The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics
By Mark Lilla
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
From one of the most internationally admired political thinkers, a controversial polemic on the failures of identity politics and what comes next for the left — in America and beyond.
Following the shocking results of the US election of 2016, public intellectuals across the globe offered theories and explanations, but few were met with such vitriol, panic, and debate as Mark Lilla’s. The Once and Future Liberal is a passionate plea to liberals to turn from the divisive politics of identity and develop a vision of the future that can persuade all citizens that they share a common destiny.
Driven by a sincere desire to protect society’s most vulnerable, the left has unwittingly balkanized the electorate, encouraged self-absorption rather than solidarity, and invested its energies in social movements rather than party politics. Identity-focused individualism has insidiously conspired with amoral economic individualism to shape an electorate with little sense of a shared future and near-contempt for the idea of the common good.
Now is the time to re-build a sense of common feeling and purpose, and a sense of duty to one another. A fiercely argued, important book, enlivened by acerbic wit and erudition, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our times.
Mark Lilla
Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and a prizewinning essayist for the New York Review of Books and other publications worldwide. His books include The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction; The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West; and The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Read more from Mark Lilla
The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Once and Future Liberal
Related ebooks
Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Libertarianism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Socialist Awakening: What's Different Now About the Left Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism--From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Populist's Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left are Rising Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPresidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of Modern Liberalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, the Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies - New Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Russell Kirk's Concise Guide to Conservatism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Responsibility: Luck, Choice, and the Welfare State Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Moral Economists: R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the Critique of Capitalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Political Ideologies For You
The Anarchist Cookbook Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Mein Kampf: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kamphf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5You're Teaching My Child What?: A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Communist Manifesto: Original Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The U.S. Constitution with The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/525 Lies: Exposing Democrats’ Most Dangerous, Seductive, Damnable, Destructive Lies and How to Refute Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalism and Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We're Polarized Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Once and Future Liberal
50 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really like this book, and think I broadly agree with Lilla, but I wish he had included a section on, you know, suggestions. He says liberals need to win more elections - great, but how? Is he saying that, if only 40% of the electorate care about racism, we should stop caring so as to capture the other 60%? Is he saying that, if we can't win by saying the system has problems, we should just pretend it doesn't have problems to get into office?
Anyhow, a lot to like, and an important argument. Whether or not one agrees with it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a hard book to rate. I resist giving it three stars even though four seems like it might be too many.
This is a super-brief political-social history of the "how we got to here," starting roughly in 1960, but with references to the 40's and 50's, the 1770's, etc. combined with an indictment of Identity Politics in general, but most specifically those of the modern "identity liberal." Then a short section of "we can't just rehash Rooseveltian liberalism" but "we need to make common purpose and citizenship the core of our discourse and liberal platform(s)," without any real specifics beyond that.
I'm sick and tired of identity politics, of politics as the personal, of politics as religion; of the reduction of all and everything to power and nothing more; of much or even all that Lilla is sick and tired (and angry and worried) about. But... I wonder if he gives identity liberalism and its practitioners/proponents too short shrift? He nods in the direction -multiple times- of there being real issues of racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ, etc. But he fails to connect those nods to what he is criticizing.
Much as we need to understand the real issues that are driving "Trump voters" are not all/only about racism, xenophobia, and general revanchism, that there are issues of equality, poverty, criminal justice, "vision" and the like that are completely open to "liberal" solutions, we also need to understand the issues that, to take an example Lilla calls out, BLM are driving forward and/or fueled by. Lilla fails to do that.
But maybe that isn't his role. He's in his sixties, after all, and "social justice warriors" are, broadly speaking, somewhere between their teens and their 30's. Maybe people from that "generation" (edges of X, Y, and Z) need to step up. I think that is happening, at least in some amount. I dunno, we'll see...
In any case, 3.5 stars for part of an important critique and not-quite counterproposal. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I really wanted to like this book. I agree 100% with its thesis: that solidarity is the core liberal value missing in the US on both the Right (libertarianism) and Left (identity politics). And certainly I am hoping for a sane Left to re-emerge not just in the US but in all world democracies where the Left is in retreat. But while arguing forcefully that politics is not a morality play, the author basically falls into the trap he claims needs to be avoided. He repeatedly labels Republicans as evil, Trump voters as misguided & immoral fools, Trump as the anti-Christ. I’m obviously exaggerating, but only a bit. Liberalism is a child of the Enlightenment, and the core value on which that was based is skepticism. Lila lacks skepticism regarding his own political values and beliefs. He lives with the religious fervor that the Democrats are the only true democrats. It’s totally fair to disagree with conservatives and Republicans, and Trump and his voters. But labeling them all as evil and unprincipled while claiming you believe in solidarity, makes you a preachy hypocrite.