Politics, Philosophy

About forty years ago was the first time I ever seriously considered my identity. Even then, I had a talent for associating with different sorts of people. I had also been told by a co-worker, way back in 1977, not to let people pigeonhole me. I decided that I was a lot of things, not one. Like Mr. Whitman, I contain multitudes. Which leaves me favoring what I read in Against Identity by Alexander Douglas review – a superb critique of contemporary self-obsession (The Guardian).

The escape route Douglas recommends is nothing so banal, then, as policing misinformation or even just being nicer to one another; no, we should strive to abandon identity all together. He deploys close readings of three thinkers from wildly differing epochs and cultures: the ancient Chinese sage Zhuangzi, the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza, and the 20th-century historian-critic René Girard. Each of them, he argues, hints at a similar ideal of enlightenment: to abandon our attachment to identity and become one with the undifferentiated flow of all things.

This sounds fluffy and improbable in precis, but we should begin by noticing how fragile our own sense of self really is. Douglas says of his three thinkers: “Look within, they would say, and you will find a mess. Introspection reveals only a confusion of qualities.” Oddly, the author doesn’t mention the great Scottish philosopher David Hume, though his is probably the most famous expression of this idea: that what we call the self is, per Hume, “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement”.

The Roots Of MAGA (Sheila Kennedy) offers a succinct explanation for MAGA, with one exception. What I have seen locally of MAGA adherents, they are working class without any particular status - other than being white people. They lack access to the jobs that let their parents (grandparents?) have houses and cars without having to do anything more than show up at the factory and punch a clock. No need for an education or even job training to work an assembly line.

Regular readers of this blog have already encountered my analysis of the MAGA cult: white people–mostly but not entirely male– terrified of losing social dominance, and deeply disoriented by a modern world in which ambiguities and “shades of gray” threaten to overwhelm the “faith-based” verities they cling to.

These are the same people who supported Hitler in the 1930s, and support other autocrats today–and the rest of us are in danger of losing America to these limited and terrified folks if we don’t understand the roots of their movement. A recent Substack essay from The Rational League mined the available research and confirmed much of my thesis. (In the quotes below, I’ve omitted the copious citations–to access them, you should click through.)

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In other words, status anxiety is what motivates the MAGA base–fear of irrelevance. The MAGA base consists of those who once felt socially dominant and now feel displaced. Trump promises to put them back on top. 

I am also leery of either/or arguments; have been since I was a teenager. I favor the position put forth below from Joshua May and the Search for Philosophical Nuance (JSTOR Daily).

What’s the best discovery you’ve made in your research?

False dichotomies are everywhere in ethics. Debates about factory farming focus on whether people should strictly omit all animal products from their diet (to go vegan or at least vegetarian) or just eat whatever they want. But I’ve argued, with my collaborator Victor Kumar, that there’s a distinct reducetarian path: most people should imperfectly reduce their consumption of animal products. The appropriate level of reduction all depends on the person and their circumstances. Similarly, does neuroscience show that we have free will or that it’s just an illusion? I think a careful look at the evidence suggests a third option: we have free will, but less than is commonly presumed. When it comes to neurological differences, like autism and ADHD, the false choice is between viewing them as either deficits or mere differences. But they can be one or the other (or both), depending on the person and their circumstances. The same goes for addiction: Is it a brain disease or a moral failing? I’ve argued for a neglected third route: it’s a disorder that nevertheless involves varying levels of control depending on the individual. Throughout moral and political debates, false dichotomies seem to dominate, but in my view, nuance should be the norm. 

sch 6/17