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Who Is to Blame For ‘Identity Politics’?
Reflections on the book ‘The Once and Future Liberal’
I read Mark Lilla’s The Once and Future Liberal (2017) shortly after it was published, and since then I have contemplated the argument against so-called “identity politics.” I think the 2017 round of this argument has successfully been put to bed by the election of Joe Biden, but, for the record, here’s what I thought of the book.
The Book Is Against ‘Identity Politics’
Lilla criticizes the invocation of “identity politics,” which is basically marginalized groups pointing out the fact that they exist and demanding equal rights. It’s not because he opposes equal rights but because he doesn’t believe that asking for them directly is the best way to get them.
He says we need a shared vision beyond just “values, commitment, policy proposals.” Liberals need to articulate “principles that everyone can affirm” even when specific groups are the intended beneficiaries. We need language “for invoking the common good or addressing class or other social realities,” not just to distinguish identities.
He offers up a truism that, when discussing any important principle with a political opponent, “there are usually other, equally important principles that might have to be sacrificed to preserve this one.” Of course politics requires compromise, even sometimes in our principles, if we are negotiating with someone who has different principles.
For example, he says, we can see that women “have a distinct perspective that deserves to be recognized and cultivated, and have distinct needs that society must address.” In today’s movement politics, however, he complains, people instead learn to emphasize that women’s “experiences are radically different, depending on their race, sexual preference, class, physical abilities, life experiences, and so on,” which means that one cannot “generalize” about women’s needs, and this makes it hard to fight for any goals.
Wasn’t movement politics successful during the 1950s to the 1980s? Yes, but we have to strategize for the current moment, he says. Political institutions are powerful, and movements must expect to engage in “slow, patient work” to pass legislation and run…
