Identity politics initially sought to redress major historical wrongs against large classes of people, argues Lilla, but it devolved into “a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow, exclusionary self-definition that is now cultivated in our colleges and universities.” This has turned people inward instead of toward the wider world. They have lost empathy—they don’t think about the common good in non-identity terms and how to promote it by convincing others of the merits of their goals. Instead, “every advance of liberal identity consciousness has marked a retreat of effective liberal political consciousness.”36 This is a powerful point. Leftist activism today, from identity politics to abortion, is me-centered. The left’s myriad victims are trained to think only of themselves and never about the greater good. It is the politics of graceless, narcissistic self-directedness. For all its boasts about compassion, the left has long since abandoned any pretense of it and replaced it with envy, bitterness, and hate.
This is partly because progressive activists used to come from working-class and farm communities, but now they are mostly academic elitists who are detached socially, culturally, and geographically from the rest of America. Republicans, by contrast, have employed a bottom-up strategy since the Reagan eighties. Lilla sees Republicans as evangelizing their fellow citizens, while liberals strategically spread their message via a top-down strategy in the universities. Lilla believes that liberals forgot their duty to engage with the world outside academia. Their interactions with the world have largely been in their sequestered enclaves—investing “their energies in making their sleepy college towns into socially progressive and environmentally self-sustaining communities.” These are nice communities, he says, but their isolated existence doesn’t do much to spread the message.37
“I AM OFFENDED YOU DISAGREE WITH MY POSITION”
Lilla believes the study of identity politics became an end in itself, which led to an explosion of university studies on the subject and departments, research centers, and professional chairs devoted to it. Though this has been partly positive, it has triggered a single-minded fascination with group differences, which has given students a distorted picture of history and contemporary America. With this shift of focus away from the outer world to the inner self, the purpose of education was transformed as well, from helping students to find themselves by engagement with the wider world to encouraging them to engage with the world (and politics) “for the limited aim of understanding and affirming what one already is.”
The more a student becomes ensconced in the identity politics mind-set, the less she will be interested in the larger world and uniting people despite their differences. This has caused a distrustful attitude toward certain groups, as professors have convinced students that unifying rhetoric from these groups is a ruse to keep unprivileged groups subordinated. “What matters about these academic trends is that they give an intellectual patina to the narcissism that almost everything else in our society encourages,” writes Lilla. “… Intersectionality is too ephemeral to serve as a lasting foundation for solidarity and commitment. The more obsessed with personal identity campus liberals become, the less willing they are to engage in reasoned political debate.”38
Precisely. Students are taught that their identities exempt them from the responsibility to persuade others of the validity of their positions. Conversations used to begin with a person saying she has a certain opinion and then explaining why. Now they begin with a person saying, “Speaking as an X—a member of a certain identity group—I am offended that you disagree with my position.” This leaves no room for discussion. Lilla likens it to religion. Only those with approved identity status are allowed to speak on certain subjects—a development we’ve noted previously. One’s ideas are deemed pure or impure based on the identity connection, not their validity, which no longer has the same significance. By contrast, leftist activists of yesteryear envisioned campuses as being open to robust debates over big ideas, with students having to defend their positions and then go out into the world to change it instead of withdrawing into themselves.
Lilla admits conservatives are correct that colleges are overwhelmingly run by liberals who teach with “a liberal tilt,” but disagrees that they are manufacturing leftist radicals to become an effective left-wing political force. This obsession over identity politics, he believes, is a depoliticizing force. It has undermined “the universal democratic ‘we’ on which solidarity can be built” and is unmaking rather than making citizens. “In the end, this approach just strengthens all the atomizing forces that dominate our age,” says Lilla. Regardless of your opinion about the sixties radicals, at least they cared about their fellow citizens and cared when America’s democratic principles were violated. Lilla longs for a return to universities that encourage passion, commitment, knowledge, and argument as well as curiosity and concern for other people. You must care for the country and its citizens and seek a better future for all. His lament is not that universities produce liberal students but that they produce self-absorbed, politically impotent ones.
From a different perspective, conservative writer Roger Kimball also grieves the decline of America’s universities. “Once upon a time (and it wasn’t that long ago), universities were what they claimed to be, institutions dedicated to the preservation and transmission of civilization’s highest values,” writes Kimball. “Now they are bastions of political correctness, ‘intersectionality’ and identity politics.”39
“THE HIRING OF A CDO IS PRIMARILY A VIRTUE-SIGNALING STATEMENT”
Identity politics, sadly, dominates our college campuses and arguably originated there. American universities are bloated with diversity bureaucracies that promote the hiring of minorities and women, initiate campaigns to promote dialogue, and develop strategic plans to increase equity and inclusion on campus. They issue rules on avoiding sexist language, taboo lyrics, politically incorrect party themes, and inappropriate clothing and hairstyles. Many positions come with exorbitant salaries (e.g., the University of Michigan pays its chief diversity officer, or CDO, $385,000), and university spending on these programs has skyrocketed even while state funding for some universities has decreased.40 Such programs have made diversity complaints a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the media is devoting increasing coverage to claims of mistreatment of minorities and women on campuses and to racial attacks that have a remarkably high tendency to turn out to be hoaxes.
Diversity officials are further required to discourage “microaggressions” and to ensure that campus speech and clothing validates people’s identities and cultures. Violators are often sent to diversity training. It’s not an infrequent affair; one study of 669 American universities found that almost a third compel faculty to attend diversity training. Bureaucrats outnumber faculty at public universities by a two-to-one margin, and diversity is the primary driver.41 Ironically, as a result of the diversity racket, many white male professors are limiting campus interaction with minorities and women to avoid violating the rigid guidelines with unintentional perceived slights. Excessive diversity spending can also lead to fewer classes and higher tuition, which harms minorities, a higher percentage of whom are poor.42
These expensive programs contribute little, if anything, to fostering interracial interactions and friendships. In fact, they tend to create problems by foisting identity politics on students.43 Critics argue that the chief diversity officers on campuses are virtually programmed to resist any rational objections to diversity ideology and to perpetuate their empty suppositions by repeating them endlessly.44 Even with all their monitoring and posturing there is little evidence, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, that chief diversity officers actually improve faculty and administrator diversity. That’s because most deans and provosts have long been responding to pressure to hire applicants who fit diversity categories over those who don’t. Furthermore, there are a limited number of minority candidates with the requisite credentials, and no amount of prodding from a
diversity official can change that.45 But George Leef of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal doubts that such findings will lead to reform “because the hiring of a CDO is primarily a virtue-signaling statement—a way for a college’s leadership to say, ‘Look, our heart is in the right place.’ ” This is liberalism in a nutshell.
Because progressivism means never being accountable for your failed and costly social engineering experiments, the newly elected Democratic House majority jumped on the diversity and inclusiveness train, prioritizing corporate quotas to increase the number of women and minorities in America’s boardrooms. They intend to establish subcommittees on corporate diversity and inclusion and introduce bills to compel public disclosure of the race and gender makeup of corporate boards.46 But congressional imposition of corporate affirmative action would, like university diversity programs, accomplish few of their stated goals and possibly cause damage. Diversity-based promotions are patronizing, lead to workplace resentment, and undercut morale, including among minorities who advance based on merit.47
In reality, diversity officers exist for the sole purpose of advancing identity politics. Just look at the reaction when one diversity officer strayed off the ideological reservation. Denise Young Smith, a former diversity and inclusion officer for Apple, admirably and courageously exclaimed, “I focus on everyone.… Diversity is the human experience. I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term ‘diversity’ is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT. There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blonde men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation.” Smith’s comments provoked predictable outrage. Some suggested her views were influenced by her Apple paycheck, which is absurd, given Apple’s slavish obedience to the diversity gods. If she were mouthing Apple’s view, it’s doubtful she would have expressed her personal frustration. Other critics were incredulous that a “black woman” could say such a thing. Still others vowed to stop buying Apple products. Leftism permits no dissenting views.48
This incident illustrates the fraud of intersectionality and leftist notions of diversity and inclusiveness. The premise is that members of disadvantaged groups must be heard because only they can fully express the experiences of their group. But when a member of such a group deviates from the leftist line, her experience and opinion count for nothing, and she is exposed to the same kind of abuse as members of “privileged” groups and perhaps even more—she must be ostracized and banished, for she has betrayed the cause she was supposed to promote. For all the left’s obsession over identity groups, one thing is more important: adhering to the correct ideology. Fail to do this and no minority status will protect you from the ensuing fury.
“A SKIN MELANIN QUOTA SYSTEM”
Identity politics encourages people to be impersonal and robs us of our individuality. At the same time, however, it breeds narcissism, encouraging people to dwell on themselves. It’s the worst of both worlds. So as our culture, and especially our universities, pressure young people to view everything through the lens of identity, individuality becomes less important, which diminishes personal accountability. They develop an attitude of entitlement based on a status attributed to them that they’ve done nothing to earn. This discourages independent thinking and striving for excellence. They will more likely derive their sense of personal morality from their unearned status than from their conduct (apart from their self-glorifying activism) and how they treat others.
This mentality shreds the Golden Rule. The positive side of our moral ledger shouldn’t be credited or discredited because of our skin color or gender. It’s one thing to have pride in who you are and even your group, but it’s another to treat your membership in a group as a license to act irresponsibly, disrespectfully, or unkindly to others. When parents, professors, the media, and others encourage people to think primarily in terms of identities or groups and to contemplate how they are part of those identities and the implications that flow from them, it fosters an unhealthy focus on self. It also tragically pits groups of people against one another purely on the basis of their identities.
Particularly disappointing is the invasion of identity politics, along with other leftist dogmas, into Christian churches. Christian theologian and assistant editor for Faithfully Magazine Timothy Isaiah Cho tweeted, “If the references in your pastor’s sermons, the books used in small groups, the resources passed between the laity, the music sung in worship, & even the reflection quotes in your worship bulletins are predominantly by White men, your church is promoting a truncated Christianity.”49 Cho argues that these references communicate that “the real gatekeepers of the orthodoxy—and those who are the only ones worth listening to—are White men.… It says that authentic worship—and that which we should rightly emulate—originates from White men. It declares that the church property belongs to, is led by, and influenced by White men. It says that women and people of color are properly always to be listeners, submitters, and passive bystanders in the church who should be grateful for the place they’ve been allotted by White men. In contrast, Jesus’ church is the epicenter of equity and diversity.”
Wow. One must pity the person who harbors such bizarre ideas. Imagine a Christian leader focusing on the group identity of a productive church member rather than on the heart of the individual contributor and the blessing of his contribution. Cho substitutes skin color and other identities for Christian love and betrays an unhealthy resentment toward “White men.” As writer Peter Heck observes, “Apparently, Cho has determined that his ‘gift’ is sowing division in the body along the lines of manmade, social constructs like race.… While Christ is instructing His disciples to test all things against the perfect standard of His word alone, social justice theologians like Cho would discard that benchmark in favor of a skin melanin quota system.”50 This message is appallingly divisive for the body of Christ—an evil practice the apostle Paul passionately condemned in his epistles to the churches. It is man-centered, not God-centered, and idolatrously prioritizes superficial and manufactured human concerns above God’s will and His Word.
Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., discerns the spiritual component in these arguments, and her approach to racial relations is markedly different from the divisive privilege ideology that is prominent today. “What has happened with my uncles’ legacy, they forget their spiritual aspect,” said King. “… I remember the prayer meetings, how often we came together and prayed. I remember that everything we did was founded on the Bible.… One of his famous quotes [was], ‘We must learn to live together as brothers,’ and I’ll add, as sisters—‘or perish together as fools.’ ” Alveda King said her uncle fully understood Acts 17:26: “Of one blood, God created the human race.” “We’re not separate races and we’re designed to love each other,” she said. “… Skin color does not denote or define who we are, and that’s the message that’s still very relevant today. Treating each other as human beings, having the ability to listen to each other, to communicate with each other, and to resolve our differences nonviolently in a loving, and, for me, a Christ-like manner.”51
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MIMICS HUMAN BIASES
The left’s identity mania is frequently asinine. Activists claimed that Amazon’s facial recognition software is bigoted because it more accurately recognizes white males than people of other races. Researchers from MIT and the University of Toronto discovered that Amazon’s facial-detection technology for law enforcement purposes often misidentifies women and those with darker skin. Privacy and civil rights advocates demanded Amazon desist its marketing of this software because of these concerns about discrimination.
Apparently, the software did have difficulty identifying some groups, such as darker-skinned women, whom it didn’t even recognize as women 31 percent of the time. But if you thought that was a simple technological failure, then you’re just not woke enough. “Artificial intelligence can
mimic the biases of their human creators, as they make their way into everyday life,” the study concluded. “If you sell one system that has been shown to have bias on human faces, it is doubtful your other face-based products are also completely bias free,” said MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini.52
No idea is too far-fetched for leftists if it confirms their bias that bigotry is everywhere—except in their own hearts. The automated creations of biased humans must also share those biases. In fact, a study published by New Zealand’s University of Canterbury attributed the supposed prevalence of white robots to racism.53 But don’t feel too sorry for the poor robots. In case you missed it, Calvin Klein arranged for supermodel Bella Hadid, a heterosexual, to kiss a female robot in an ad for a T-shirt. Leftists make sure to cover all the bases.54
In the next chapter, we’ll see more ludicrous examples of the left’s destructive preoccupation with race and identity politics.
CHAPTER FOUR Race Mania: A Compendium of Absurdity
OLE JOE AND CRAZY BERNIE
In September 2018, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, to burnish his identity politics credentials, apologized for his conduct during Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. At the hearings, Anita Hill accused Thomas of having made sexually explicit comments and unwanted advances toward her when she worked under him in the 1980s. Having presided over the hearings as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden has come under fire from the left in recent years for allowing other congressmen to aggressively question Hill and undermine her credibility.
Guilty by Reason of Insanity Page 9
