IDENTITY POLITICS AND THE DECLINE OF FACTS, DETAILS, AND DIALOGUE

The political tribalism we experience in American society, and the irrationalism we witness, have their origins in decades past

The dysfunctions that disquiet the American social and political landscape have become almost settled facts. We have arrived at a point when American society is characterized by conflict, disunity, and tribal factions centered on irreconcilable political ideologies and positions. There is disparagement of expertise, a snubbing of facts, and irrationalism has taken hold of the minds of tens of millions of fellow citizens. Our social climate has become raw and nasty. Respect, civility, compromise, conciliation, and dialogue are elusive and notably gone from our social atmosphere.

How did we reach this point?

What follows is one person's opinion of the evolution of American society over the past six decades. It recognizes that the 1960s was an inflection point that launched the social and political dynamic resulting in the current breakdown of national unity and purpose. I see this evolution as the progression of identifiable trends. My perspective is primarily sociological and I survey the landscape from a progressive standpoint. My topic is broad, and in no sense do I claim that it is comprehensive. Many other perspectives and narratives are possible.

The emergence of hyphenated Americans in the breakdown of the melting pot ideology

The regnant myth informing American identity from the early nineteenth century until the late 1960s was the vaunted assumption that the United States was a “melting pot” comprised of people, mostly immigrants, who brought their different cultures, languages, and folkways from their countries of origin. Once here, these disparate characteristics were lost and blended into a new, distinct, American identity. The melting pot bespeaks an assimilationist dynamic wherein the heterogeneous becomes homogeneous. As such, the melting pot ideologically implies a harmonious society wherein nascent conflict is resolved through the process of melding, and unity is born of a new, common national purpose. It implies an optimistic, novel, and creative American spirit. Implicitly, dissent from this American project, so described, would run the risk of undermining national unity and social peace.

Its content and energy were captured by the iconic American sage, Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1845, Emerson wrote:

“...the energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles, and Cossacks, and all the European tribes—of the Africans, and of the Polynesians—will construct a new race, a new religion, a new state, a new literature, which will be as vigorous as the new Europe which came out of the smelting-pot of the Dark Ages...”

While there were contrasting images of America presented in the early decades of the twentieth century, which I will discuss below, the melting pot was the regnant American identity until the latter years of the civil rights movement.

America as a melting pot was directly challenged by the rise of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s. The Black Power movement critiqued the latent innocence of the melting pot by unmasking it as an expression of Anglo-dominance. It was neither neutral nor innocent. The movement also made evident what was an otherwise obvious reality: Owing to the color of their skin, Blacks could not melt into the social body as could white European immigrants.

Critical of the integrationist objective of the civil rights movement, of which Martin Luther King was the primary figure, the Black Power movement committed itself to control by Blacks of their own institutions and communities. In opposition to King's non-violence, it held that armed resistance was a necessary method for achieving such control. Stokely Carmichael was a founding figure, and the Black Panthers became the most prominent arm of the movement. The fiery oratory and charisma of Malcolm X greatly spurred recruitment to the cause. Black separatism from an immutably racist society, which in earlier decades found inspiration in the thought of such figures as Marcus Garvey, was a salient objective of the Black Power movement.

The movement faded by the early 1980s but left a mark on American society that was far-reaching and long-lasting. The Black Power movement and its call for separatism altered how Americans outside of the Black community began to understand their own identities as Americans.

The era saw the emergence of hyphenated Americans. Not satisfied with being generic Americans, with their origins lost in currents of homogeneity, many began to reclaim their familial heritage and pin it to their understanding of their Americanism. There was a downplaying of universal identity, while an appreciation for racial, cultural, and ethnic particularism took its place. American Negros, a term commonly used in the 1970s now identified themselves as “African-Americans.” This renaming led the way to Latino-Americans, Italo-Americans, and Irish-Americans. Many Jewish Americans, reframed themselves as American Jews, making their American identity adjectival to their foundational identity as Jews.

The adage, “what the second generation chooses to forget the third chooses to remember,” took on not merely personal but transformative political consequences. As many began to invest their identities in particularist preoccupations, such a move was seen by some as an ominous threat to a common national identity; projected ideals and aspirations that served the purpose of collective unity and purpose. The liberal historian, Arthur Schlesinger authored a book The Disuniting of America in 1991 (derided by some further to the Left who saw Schlesinger as a mouthpiece for the “establishment”) in which he articulated his apprehensions resulting from what he termed “the cult of ethnicity.” He may have been prescient.

The contributions of the Black Power movement had its precursors. In 1915, the Jewish immigrant and philosoper Horace Kallen, who went on to become a founder The New School, penned a pivotal essay, Democracy and the Melting Pot. In 1956, he expanded his ideas in the volume, Cultural Pluralism and the American Idea. Kallen's thesis was that democracy was not assimilationist, but that each immigrant group would retain its cultural specificity. The interplay of different ethnicities, like diverse instruments in an orchestra, would serve to enrich the American landscape as a whole. Kallen's vision was radically pluralistic.

Kallen was not alone. In the early decades of the 20th century, such thinkers as the journalist Randolph Bourne, the settlement house pioneer Jane Addams, the humanist luminary John Dewey, and the African-American philosopherAlain Locke, espoused similar pluralistic theories of American democracy. But none of them triggered the social transformations wrought by the Black Power movement decades later.

From hyphenated Americans to multiculturalism

The 1970s saw the emergence of multiculturalism as an articulated and ideological challenge to the long-standing hegemony of the melting pot. Arguably, it is a variant of cultural pluralism, but one that readily became integrated into popular discourse and widespread understanding of inter-group relations.

Multiculturalism was born out of several political dynamics. One was the growing diversity of American society, which was becoming increasingly apparent - in neighborhoods, schools, and the workplace as global migration brought immigrants to American cities and into regions that were previously homogeneous. A second influence was increased recognition in progressive circles of the ugly historical legacy of colonialism and imperialism and the destruction of the cultures of non-white peoples. Multiculturalism was an expression of redress for centuries-long oppression.

The mantle of multiculturalism was carried forward primarily by progressives. Its watchword was “tolerance,” and beyond tolerance, an affirming appreciation for ethnic groups and cultures other than one's own. Yet, in my view, multiculturalism is not an unqualified good. We need only ask, how are we to relate to cultures that we are encouraged to tolerate that are internally intolerant, patriarchal, misogynistic, homophobic, and discriminatory against subgroups within the culture? Tolerance and respect for cultural autonomy may well result in a turning away from the perpetration of internal injustices that violate progressive values and ironically nurture conservative practices, politics, and their own oppressions.

From multiculturalism to identity politics

Multiculturalism became further politicized in the form of identity politics. The mainstay of this transformation is such that racial, ethnic, religious, and gender-identified groups now express their political interests through, and in the name of, these specific groups. It is the emergence and growing salience of identity politics that I contend lies at the basis of much of the division and stridency that characterizes the current political moment.

The emergence of identity politics is understandable. The militancy of the New Left of the 1960s, though lacking the sectarianism of the Old Left of the `30s, was, broadly considered, built on the foundation of the critique of economic injustice and the aspiration of creating a more egalitarian society, whether socialist or social democratic. As such, the articulation of the grievances of specific groups, whether by ethnic or racial minorities, women, or gays, was construed as diversionary from the overarching goals of the movement, or even reactionary. Yet minorities as such were cognizant of their marginalization, and women, who, for example, were devoted to the anti-Vietnam War cause, found themselves subordinated to male leadership. Identity politics in notable measure was born out of the resentments of this subordination and consequent invisibility.

Yet, as identity politics has hardened in ensuing decades, it has generated problems that contribute to the divisiveness of the current political environment, and problems of an even more disturbing nature.

The major weakness of identity politics is that it pits the various identified groups in conflict with each other while abandoning an overarching critique of those economic interests that sustain control over society writ large. I retain enough of my Marxism to believe that society is controlled primarily by the occupants of the corporate class of astronomic wealth who frame the conditions to which the vast majority of us need to conform in order to survive. Such wealth imbues the ownership class with hegemonic political power that enables it to augment its wealth in an upward spiral. The huge wealth gap in America, the frenetic yen for profits that characterizes the business climate, the increased privatization pervading society, and the growing corporatization of public and even private life are all testaments to the economic structures within which we live out our lives. My concern is that identity politics diverts from the overarching sources of economic oppression that require our militant protest.

But there is more. Identitarian groups competing for their piece of the pie congeal into a politics of resentment, systemic injustice, and victimization. One feels that an elevating and inspiring commitment to larger ideals is lost and an atmosphere of rawness is created.

The often-invoked condition of victimhood becomes quickly aligned with an appreciation of power inequities that define the relations among different groups. “We who are oppressed are the victims of those who maintain power over us.” While power inequities are ubiquitous in human relations, indeed in every human encounter, in the realm of contemporary politics the concept has morphed into an ideology. It had become an often-invoked trope by which to gain political visibility and leverage. It defines how people appreciate one another in society and understand human relations. Facts, details, and nuance matter less.

Here we approach our current epistemic condition. Ideologies are shorthands. Ideologies convey ideas and win assent by conjoining and merging specific facts and details that are then lost, like an avalanche that blankets over all that lie beneath it. They define for those who adhere to them what comprises the “correct” political position. A political universe riven by ideological conflict is a reality that is woefully reductionist and ultimately small-minded.

Boundaries are set. They divide insiders from outsiders. There is a diminished concern, as noted, for facts that threaten to undermine one's adherence to ideological certainty. Civility diminishes and openness to dialogue is beyond the horizon. Tribes bounded by ideological certainty form and become cognitively introverted. Information becomes siloed and biases reinforced.

The emotional power of identification with others who hold to the same ideological convictions and certainties is a most powerful force, especially when those outside the groups are felt as alien and threatening. The power of the group bond begins to supersede the countervailing check of opposing ideas and ultimately of reason itself. Reason is a weak force compared with the power of group cohesion. And openness to authoritarian and demagogic leadership is the next step.

Moving ahead

The way out of our current condition is not clearly visible. At times it seems as if we are in a Manichean struggle between the forces of darkness and light. And perhaps we are. It is my belief that we need to hold fast to our Enlightenment ideals and reaffirm them. We need to maintain our faith in reason and in facts honed by the rules of evidence. We need to reaffirm the authority of science and the credibility of expertise. And we need to appreciate that reality is complex and that the best decisions and positions must embrace an appreciation for nuance and detail.

In the political realm, we would do well to rededicate ourselves to America's founding ideals – to freedom, to equality, and to opportunity. We need to commit ourselves to an egalitarian vision that will vouchsafe the common good and the security of all.

On the social landscape, we can recognize the reality and strength of our diversity and affirm a healthy pluralism. But as Americans, we can sustain two overlapping ideals at the same time. We can maintain and celebrate our local allegiances while embracing our unifying and common ideals that transcend our particularisms and differences.

By keeping such ideals before us, we can sustain hope for a more benign and tranquil future.