April 14, 2021

The Fight Over Identity

When identity becomes pure aesthetics, society completely atomizes.

America has been wrecked on the shoals of identity.

Identity politics has been characterized casually as a form of tribalism: Americans grouping themselves according to biological or sexual characteristics, in opposition to other groups associated by biological or sexual characteristics. There is certainly truth to the idea that such tribalism has damaged America in extraordinary ways — that tribalism acts as the sort of factionalism the Founding Fathers feared, tearing Americans from one another and forcing them into polarized units to compete against others in a battle over control.

But there is another form of identity politics even more sinister than the sort of tribalism we see so openly today, a form that focuses less on politics than on identity: the redefinition of identity itself.

For thousands of years, human beings established their identities by learning how to adapt to the systems in which they lived, gradually changing those systems for the better after determining the flaws within them. This is how parents traditionally civilized children — by adapting them to their civilization.

But as Carl Trueman explains in his masterful book “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self,” the post-Enlightenment era tore away at the core assumption of such notions of identity. Instead of adapting ourselves to the institutions around us and forming our identity within those institutions, human beings in the West began to locate their identity within — to look to their own sense of authenticity as the guide to fulfillment. In this view, identity was not formed in tandem with civilization but in opposition to it. Only by rebelling against the strictures of a surrounding society, by breaking free of convention, could individuals finally achieve fulfillment.

Furthermore, fulfillment would require not merely an interior sense of identity but a sense of identity cheered and celebrated by everyone else. After all, human beings still feel the need for acceptance. To reject someone else’s authentic sense of self-identification, therefore, becomes an act of emotional violence.

We have now taken this view to its logical endpoint: total subjectivism, requiring the destruction of any and all conflicting viewpoints or data. Take, for example, a recent New York Times piece applauding the rise of so-called neopronouns. With the explosion of new subjective identities — and the demand that others endorse them — has come a wave of new pronouns. We are no longer talking about biological males demanding that others identify them as “she/her” in contravention of all available objective science. We are talking about people insisting that others call them “kitten/kittenself” or “vamp/vampself.” Now, some might find this to be frivolous nonsense disconnected from any true sense of identity. But as The New York Times blithely notes, “what’s the difference between an aesthetic and an identity anyway?”

This is saying the quiet part out loud. For decades, those who insist that identity is constructed in opposition to society’s rules — rules that must be eliminated in order to achieve human flourishing — have suggested that authentic identity is more than mere aesthetics. But now The Times has given away the show: When you construct identity as a tabula rasa, seeing all history and science as obstacles to happiness, identity quickly flattens into aesthetics. And we are all expected to agree with your sense of aesthetics. (Unless, as The Times notes, you identify as “BLM” or other terms related to Black Lives Matter. In that case, you are encroaching on longstanding areas of sensitivity and must atone.)

When identity becomes pure aesthetics, society completely atomizes. No free society can be rooted in utter subjectivity — someone must enforce silence from the top, bar dissenters and punish those who insist on objective data. And that’s precisely what we are seeing from an authoritarian left: an authoritarian left that arrived with the promise of fulfillment and authenticity and has instead delivered emptiness and aesthetic pretension, enforced by institutional fiat.

COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.