April 1, 2023
Born in Germany to Polish Jewish parents, educated at Cambridge and Harvard, and an associate professor in international affairs at Johns Hopkins, Mounk considered whether democracies are viable in The Great Experiment, one of Barack Obama's favorite reads. Here he considers identity issues, recognizing that oppressed groups must seek relief but arguing that a too tight focus on identity is counterproductive, compelling government to see people not as individuals but types and inadvertently aligning those promoting the rights of marginalized groups with those countering them--in particular, the MAGA supporters who are in fact the biggest identity practitioners of all. Prepub Alert.
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July 31, 2023
In this poorly argued polemic, political scientist Mounk (The Great Experiment) offers an intellectual history of “identity synthesis”—a term of his own devising, which is hard to distinguish from the more familiar “identity politics”—and warns of its dangers. After tracing the intellectual legacy of several 20th-century theorists—with a focus on Michel Foucault and postmodernism, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and postcolonialism, and Derrick Bell and critical race theory—Mounk explains that these thinkers’ ideas were synthesized into an antiliberal, censorious, segregationist dogma on college campuses and online in the early 2000s. This “ideology” went mainstream in the mid-2010s, especially in medicine and education, where institutions began to adopt theoretical frameworks under which it was believed the best way to achieve equity for students and patients was not to treat everyone equally, but to offer “preferential treatment” and exclusionary experiences (like Black affinity groups in educational settings) to members of marginalized groups. Mounk cautions against this mindset (citing antiwhite workplace sensitivity trainings and unjustified cancelings over “cultural appropriation,” among other things), and recommends that the political left-of-center return to a liberalism characterized by freedom of expression and equal treatment of all. Throughout, though, evidence and examples are not thoroughly explained; instead, Mounk crafts bulleted lists of “key takeaways” that sidestep complication and essentially render his central argument as one being waged against a gargantuan straw man. Readers will not be convinced.
August 1, 2023
A passionate book about how the things we have in common are greater than the things that divide us. Early on Mounk reminds us that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, some health authorities decided that the limited supplies of the newly created vaccine should be allocated to people according to race even though it meant that fewer lives would be saved. This led him to the conclusion that the conflict between identity politics--his preferred term is identity synthesis--and liberalism is the critical struggle of our time. Mounk, the author of The Great Experiment and The People vs. Democracy, should not be dismissed as a reactionary basement scribbler: He is a respected academic at John Hopkins University, a contributor to the Atlantic, the founder of Persuasion magazine, and he has published prolifically about the dangers of far-right extremists and nationalistic demagogues. An unabashed liberal, the author acknowledges the lure of identity politics, with its quasi-religious fervor and Manichaean simplicity. The trap is that by placing group identity at the center of all discourse, it locks in a victim mentality and a pattern of destructive conflict. Mounk also notes that identity politics deliberately ignores the social progress made since the 1960s. For years, identity politics was a marginal academic interest, but the explosion of social media and the election of Donald Trump took it mainstream. It found its way into media organizations, government agencies, corporations, and schools, and its advocates were always ready to shout down and punish anyone who disagreed. For it to spin out of control, Mounk writes, it only requires that good people stay silent. Hardcore proponents and detractors alike may not be won over, but there is a vast middle that can be reached through open debate and plain common sense. This book is a solid launching point for further constructive debate. A thoughtful deconstruction of identity politics well worth discussing.
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