Mark Lilla, a professor of humanities at Columbia University, and a liberal, has an outstanding article in today's Wall Street Journal, The Liberal Crackup. It is adapted from his forthcoming book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identify Politics. (to be published next week).
The article is complex and nuanced, and very good, but at its core Lilla argues that Democrats had a solid following when they emphasized the "We", the common concerns we all have as citizens that brings us all together. They began losing when they went to identity politics and began emphasizing our differences. The essay traces the history of that shift from the 60s and the effect it has had, for example, on academia, the new (and unsatisfactory) training ground for liberals. Lilla is an optimist - he thinks liberals will eventually abandon identity politics and get back to their real strengths, emphasizing the commonality of all Americans. I hope he is right, but I am not so optimistic, because the new crop of young liberals has been raised, especially in their college experiences, with an entirely different and much more self-centered world view.
I have pre-ordered his book, which, based on this essay, promises to be very good indeed.
Thoughts and observations about the world condition.
See also the annotated book list on the sidebar at the right, as well as the YouTube Lecture list
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