7/27/2018 - Suzanne Fields Townhall.com
The human animal seems
hard-wired for tribalism, and the ties that bind are shaped by our compelling
need to group together, obeying calls for loyalties and exclusions. Some
groupings not only contribute to the gratifications of bonding, whether in
family, clubs, choirs or loyalty to sports teams, but also provide the glue
that holds a community together.
But tribes become the
"factions" that former President George Washington warned against in
his Farewell Address, heightening differences and rivalries that the Founding
Fathers hoped to dilute through checks and balances in the three branches of
government. In the age of the internet, tribalism asserts itself in the flood
of outrage stories that bombard us hourly, and make us angry and hostile toward
those with whom we disagree.
Former President Barack
Obama, who had all but vanished from public life, opened a conversation about
identity politics in a speech in South Africa the other day during the 100th
anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela, warning that democracy is served
poorly when identity is the organizing principle.
"But democracy
demands that we're able also to get inside the reality of people who are
different than us," he said, "so we can understand their point of
view. Maybe we can change their minds, but maybe they'll change ours."
It's tempting to
dismiss an argument offered by a former president and the current one if we
don't like things that are said, even when it's reasonable. There's no room for
debate, and everyone is quickly labeled as either hateful or stupid for
expressing a different point of view. It's us against them, and a mean spirit
becomes a contagion, splintering us into subgroups of animosity left and right,
culturally and politically.
"A shift in tone,
rhetoric, and logic has moved identity politics away from inclusion -- which
had always been the left's watchword -- toward exclusion and division,"
writes Yale Law professor Amy Chua in "Political Tribes: Group Instinct
and the Face of Nations." Facebook now lists over 50 genders ("sexes,"
they used to be called) for argument, "from genderqueer to intersex to
pangender," as it competes to take equal opportunity offense. The
competition for victimization has become a crowded field.
Jonathan Haidt, author
of "The Righteous Mind," who has studied political polarization since
2007, observes that both sides of the political spectrum show increasing
dislike for the other and think the other a threat to the country. The parties,
which once included an uneven mix of conservatives and liberals, contrive now
to be so ideologically "pure" that opposing voices within are quickly
silenced.
The term "identity
politics" is heard often in the news and on social media to animate our
own ideas and prejudices, some good, some not so good, in our multicultural
country. But what does "identity politics" actually refer to? Whose
identity? Whose politics? The questions run through conversations on the beach,
at a bar and around the barbecue grill, overheard in the swimming pool or on a
picnic blanket, addressed casually between men and women of different ages, and
in different locations where people congregate.
Summer brings people
together from many walks and places of life, backgrounds and traditions. They
once could meet during the happy and laid-back season without the baggage that
disrupts and angers debate on politics and current events. But now, not so
much. Politics seems to be permanently polarized. After old friends and summer
acquaintances move through congenial conversations about family, relationships,
work, play, baseball, sometimes soccer, the scorching heat or the dreary rainy
day, identity politics emerges as a common theme. It asserts itself like a
snake coiling around the base of a tree and becomes a dangerous disruption of
neighborly cohesion. Whether black, white, Hispanic, Asian, male, female, gay,
straight, Jewish, Christian or Muslim, identity politics forces us to think in
terms of differences and not the many good things we cherish and hold in
common.
The imperfect melting
pot that once united us as unhyphenated Americans has boiled over into an
indigestible stew, giving people heartburn and indigestion and no longer
providing a way for smoothing over differences. The temperature of social
discourse inevitably rises. Identity politics and the revival of a tribal
mentality may be the most deleterious affliction with which we as individuals
and as a nation must contend.
When Martin Luther King
Jr. led the civil rights struggle, he aimed for a national reconciliation to
redeem an inclusive American dream. Former President Abraham Lincoln, who
sought healing in the few days he had left after the Civil War, urged us to
listen to "the better angels of our nature." But those angels, as he
knew, are fragile and easily destroyed in the din of identity.
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