Choosing Responsibility in a World of Identity Politics

Instead of basing your opinions on group identity, embark on your own individual search for truth

The defining choice in our lives is whether or not we will take upon ourselves the responsibility of finding truth and living it. The tempting alternative is to surrender the weight of responsibility to some “cause”, thereby freeing ourselves from the need to learn and improve. Nowhere is this made more manifest than in the adoption of identity politics as the principal tool in political discourse, as we’ve recently seen in the United States.

Despite being politically appetizing, identity politics results in the loss of individual responsibility and creates a collectivist culture, destructive to individuals and nations alike.

Identity politics --the formation of political groups based on the racial or social backgrounds of its members-- groups together individuals of shared race or political persuasion as one entity, which erases the individual and emphasizes collective rather than individual action. Proponents of identity politics will claim that recognizing group identity is the only way to help minorities who are victims of an oppressive system. Though the far-reaching inequality found in the U.S. must be addressed, this sort of political rhetoric is dangerous to our nation’s future.

It has become common practice for politicians and the media to categorize the American population into groups, using inaccurate stereotypes and arbitrary statistics. They often ignore the complex reality and claim one group or another is exploiting the American people. This is a very useful strategy for them! By pitting one group against another, politicians can masquerade as saviors, come to rid us of all inequality.

New York Times columnist David Brooks describes how this happens currently, summarizing “Donald Trump’s culture-war Theyism” as “the coastal cultural elites [who] hate genuine Americans, undermining our values and opening our borders” and “Bernie Sander’s class-war Theyism” as “the billionaires [who] have rigged the economy to benefit themselves and impoverish everyone else”. Both claims are exaggerated and are used as political tools to simplify complicated issues into front page headlines.

Where does this lead?

The infamous “Red Terror” of the communist revolution in Russia and the consequent totalitarian government of Joseph Stalin came as a result of the lower class choosing to believe that their identity as suffering proletariat was more meaningful than their identity and morality as individuals. They saw themselves only as victims of someone else's misdeed. Therefore, in order to bring “prosperity and equality” to Russia all those who had benefited from the previous capitalist system—the bourgeoisie— had to be killed.

A similar case can be found in post-World War I Germany, where the white Christian population found it convenient to believe that all their misfortunes were due to the evil conniving of the Jews. Once the Jewish race was labeled the source of Germany’s economic problems it became easier to rationalize their murder.

Though Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were led under two different ideologies, there was a common thread connecting the two regimes. In both cases a group chose to believe that the solution to their country’s woes was the extermination of another group based on race and class. These atrocities came as a direct result of identity politics and are the fault of every single person who sacrificed their individual responsibility to accept collectivist ideology.

According to the psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, totalitarian states come as a result of the general populace “abandoning their own identities and adopting a pathological group identity for any number of reasons. One of them being the desire to shrink from individual responsibility and their desire for ready-made ideological solutions”. This acceptance of “ready-made ideological solutions” is harmful to nations and individuals alike.

What can we do?

Though there are many people who legitimately suffer at the hands of oppressive governments, accepting cheap ideological solutions only makes it easier to attribute our unfortunate circumstances to others. Our character is weakened when we blame all of life’s challenges on someone else. The journalist Andy Ngo said about his past membership to Antifa that it was “appealing to direct hatred and anger at others for my own failings because it meant I didn’t have to take responsibility. It’s much easier to blame a ‘system’”.

Despite our best efforts to construct a perfect society this life will never be without suffering. Humans are imperfect, and so are our institutions. Dependence on the “oppressed” versus “oppressor” narrative to rationalize life’s struggles does nothing to solve the fundamental problem. In fact, it leads to the degradation of society as a whole. Love and equality will pervade our society when, and only when, each individual shoulders the responsibility of becoming who he or she could be if they held themselves accountable for their joy and success.

The key to freedom, and joy for that matter, is the acceptance of personal responsibility for one’s own actions and destiny. This is what gives individuals meaningful identity!

Instead of basing our opinions on group identity, we must embark on our own individual search for truth; an intimate and honest search for higher meaning. This search, if made sincerely, will invariably lead us to God, to elevated morals, to sacrifice, to change, to do good. If our life goal was to be the best we could be, and if we sincerely strove to improve, imagine the good we could do in our community and country!

So, choose responsibility in a world of identity politics.

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