The Identity Trap
Book recap
“The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time” by Mounk is in a similar vein as “Why We’re Polarized” by Klein and “The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion” by Haidt. It gives a good summary of history that led us to our current state in politics.
The Identity Trap to Mounk is our recent move to emphasis identity and that universal treatment of people does not treat racism/bigotry. It stemmed from a post modernism philosophical and critical race theory movement, and was propagated by institutions, social media, and now news media. Post-modernism (in my naive summary of it) is the idea that government and knowledge are all based on keeping the current establishment in power, and that those should be rejected. CRT is a field that tries to analyze how race is important in law and social constructs. I believe the idea is that instead of saying we have equal rights and all is good, we have to delve further into the history to undo previous wrongs. And also that race should be celebrated, it is part of our identity and we’re not all the same.
After the history, Mounk takes a stand that universalism is the key forward. Not that differences between race and injustices should not be analyzed, but that the identity trap causes more conflict, especially amongst liberals. Cancel culture is a by product of the Identity Trap. A white cis person cannot speak their views because they’re not an oppressed minority. The expectation is that anything someone speaks about has to take into consideration everyone’s identity, which is infinite. So if they anger anyone, can be cancelled.
Which leads into another debated topic of free speech. Mounk says it’s a true liberal, which includes freedom of speech. So he is against the firing of anyone because of their opinions. I was actually for the firing of people that have shitty views and post them online. It’s a free market, and they’re using a private platform, they should be punished. Mounk makes a compelling case cancel culture is insidious for a healthy society. If an ideology can effectively silence opposing opinions based on what they think is right, that can lead to fascism. Now I’m more on the fence.
I really enjoyed the book because it brings to light an interesting dialectic of identity - universalism. It’s important to have both, but when it comes to politics and action, it’s not so simple. If we just went forward ignoring race, we couldn’t undo the wrongs that were done. Affirmative Action has been stricken down, but then how are schools going to give people of less privilege a chance? (even at the expense of Asians). Cultural appropriation is another tricky one. When is it celebrating another culture and mixing into our pot vs. using a heritage that doesn’t belong to us?
It applies to gender too. It’s important to separate the biological differences between the sexes for say, medical or sports purposes. But at the same time, those who identify with something else need to be heard too. “The Witch Hunt of JK Rowling” was a good podcast series because it explained JK Rowling’s side. When anyone can identify as anything, it’s detrimental to feminism. She would have been cancelled if Harry Potter wasn’t so damn good. But also, maybe it’s because she had her side that was legitimate too.
