Identity Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Identity

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Zusammenfassung von Identity

Name: Identity
Rating: 4.3 (92 reviews)
Author: Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama

The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment

4.3 (92 Bewertungen)

27 Min.

Themen

Kultur Demokratie Anthropologie

Inhaltsübersicht

Identity
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What’s in it for me? The history and hindrances of identity politics.

Contemporary society has some serious and sickening problems. The Black Lives Matter movement has called attention to police racism and brutality, and the #MeToo movement is countering sexual harassment and changing our workplaces for the better.

But those of us who live in modern liberal democracies seldom appreciate how fortunate we are. Racial discrimination is technically illegal, acceptance of homosexuality is at an all-time high and women are permitted to pursue higher education and careers. Just a generation or two ago, this wasn’t the norm.

In Identity, Francis Fukuyama explains the issues around today’s identity politics. He agrees that our states still harbor serious injustices, and also notes how identities can divide societies and prevent us from building coexisting communities.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

which thinkers were crucial in forming the idea of identity;
why the gay marriage movement isn’t about inheritance rights; and
what we can do to build more inclusive identities.

Human beings crave positive judgments about their dignity and worth.

Have you ever won a sporting competition, workplace award or academic accolade? If so, no doubt you felt proud and content. The joy gained from being recognized and valued is one of life’s great feelings, and it’s a natural reaction that we all share.

This truth was known as far back as ancient Greece, whose scholars believed that we all crave positive judgments about our worth and dignity. The philosopher Socrates even argued that this was a distinct part of our souls: thymos.

Investigating human nature, Socrates identified three parts of the human soul. The first centers around our primitive desires, such as thirst or hunger. The second is more rational – like the voice that tells us to avoid rotten meat even when we’re hungry. But independent of these is a third part, thymos, which yearns for dignity and recognition from other people.

If we receive these positive judgments from our community, we become proud and happy. If we don’t, we feel angry about being undervalued, or ashamed at not living up to others’ expectations.

And thymos is crucial to understanding today’s identity politics – a tendency for people to form political alliances based on membership in a particular group. Identity politics is rooted in thymos, because it revolves around a particular group’s fight for dignity and recognition.

Let’s look at the gay marriage movement. In the last twenty years, and thanks to growing public pressure, many countries have legalized same-sex marriage. For the couples involved, there are clear economic motives driving their desires to wed: married couples tend to receive unique tax benefits, and there are important legal consequences regarding things like rights of inheritance. But these issues could be solved with a civil union, which often offers participants the same legal and financial benefits as marriage, only under a different name.

Yet for many, civil unions are unacceptable. If they offer the same economic and legal benefits as marriage, what exactly are gay marriage proponents fighting for? The answer lies in thymos.

Supporters of gay marriage are fighting for equal recognition. Civil unions allow gay couples to be together legally, but they also imply this bond is different from a heterosexual one. Advocates want their governments to recognize clearly the equal status and dignity of same-sex couples.

So, thymos helps us understand that recognition is a primordial human desire. Our current understanding of identity, however, is far newer.

The modern concept of identity is tied to individualism.

Today there are countless ways to express our identity. From the music on our computers to the clothes we wear and the blinks we read or listen to, small decisions accumulate over time, building up a mosaic that makes us us. This is such an ordinary and unconscious part of modern life that we scarcely recognize it – but it hasn’t always been this way.

In fact, our current understanding of identity has its roots in the rise of individualism over the last five centuries. This is a philosophical principle that spotlights the “inner self” within each of us.

The French Revolution kick-started two basic forms of identity politics.

Today, the French Revolution brings to mind graphic images of guillotines and bloodthirsty mobs. But before violent extremists hijacked the movement, it was based on a set of progressive and admirable principles. These have profoundly influenced how we think about government, and how we think about ourselves.

At its most fundamental level, we can view the French Revolution as a struggle over dignity.

Nationalism is a form of identity politics.

The French Revolution thus transformed the demand for recognition from a personal struggle into a political project. It also created two types of demand, which would become two forms of identity politics – one campaigning for the recognition of individual dignity, the other for the dignity of a certain group. Now let’s explore this second campaign in more detail.

One German philosopher in particular was crucial in shifting the struggle for recognition toward collective groups based on national and cultural traits: Johann Gottfried Herder.

Modern liberal states are now responsible for the self-esteem of their citizens.

These days, mental health issues finally appear to be getting the recognition they deserve. In many countries, governments are taking psychological issues more and more seriously, and funding for psychiatric services is increasing. But while this has recently been a prominent issue, earlier governments were not blind to its existence.

In fact, since the end of World War II, modern liberal democracies in Europe and North America have undergone a “therapeutic turn.”

The 1960s saw a growth in social movements demanding recognition for marginalized groups.

In Western society’s collective memory, the 1960s get a generally favorable judgment. From the moon landing to peace protests to the Beatles, the “cultural decade” sure did have a lot going for it. But behind the tie-dyed t-shirts and rock music lay some more profound changes: a host of social movements dedicated to the equal recognition of sidelined groups.

These movements emerged in the liberal democracies of North America and Europe, an environment already primed to think about identity, thanks to individualism and the therapeutic turn.

Identity politics has fractured the political left.

The British Empire used a cynical but highly effective strategy to govern and to suppress resistance: divide and conquer. The aim was to encourage internal division within a colony, preventing people from forming a powerful political bloc capable of challenging British rule. And surprisingly, this old colonial tactic is similar to identity politics’ effect on political progress today.

That’s because identity politics has splintered the political left, which is now focusing on the recognition of smaller and smaller groups in society instead of fighting for widespread change.

We don’t need to abandon identity – we need to create larger, more inclusive conceptions of it.

There’s not a single person on Earth without an identity. To say we need to abandon our different identities, or to stop taking pride in the different communities to which we belong, is just plain wrong. Instead, to combat division and infighting, we need to build strong, overarching identities that we can all be a part of.

One way to do this is by reinforcing national identities.

We can use policies to build strong national identities and reduce social tensions.

In the last blink, we examined the argument for constructing more inclusive identities based around nationalities, rather than narrower ones centered on religion or race. This blink will provide some suggestions regarding how to achieve this.

First and most obviously, we need to eliminate gender, racial and religious discrimination. Just because identity politics has negative effects for political action doesn’t mean these groups’ grievances are not legitimate. If we can stamp out things like police violence against minorities and sexual harassment in workplaces, activists campaigning for the recognition of their group’s dignity will be able to be slotted into a campaign for an inclusive national identity.

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Worum geht es in Identity?

Today, there is an increasing tendency for groups of people to form alliances based on shared traits, like gender, religion or sexual orientation; this is known as identity politics. But while we should be proud of our identities, they can also divide us. In Identity (2019), Francis Fukuyama charts the evolution of one of modern society’s most divisive topics, explains the problems it raises, and suggests what can be done to fix this situation.

Wer Identity lesen sollte

Progressive citizens curious about the weakness of left-wing politics
History buffs puzzled over the origins of identity
Activists searching for a different opinion on their objectives

Über den Autor

Francis Fukuyama is an internationally recognized academic, specializing in political science and currently teaching at Stanford University. His 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man was a global bestseller and argued that liberal democracies and free market capitalism might be the final type of human government.

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