Adrift on their self-regard

If you want to gauge the direction of the wind of opinion among the Mandarin Class, you could do worse than tap into E.J. Dionne. NPR usually has him on with David Brooks each week, pretending that they are getting the view of the left and the right when what they are actually getting is the center left and the moderate center. Both are definitively of the Mandarin Class, existentially committed to the status quo and both as alien from either the neo-Marxist left (though they are thoroughly conversant with that language) as they are from any of the classical schools of conservatism (Hayekian, Burkean, Classical Liberal, Libertarian, Religious, Lockean, Smithian, Randian, etc.)

I listen to Dionne but rarely read him because I get confirmation of the status quo but rarely get interesting insight.

But I was interested in Getting Identity Politics Right by E.J. Dionne, as the title seems to indicate that he, as a representative of the establishment left, might be wrestling with the implications of the radical left which is inherently self-destructive (both in terms of behavior as well as in terms of philosophical incoherence.)

Regrettably, Dionne doesn't do much more than acknowledge that there is an incompatibility between the radical postmodernist, critical theory left and the establishment left. But we knew that already and no one seems to have much of an idea as to how to reconcile the two.

Such a reckoning is a commentary both on the limits of identity politics (we are all multiples of some kind) and on the limits of any argument for abandoning identity politics (we can never entirely divorce ourselves from who we are).

Disputes over the merits of identity politics are vexed because they are often seen as code for unstated claims or points of view. For example, calls for an end to identity politics are frequently (and reasonably) interpreted by African-Americans, Latinos, women and LGBTQ people as not-so-veiled attempts to make politics about straight white men again.

But of course, no one is seriously advocating either position. Another straw man argument. We are all multiple identities and we do also have multiple affiliations. The issue is not about that. The issue is whether you can have a philosophy and governance structure grounded in individual rights at the same time as you have a philosophy and governance structure grounded in the state and on arbitrarily manufactured and imposed group identities. Those two schools of thought are at least awkward partners, and likely incompatible. But Dionne manifests no awareness of their incompatibility. He wants this to be a left right issue, not an exploration of the philosophical incoherence of critical theory postmodernism.

The next paragraph captures both the conundrum and the incoherence facing Dionne and the establishment left.

This alone makes the war on identity a non-starter among progressives and Democrats. One of liberalism's most noble commitments is to advancing the rights of minorities and those who have suffered discrimination. Contemporary progressives would lose their moral compass, not to mention a lot of votes, if they cast this mission aside.

Again, there is obfuscation here. What are the "rights of minorities" of which Dionne speaks. The traditional establishment left as well as virtually all stripes of right philosophies would answer that all humans have equal god-given rights. They are called human rights and no one can strip those rights from individuals because they are held to be inherent to humanhood. If you are human, you have these rights even if your government chooses to try and restrain your exercise of those rights.

There are no special categories of minority rights distinct from the common human rights. Dionne is ceding the philosophical ground, or more likely failing to recognize the terrain, before he even argues it. We should protect all the human rights of all our citizens. But if Dionne wants to create new and additional rights based on skin color or ethnicity or religion or what not, then you are immediately in racist territory rife with bigotry.

The incapacity to acknowledge that traditional left and traditional right can both join arms in support of human rights is startling because it indicates a failure to recognize that the statism, authoritarianism, and repression of the critical theory postmodernist left is alien to our culture and philosophies.

The Mandarin Class is adrift on their self-regard. As usual.