Tag: The Once and Future Liberal

Look around our world. This is the world sketched by American lawyer and academic Amy Chua in her new book, Political Tribes. The US, she says, is "in a perilous new situation: with nearly no one standing up for an America without identity politics: for an American identity that transcends and unites the identities of all the country's subgroups". Professor Chua says the country is divided over race and class: black lives matter versus white lives matter or all lives matter. Professor Chua calls this the WWE tribe, named for their fondness for World Wrestling Entertainment; these are the people who love motorsports — the "NASCAR Nation". Ms Clinton and Mr Trump played identity politics, but Mr Trump did it more effectively. He directly challenges ideas of political correctness and identity. Dr Peterson argues we live between order and chaos. Professor Hollinger doesn't accept the permanence of race or colour; he argues that defenders of multiculturalism need to move to post-ethnic perspective that "favours voluntary over involuntary affiliations". As Amy Chua reminds us, cosmopolitans "don't see is how tribal their cosmopolitanism is".