groups, or a widespread embrace of “whiteness” really inspire members of dominant groups to make the world more just? Or might the spread of progressive separatism, on the contrary, encourage them to guard their dominant status as best they can?” (190). Yes, exactly.
Constantly insisting on “white” people identifying as white, seeing themselves as a discrete group, and as a group that greatly benefits from this status, is a recipe for Trumpism, not equality or progress, let alone the democratic socialism the genuine left wants.
Telling all white people they benefit from whiteness and that they must abandon this benefit for the sake of other races is the perspective of the Confederacy. I don’t mean to make a cruel or hyperbolic accusation here. What I mean is the following: A society without racism would benefit everybody. We would all benefit, materially and in our interpersonal relationships and day-to-day lives if we lived in a racially equal and more just world. So telling white people they benefit from the unjust status quo and must give up this benefit is both incorrect and strategically foolish.
To claim, as Robin DiAngelo does, or as Isabel Wilkerson does in her well-intentioned but misguided book Caste, that white people as a whole benefit from the status quo is to make the argument that key leaders of the Confederacy made, namely that the entirety of white people in the South constituted an aristocracy that placed them above the black slaves. Even if many of these white people owned little or no property, struggled with poverty or hardship, were barred from voting, etc., they were aristocrats. Racial equality would hurt them. This was the argument of southern plantation elites, ideologues, and politicians.
MLK criticized a later Jim Crow-era version of this argument, made by segregationist defenders of Jim Crow, when he said that to fill the bellies of poor and powerless white southerners, the economic and political elites of the south told these poor whites to “eat” Jim Crow. MLK was criticizing the claim that all whites, no matter how poor or desperate, were part of some racial aristocracy.
Of course the key difference is that the proponents of progressive separatism tell whites to cast off this privilege, whereas the defenders of the Confederacy, and later Jim Crow, told whites to cling jealously to their status.
And this matters. The progressive separatists want to eliminate racial inequality, a deeply admirable goal. But they are embracing the same framing as that of slaveholders and segregationists! And these defenders of slavery and segregation were not simply morally vile, their very framing of the issue was wrong.
Telling whites they are an essentialist tribal group in a zero-sum competition for status with other tribes is, in the 2020s, the language and framing of the Le Pens of the world. It drives those who identify as white into the arms of the far right. As Mounk argues, “instead of encouraging citizens of diverse democracies to reconceptualize themselves as part of a broader whole, progressive separatism encourages them to see each other as members of mutually irreconcilable groups.” (193).
What is this likely to lead to? Well, zero-sum intergroup competition. Again, Mounk: “social psychology also suggests that it is very rare for people to act against the interests of what they regard as the most salient group to which they belong.” (198). An ever-growing emphasis on whiteness doesn’t produce allies, it produces Trump voters.
As a concluding rejection of the identity synthesis, I leave with Mounk’s words: “At the heart of its vision stands an acceptance of the enduring importance of dubious categories like race. It tries to sell people on a future in which people will forever be defined by the identity groups to which they belong; in which different communities will always be mired in zero-sum competition; and in which the way we treat each other will forever depend on our respective skin colors and sexual proclivities.” (262).
No, thanks.
Is Mounk’s criticism of the identity synthesis overstated? Sometimes. But he clearly identifies genuine problems with some of the most influential ways of thinking about identity and injustice today, especially regarding progressive separatism.
Racism and sexism are monstrous evils. The identity synthesis, however, is not the best way to confront and eventually defeat them. Ultimately, the best hope for the left, both to persuade people and to enact dramatic structural change, lies in the universal, enlightenment-inspired leftism articulated by people from Martin Luther King, Jr to Noam Chomsky. We’re all human beings.