September 08, 2016
Source: Bigstock
In fact, there would be no Greece, France, England, Russia, or America. Just fungible people without commonality, sharing just their species. John Lennon’s nihilistic vision of humanity would come to life.
I should mention that, as with anything, identity can be taken too far. The liberal embrace of sexual identities has corrupted a legitimate sense of belonging. Being gay and seeking the company of other gays makes sense. Inventing 71 types of genders to satisfy someone’s perverted creativity is too much. The normalizing of so-called gender fluidity only makes sexually confused people more apt to develop esteem issues, and even consider suicide. It’s a case of identity gone wrong, where too much id creates a void of personal understanding.
Mishaps aside, identity is a healthy and necessary part of living. It is not “intellectual laziness,” as Brooks says. It doesn”t “do real violence to national life.” Identity politics helps define national life and the place each of us has within it. As Samuel Huntington wrote in his book Who Are We?, “People are not likely to find in political principles the deep emotional content and meaning provided by kith and kin, blood and belonging, culture and nationality. These attachments may have little or no basis in fact but they do satisfy a deep human longing for meaningful community.”
As liberals seek to further deracinate us from our roots, genteel conservatives like David Brooks would do best to not scoff at identity politics. It may be the thing that saves us from being run over by third-world hordes.
