The Patriot Post® · In Brief: The Immorality of Identity Politics
Leftists love to cast their skewed moral compass as the high road, the right side of history, the only loving thing to do, and so on. The implication — and often the explicit statement — is that being conservative means being full of bigotry, racism, and hate. But journalist Daniel Greenfield makes the case that the identity politics of the Left is what is truly immoral.
Identity politics is best understood as a moral caste system. Buying into variants such as critical race theory means accepting that your actions matter less than your race, gender or sexuality. The promised liberation of identity politics imposes the collectivist understanding that nothing you do truly matters outside the constraints of your caste. Who you were born is who you are.
It’s difficult to think of a dogma that is more at odds with the philosophical worldview of the Founding Fathers or the Judeo-Christian theology of America. Identity politics violates the political and religious foundations of this country. These ideological assaults are bolstered by the conviction that personal redemption through economic strivings or repentance are conspiracies to fool people into believing that change comes through individualism rather than collectivism.
And yet the damage to the national fabric is almost secondary to the moral damage that identity politics inflicts on individuals. The Judeo-Christian moral revolutions came from the conviction that each individual had free will, personal responsibility and a relationship with his creator. Dispense with individual free will and individual conscience goes with it. In its place are the rioting mobs of Black Lives Matter for whom, like the Nazis, morality is group warfare. The only individual actions that matter are membership in a group whose moral nature is innately coded at birth. To be white is to be a sinner and to be black is to be sinned against.
The essence of identity politics is its conviction that individuals can have moral standing only in relation to their group. Understanding morality without awareness of group membership is the equivalent of atheism for wokes. That is why they are unable to grasp literature whose protagonists lack clear racial or sexual markers. Diversity markers in movies, television and novels are not just elements of political correctness, they are vitally necessary signifiers for a woke population that can only see moral drama through the lens of identity politics.
Greenfield delves much further into how identity politics corrupts how people view crime and justice, free speech, family, education, and so much more. Ultimately, he concludes:
Identity politics is a rebellion against every civilizational development for thousands of years. That is the source of its appeal. This is the grim genocidal vision for which liberals have exchanged the Enlightenment. That is what they want to indoctrinate at every level from kindergarten to the corporate workplace. That is what they want for America.