Threefold response: I have empathy, I can read, and from the standpoint of my Judeo-Christian heritage, God’s two Great Commandments. That’s my polite way of answering what we of the left have allowed to happen within ourselves.
I do believe that I can never _fully_ understand the lived experience of, say, a black American in Minneapolis, or that of the woman I love…but, fortunately, I do not have to do so in order to act decently.
I think practical embrace of the less-than-absolute is what is in order. I feel honest saying, for example, that I can not _fully_ understand the lived experience of a lesbian Latina-American woman, but I should have enough common experience, enough analogous experience, and enough imaginative wit to bridge the gaps well enough that I can see where we have common concerns, e.g. not letting the country fall into the hands of 'Christian' authoritarians, and work with her toward them.
[EDIT: one 'works toward' goals, not concerns—maybe '[…]work with her for the sake of what we can agree were best.'?]
I appreciate the care and thoughtfulness on display in this excerpt; Mounk does not take the position of sneering dismissiveness that is common in critiques of so-called "identity politics." I also think the emphasis on empathy is important (if somewhat skewed in the way it is applied, since it assumes liberalism facilitates empathy across experiential differences while "identity" perspectives do not. I don't think that's the case.)
But I will say that this excerpt doesn't yet adequately grapple with the longer and larger backdrop to what I think is behind the friction between liberalism and its critics on the left. To put it reductively: Because of its emphasis on proceduralism, liberalism tends to rely on a convenient amnesia about what it has explicitly or implicitly licensed in history. Why did leading Enlightenment and liberal thinkers in the past actually rationalize colonial conquest and racial domination of various kinds, expressly in the name of helping humanity? Liberal thinkers who don't squarely face those contradictions are not likely to adequately understand why critics on the left wonder if liberals are reasoning from an adequate epistemology.
I'm persuaded by thinkers like Paul Gilroy (and, from an earlier era, Williams James) who argue that empathy across epistemological divides are possible and absolutely necessary––but that our best guides to those instances of epistemological "bridging" have occurred in what he calls the colonial margins in history, the sites where different peoples had no choice but to try to forge new ways to create shared concepts and practice epistemological humility and flexibility.
Please let's not continue to burden modern liberals with "presentism". Societies and people grow and develop and change. We can acknowledge that the men 200 years ago did some things that to us, with our current state of understanding, were wrong. It does not follow that what is currently presented is currently wrong. "Past performance is not a guarantee of future results."
For what it's worth: I'm not calling for liberal breast-beating about atrocities practiced 200 years ago. I'm talking about a reckoning that tries to grapple with how and why liberalism tolerated and still tolerates patterns of inequity that have lasting and sometimes devastating impacts. Why does US liberalism not count as "wrong" the mass incarceration that is vastly larger in the US than any other country, including China and Brazil? Why do US liberals (sometimes) acknowledge as "wrong" the facts about violent policing but fail to give enough weight to that wrong to enact serious legal reforms?
Many liberals want to separate politics from "identity politics." But that tends to erase from view the fact that massive structural developments in the twentieth century––Wilson's segregation of the federal government, the implementation of the GI Bill, the distribution of wealth that came from home ownership, redlining, and mortgage lending, on and on––*all* of those developments were shaped by an implicit identity politics. So when certain demographic groups want to talk about their political perspectives on wealth, law, education, and policy, and then they are told by liberals that they are just doing "identity politics," then those people are going to think that liberals actually can't or simply won't understand them.
The root of the problem, in my view, is not a false "standpoint philosophy" on the part of the left but a lack of epistemological humility on the part of liberals.
Nice riposte, thanks. But I think you've shifted breast-beating from 200 years ago to 100 years ago. And I think you give short shrift to liberal positions. All of us, left and right, can want fewer people in jail (emotion) but fail to agree on how to accomplish that (facts--more punishment (R) or more restorative justice (L)). Liberals have indeed tried to enact police reforms but you can't do much when you don't have the power, viz. SCOTUS and McConnell.
My sense is that liberals are happy to hear "political perspectives on wealth, law, education, and policy". Diverse viewpoints are usually helpful. As Mounk points out, what's not helpful, counterproductive in fact, is for those holding those viewpoints to insist that, because they've been affected by one or more of those policies, their viewpoint is a trump card and everyone else should defer to their experience and support them even if told they can't possibly understand them. Huh?? E pluribus unum, not "my way or the highway". Together, not as "identity groups".
Surely the many mis-understandings and own goals of the past show us the need for a large dose of humility. Amen. That said, it will always be a work in progress and one that's best approached together, not as "identities", for All of Us.
Exactly. This kind of critique needs to somehow address the historical failings of the liberal/enlightenment ethos in order to be complete. I don’t think Mounk is wrong about how “identity politics” might be counterproductive, but why isn’t the answer to endorse but reform that approach rather than dismiss it as a fundamentally flawed effort - even “philosophically flawed”. Mollifying the majority by removing sources of discomfort in the name of “promoting cooperation” ignores the reality that changing social norms often requires conflict and pressure - change can be painful.
Sorry, I don't see anyone "removing sources of discomfort." We in "the majority" *want* to hear those viewpoints and want to include them in analysis and plans for next steps. What we do *not want* is for "identity" to be a trump (sorry to use the word) card that diminishes others who don't hold the same identity or the same viewpoint within that self-defined identity. Please speak up, but don't tell me to shut up. Keep the playing field level, don't tilt it the other direction.
Identity politics as I understand it is the use of identity, and the emotions it has produced, to try and control the process. Let's stick to the facts and, as much as possible, shelve the emotions.
I very much agree with this, "Identity politics... is the use of identity, and the emotions it has produced, to try and control the process." Based on this definition, White Christians engage in identity politics with other groups in the US. Therefore, why is it that the other groups are criticized for using "identity politics" and not white christians?
Well, my sense is that it's because they're the dominant "identity" and because it's majoritarian it can go unspoken. They're inside; the other "identities" are outside knocking on the door to get in.
Yes and that is my point. Is this opposition about identity politics just a smoke screen for the dominant group to keep down all those other groups. BIPOC and LGBTI folks are just the latest in a long line of groups-- the Irish, southern Europeans act--that are "fighting" against the established identity group for equal power? I'm not suggesting two wrongs make a right and that emerging groups can discriminate or deny a voice to those they disagree with...just that the dominant political group in the US has been using brutal tactics to suppress the rights of many groups in US history...and now they are crying fowl for everyone being unfair to them. Cry me a river.
IMO it's not a question of "crying foul for everyone being unfair to them." It's saying that we need to talk and make decisions based on *facts*, not on "how this affected me and because it did you have to accept my plans" (emotions). Some "Conservative Christians" on the right have probably made the argument you make, but I have not heard or seen it from the more progressive (rational) part of the spectrum.
The reduction is too simplistic, but think of "experiential knowledge" and it's claims as emotion and "propositional knowledge" as fact. We can work together on facts. Working with, and particularly deferring to, what I "feel" is doomed to failure, as Mounk points out so nicely, and as tRumpism illustrates so beautifully. GREAT piece, thanks.
Something that has occurred to me in recent years is that basically any ideology or epistemology is fated to be reduced to a “folk” version that gets large chunks of it wrong and will fail in every predictable way that its critics can conceive of.
Too often, those who claim to speak on behalf of their identity group abuse their identity status to speak on behalf of some other interest. One of the clearest examples of this happened a few years ago during the protests against the Castro regime. Even though the Cuban protesters were mostly black and were voicing racial concerns, Black Lives Matter sided with the Castro regime against them. While pretending to speak for Black people, BLM demonstrated that it was, first and foremost, an advocate of anti-American authoritarian socialism, and it was willing to sacrifice Black people and their stated concerns for the sake of its radical political ideology.
Threefold response: I have empathy, I can read, and from the standpoint of my Judeo-Christian heritage, God’s two Great Commandments. That’s my polite way of answering what we of the left have allowed to happen within ourselves.
I do believe that I can never _fully_ understand the lived experience of, say, a black American in Minneapolis, or that of the woman I love…but, fortunately, I do not have to do so in order to act decently.
I think practical embrace of the less-than-absolute is what is in order. I feel honest saying, for example, that I can not _fully_ understand the lived experience of a lesbian Latina-American woman, but I should have enough common experience, enough analogous experience, and enough imaginative wit to bridge the gaps well enough that I can see where we have common concerns, e.g. not letting the country fall into the hands of 'Christian' authoritarians, and work with her toward them.
[EDIT: one 'works toward' goals, not concerns—maybe '[…]work with her for the sake of what we can agree were best.'?]
I appreciate the care and thoughtfulness on display in this excerpt; Mounk does not take the position of sneering dismissiveness that is common in critiques of so-called "identity politics." I also think the emphasis on empathy is important (if somewhat skewed in the way it is applied, since it assumes liberalism facilitates empathy across experiential differences while "identity" perspectives do not. I don't think that's the case.)
But I will say that this excerpt doesn't yet adequately grapple with the longer and larger backdrop to what I think is behind the friction between liberalism and its critics on the left. To put it reductively: Because of its emphasis on proceduralism, liberalism tends to rely on a convenient amnesia about what it has explicitly or implicitly licensed in history. Why did leading Enlightenment and liberal thinkers in the past actually rationalize colonial conquest and racial domination of various kinds, expressly in the name of helping humanity? Liberal thinkers who don't squarely face those contradictions are not likely to adequately understand why critics on the left wonder if liberals are reasoning from an adequate epistemology.
I'm persuaded by thinkers like Paul Gilroy (and, from an earlier era, Williams James) who argue that empathy across epistemological divides are possible and absolutely necessary––but that our best guides to those instances of epistemological "bridging" have occurred in what he calls the colonial margins in history, the sites where different peoples had no choice but to try to forge new ways to create shared concepts and practice epistemological humility and flexibility.
Please let's not continue to burden modern liberals with "presentism". Societies and people grow and develop and change. We can acknowledge that the men 200 years ago did some things that to us, with our current state of understanding, were wrong. It does not follow that what is currently presented is currently wrong. "Past performance is not a guarantee of future results."
For what it's worth: I'm not calling for liberal breast-beating about atrocities practiced 200 years ago. I'm talking about a reckoning that tries to grapple with how and why liberalism tolerated and still tolerates patterns of inequity that have lasting and sometimes devastating impacts. Why does US liberalism not count as "wrong" the mass incarceration that is vastly larger in the US than any other country, including China and Brazil? Why do US liberals (sometimes) acknowledge as "wrong" the facts about violent policing but fail to give enough weight to that wrong to enact serious legal reforms?
Many liberals want to separate politics from "identity politics." But that tends to erase from view the fact that massive structural developments in the twentieth century––Wilson's segregation of the federal government, the implementation of the GI Bill, the distribution of wealth that came from home ownership, redlining, and mortgage lending, on and on––*all* of those developments were shaped by an implicit identity politics. So when certain demographic groups want to talk about their political perspectives on wealth, law, education, and policy, and then they are told by liberals that they are just doing "identity politics," then those people are going to think that liberals actually can't or simply won't understand them.
The root of the problem, in my view, is not a false "standpoint philosophy" on the part of the left but a lack of epistemological humility on the part of liberals.
Nice riposte, thanks. But I think you've shifted breast-beating from 200 years ago to 100 years ago. And I think you give short shrift to liberal positions. All of us, left and right, can want fewer people in jail (emotion) but fail to agree on how to accomplish that (facts--more punishment (R) or more restorative justice (L)). Liberals have indeed tried to enact police reforms but you can't do much when you don't have the power, viz. SCOTUS and McConnell.
My sense is that liberals are happy to hear "political perspectives on wealth, law, education, and policy". Diverse viewpoints are usually helpful. As Mounk points out, what's not helpful, counterproductive in fact, is for those holding those viewpoints to insist that, because they've been affected by one or more of those policies, their viewpoint is a trump card and everyone else should defer to their experience and support them even if told they can't possibly understand them. Huh?? E pluribus unum, not "my way or the highway". Together, not as "identity groups".
Surely the many mis-understandings and own goals of the past show us the need for a large dose of humility. Amen. That said, it will always be a work in progress and one that's best approached together, not as "identities", for All of Us.
Exactly. This kind of critique needs to somehow address the historical failings of the liberal/enlightenment ethos in order to be complete. I don’t think Mounk is wrong about how “identity politics” might be counterproductive, but why isn’t the answer to endorse but reform that approach rather than dismiss it as a fundamentally flawed effort - even “philosophically flawed”. Mollifying the majority by removing sources of discomfort in the name of “promoting cooperation” ignores the reality that changing social norms often requires conflict and pressure - change can be painful.
Sorry, I don't see anyone "removing sources of discomfort." We in "the majority" *want* to hear those viewpoints and want to include them in analysis and plans for next steps. What we do *not want* is for "identity" to be a trump (sorry to use the word) card that diminishes others who don't hold the same identity or the same viewpoint within that self-defined identity. Please speak up, but don't tell me to shut up. Keep the playing field level, don't tilt it the other direction.
Identity politics as I understand it is the use of identity, and the emotions it has produced, to try and control the process. Let's stick to the facts and, as much as possible, shelve the emotions.
I very much agree with this, "Identity politics... is the use of identity, and the emotions it has produced, to try and control the process." Based on this definition, White Christians engage in identity politics with other groups in the US. Therefore, why is it that the other groups are criticized for using "identity politics" and not white christians?
Well, my sense is that it's because they're the dominant "identity" and because it's majoritarian it can go unspoken. They're inside; the other "identities" are outside knocking on the door to get in.
Yes and that is my point. Is this opposition about identity politics just a smoke screen for the dominant group to keep down all those other groups. BIPOC and LGBTI folks are just the latest in a long line of groups-- the Irish, southern Europeans act--that are "fighting" against the established identity group for equal power? I'm not suggesting two wrongs make a right and that emerging groups can discriminate or deny a voice to those they disagree with...just that the dominant political group in the US has been using brutal tactics to suppress the rights of many groups in US history...and now they are crying fowl for everyone being unfair to them. Cry me a river.
Kevin,
IMO it's not a question of "crying foul for everyone being unfair to them." It's saying that we need to talk and make decisions based on *facts*, not on "how this affected me and because it did you have to accept my plans" (emotions). Some "Conservative Christians" on the right have probably made the argument you make, but I have not heard or seen it from the more progressive (rational) part of the spectrum.
The reduction is too simplistic, but think of "experiential knowledge" and it's claims as emotion and "propositional knowledge" as fact. We can work together on facts. Working with, and particularly deferring to, what I "feel" is doomed to failure, as Mounk points out so nicely, and as tRumpism illustrates so beautifully. GREAT piece, thanks.
Something that has occurred to me in recent years is that basically any ideology or epistemology is fated to be reduced to a “folk” version that gets large chunks of it wrong and will fail in every predictable way that its critics can conceive of.
Too often, those who claim to speak on behalf of their identity group abuse their identity status to speak on behalf of some other interest. One of the clearest examples of this happened a few years ago during the protests against the Castro regime. Even though the Cuban protesters were mostly black and were voicing racial concerns, Black Lives Matter sided with the Castro regime against them. While pretending to speak for Black people, BLM demonstrated that it was, first and foremost, an advocate of anti-American authoritarian socialism, and it was willing to sacrifice Black people and their stated concerns for the sake of its radical political ideology.