Francis Fukuyama: National Identity vs. Identity Politics

Stanford's Francis Fukuyama says that for America to find a new national identity, it must focus on class issues instead of identity as a dividing point.

[Pinkdam]

Probably very tall and very short people have more in common with other very tall or very short people outside their group than they do with average height people within their group. But what of it? Fukuyama is verging on Lewontin, in a sociological form.

Then, consider that sociological classes are usually retrospective, in that they have their lines drawn where disparity already exists; the whole point of the university system is that it is a difference in degree from high school education so as to require another institution altogether.

[jdzentrist]

Excellent, as usual. Just a thought or two here. No more comments were possible to me, after listening to Douglas Murray and Peter Robinson, in Florence, (June, 2019). My conservative side says of course that I have a "human nature." My liberal or progressive side agrees with the "postmodern" side (pick your own 'poison-philosopher') that "human nature" can, as it were, develop or change--but let me stress here: we can improve our characters through things like AA or a good liberal arts undergrad education. Murray, a gay man, is however against this new "dogmatism, " this new "religion, " that your individual IDENTITY, as something you were "born with, " is now the metaphysical prinicple of all life, all poltics, all meaning. Diversity, which used to be an attribute, whether of "orientation" or "race" or "gender" or "class, " is now the TOTAL SUBSTANCE OF BEING. I'm referring to what Murray calls, already in June, 2019, WOKE. This new "civil religion" which, to question about, is to commit career-suicide, to give just one example. I'm reminded here of just how relevant today, is the teachings handed down to me, in the mid-seventies, by my "Straussian" professor. Back then, I rebelled at his "narrow-minded dogmatism." (He was and is a Republican.)-Now, half a century later, it all makes sense. The standard IS nature (for the classics, Thucydides and Aristophanes); Modernity willfully changes the "standard" to the human WILL. Such that, today, as I type this, i am theoretically able to decide, if I want to, to "become a woman." Of course, I've oversimplified. But it's never been more clear to me, after listening to Murray and Fukuyama, and reflecting back now on the wisdom of that young Straussian Ph.d., that there HAS TO BE A COMMON STANDARD of some kind, a communitarianism. So interesting that even the epitome of POSTMODERNISM, Foucault, seems to have turned around, so to speak, in order to rethink what he had thought was "the order of things." His newly found conservatism was such, as I understand it, that the "classics, " at least, were worth revisiting, and he was doing just that near the end. He remains, I take it, a revolutionary, not a reactionary, but a "conservative" in the sense that probably Strauss had some effect on him, such that he wanted to rethink all the classic texts (Plato and Aristotle), in light of everything he had learned from Marx and Nietzsche and Company. In other words, I think he would be nowadays agreeing, in part, with both Murray and Fukuyama, about the possibility that, with WOKE, "we may lose all the progress we've made." As an example, Murray talks about a talk he gave in Germany, in which he claims that afterwards, someone said, contrary to MLK's insight, that "not to judge based on color of skin"...was DANGEROUS. This, I agree, is an unacceptable extremism.

[MrRubydoobs]

This guy takes a real metropolitan viewpoint

[patrickvernon]

I have 3 degrees but I’m white so I don’t get the job. I’m also more self educated but I don’t fit the liberal totalitarian ideology so I’m out

[johnstewart]

I wonder if Americans could teach neighborliness in the old white Protestant form, but without the racism, sexism and homophobia? I'm thinking of simple Christian communities in literature: Winthrop's city on a hill sermon includes "“that every man afford his help to another in every want or distress”, and the love between each other and to God, because “[l]ove is the bond of perfection”. Furthermore, he claims that they as a chosen people in the New World must resemble God as “He loves his elect because they are like Himself”;

[TheNoblot]

problems of identity could create problems not knowing who you are, however it is the men that makes the name as it is the king that creates the nation 🤔🪐🛡⚖How about the European🌍⚖🛡 version 1989 revisited 2024/2025/ EU Europe / new challenge for you 🤔🌍same patter same complexity and same military spending collapsing from the inside out 🤔⌚🏔🛡End of History EU version 🪐