The Rise of Identity Politics is Inevitable in Socially Atomized Societies

Strengthening family and community is the only solution

Owing to the human capacity for self-reflection we are always in danger of losing a sense of purpose. Immediate needs are sufficient for animals because they cannot ponder what they are doing or where they are in life, but they fail us as soon as we begin to question ourselves. This is why, in times of crisis, people are not as prone to existential despair; their immediate circumstances provide answers to these questions. Whenever survival is more precarious we have ready answers as to why we get up and carry on, and these tend to revolve around self-preservation and, crucially, the well-being of our loved ones.

Soldiers often report that in battle their primary concern and loyalty is to those fighting alongside them. Politics, moral ideals and other lofty goals diminish to nothing as the heat of battle intensifies and mere survival hangs in the balance. All that remains is "will my comrades and I make it out of this alive?" Terror is eased only by the reassurance that one's fellow warriors are fighting with the same goal, together, and all will cover each other. Amazing stories of self-sacrifice emerge from war, demonstrating the reality and intensity of this bond. It is celebrated as one of the highest of human ideals amidst the worst evils of man made strife as attested by the many holidays and memorials to wartime sacrifice.

War, of course, is the most extreme example. We have many others that highlight human heroism in accidents, natural disasters and criminal assaults. Fathers sacrificing for families, mothers for children, brothers for sisters and so on.

These are all manifestations of a primal kind of faith; an idea that there is some purpose to one's love for others that extends even beyond the self. As social beings, this faith is profoundly connected to those who are part of our community — our extended social family. What we call altruism is really a belief in the transcendence of our love.

The importance of this socially-generated faith explains the anomie that characterizes socially atomized societies. Randian individualism doesn't provide anything like this faith that inspires perseverance and purpose. Instead, it relies only on a dysfunctional narcissism that ultimately fails to justify any sacrifice at all, leaving the individual devoid of purpose beyond short-term satisfaction. This is why the clinical narcissist is prone to self-destructive behavior despite being self-absorbed: there is no coherent purpose to his or her life.

Naturally normal people will not accept such a life, so they go casting about for something that provides them with the purpose and belonging they are looking for, and this is where the “identities” step in to fill the gap. If family and community have been scattered and disrupted, people tend to create them from scratch, even if only conceptually, so as to fulfill that spiritual need for community and purpose.

Hence the gangs that emerge in atomized immigrant communities, the radical movements on college campuses and the political gangs of estranged misfits concentrated in West Coast cities. The more disruption of community and family, the more appealing these pseudo-familial groups become. This is why the contemporary American big city, in which community and family have been replaced by maximally-exploitable individuals, is a hotbed of so-called "identity politics." The need to belong to a community that provides that basic social faith drives these individuals directly into the arms of those who paint a sympathetic - if contrived and imaginary - picture of a community of people all in it for each other against an uncaring, often hostile world.

These pseudo-communities are based on race or ethnicity, sexuality, gender and even economic and political ideologies. Some spring up around fans of comics, nature cults and other various concerns that might, in a normal society, merely be an idiosyncratic interest. It is practically a law of nature that identity politics will arise in the right conditions, but also subside when those are removed.

This demonstrates that fighting identity politics is futile without addressing its causes. It is not some infectious disease that breaks out and can be contained, but rather the natural consequence of primal human needs, which will be met one way or another. If our leaders really wanted us to rise above identity politics, and there's no real indication that they do, they would work to restore some stability to the family and to protect communities from economic exploitation and disruption.

Although this would ultimately strengthen our society and lead to sustainable economic growth, it would come at a cost to certain ambitious individuals and organizations. These individuals and organizations may not be willing to pay this cost, so before embarking upon such a project it would be necessary to assemble a sufficient enforcement mechanism to ensure that they do. It is for their own good, after all, because if not checked they, like the clinical narcissist, will squander everything for short-term gain.