The Essential Bigotry of Identity Politics

I watched a lecture recently by Douglas Hedley, who teaches the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge. He was giving the inaugural Sophia Lecture at Ralston College, a new university, spearheaded by Jordan Peterson and Stephen Blackwood, intent on bringing classical education — think Greek — to Savannah, Ga. The new college motto is Sermo Liber Vita Ipsa, Free Speech is Life Itself.

In a conversation with Blackwood, Hedley argued that the great, fundamental questions of humanity are not race, gender and class. They are rooted in what he called the “spiritual oxygen” of truth, beauty and goodness. And I suppose he would add with Aristotle that the purpose of all human activity is happiness.

How much have we lost, I thought, in failing to teach Greek philosophy in our schools any longer. And how much could we gain, I imagined, if we focused on seeing each other as fellow humans, with innate traits in common instead of as members of aggrieved constituencies pushing their political worldview on the rest of us.

Amid these musings, I read an essay by George Orwell, the patron of this blog, author of Animal Farm and 1984, whose writings about totalitarianism represent a clarion warning, even now. In an essay called “Politics and the English Language,” published in Horizon in April 1946, in postwar Europe, Orwell observed that political language is full of euphemisms because the truth of autocratic rule is too brutal to state plainly.

“Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

Mutilating children’s bodies in the name of “gender affirmation” — young people who cannot in any way be said to have given informed consent, even as medical “professionals” sanctify the practice — brings Orwell’s point to our times. And so does Harvard University — the archetype of Diversity, Equity Inclusion & the newly added Belonging — announcing its plans for segregated graduation ceremonies.

Harvard University’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging will once again host “affinity celebrations” at its 2024 commencement. Harvard plans to hold a “Disability Celebration,” a “Global Indigenous Celebration,” an “Asian American, Pacific Islander, Desi-American (APIDA) Celebration,” a “First Generation-Low Income Celebration,” a “Jewish Celebration,” a “Latinx Celebration,” a “Lavender Celebration” — which refers to LGBT students — a “Black Celebration,” a “Veterans Celebration,” and an “Arab Celebration.” 

Of course there will also be a campus-wide ceremony, presumably for the parents of these young segregationists who no longer salute Harvard’s motto, veritas, truth. In a nation where everyone is a hyphen — such as Desi-American or Lavender-American — there is no truth, only relativism. Maybe that’s why the keepers of language — who have long since corrupted Wikipedia and online dictionaries — dropped the hyphens.

The essential evil of identity politics is to keep Americans separated into fiefdoms, complete with their own emperors, fighting one another for the largess that emits from a faceless bureaucracy that George Orwell dubbed the Ministry of Truth. This is why black athletes are allowed to sit during our National Anthem, why biological males are allowed to compete against female athletes, why illegal migrants are allowed to vote in blue states. We are witnessing the Politics of Grievance.

This cult of divisive identities is also manifesting itself in corporations and government bureaucracies. Critics warn that hiring for diversity rather than merit at the FAA or in medical schools will seriously compromise, even imperil, our health. With the airlines and medical schools filling quotas, instead of looking for the most qualified pilot applicants or the top-scoring students, will our planes fly or our doctors cure? A new bill in Congress, authored by two congressmen who are doctors, would strip federal funding from any medical school that engages in such discriminatory admission mandates. Will any leader ever bring it to the floor?

Some among the critics have come to see the current fad of victimhood for what it is — an affront to our nation’s foundational fabric, its meritocracy. There is no question we have often failed in attaining that standard. The long ordeal of black slavery, the further insults of Jim Crow segregation in the South and cutting bigotry in the North , the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II — these acts of race-hatred cannot be swept under the rug. This record stains our history.

But in righting these wrongs, restoring meritocracy is just as important as defeating DEI, maybe more. Listen to Coleman Hughes, a thoughtful intellectual, as he discusses his new book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, on ABC’s The View. Spoiler Alert: Host Sunny Hostin — whose DNA test found her 52% African, 37% European, 8% Native Americans — is not happy.

Sunny Hostin: Your argument for colorblindness, I think, is something that the Right has co-opted. And so many in the black community — if I’m being honest with you because I want to be — believe that you are being used as a pawn by the Right and that you’re a charlatan of sorts.

Coleman Hughes: I don’t think there’s any evidence I’ve been co-opted by anyone, and I think that that’s an ad hominem tactic people use to not address, really, the important conversations that we’re having here. It’s … better for everyone if we stuck to the topics rather than making it about me. … There’s no evidence that I’ve been co-opted by anyone. I have an independent podcast, I work for CNN as an analyst, I write for The Free Press, I’m independent in all these endeavors, and no one is paying me to say what I’m saying. I’m saying it because I feel it.

Amid this Politicization of Everything — offering this title for free to anyone who wants to write about it — culture and religion are gaining new adherents.

In Baltimore over Easter weekend, the diocese welcomed 663 new converts — called catechumens — to its community. Archbishop William Lori had one word, “Rejoice.”

Cultivating the mind and spirit — what Aristotle called “human flourishing” — is also making a comeback. In an essay on Intellectual Takeout, writer Michael DeSapio argues that especially for conservatives, culture is an antidote to politics. “When I say culture, I don’t mean something ‘elitist,’ some sort of superficial embellishment of life. I am not talking about a mere adornment, something that is nice to have if you can afford it. … I am talking about something that we all have and need — reigning artistic passions, philosophical reflections, love of nature.”

Douglas Hedley might call this cultural and religious reawakening spiritual oxygen.

By whatever name, I say Amen.

Dear Readers: With this column, I hope to reorient Make Orwell Fiction Again from political commentary to philosophical musings. In an era fraught with chaos, the timing seems right. I hope you make this journey with me. And please spread the word on Facebook and Linked In — I have been booted off both. And I’m not too good at Instagram either.

In gratitude, Johanna