Francis Fukuyama -- Identity: the demand for dignity and the politics of resentment
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[Note: A shortened adaptation of the ideas in this book is in
Fukuyama: "Against identity politics", in Foreign Affairs" magazine,
Sept./Oct. 2018, p. 90.]

In at least some chapters of "Identity", Fukuyama is talking about
human motivation, and he is viewing it from a special point of view
-- the need for recognition and our need to feel that we each have
an identity and a kinship or membership with a group (a family, a
tribe, a local community, an online group, a political group, a
nation, etc.).  He also believes that economic life and economic
gains alone cannot satisfy this need.  And, because it (economic
success and gain) does not, we feel a need to search elsewhere.
And, that causes problems.  Donald Trump's entry into politics is
one dramatic consequence.  A fragmented identity politics, with so
many groups vying for recognition, is another.  Expecting a
government to distribute economic benefits and taxes in a fair way
is difficult enough.  Also wanting our government to give everyone
the recognition and dignity they all desire is an even more steep
hill to climb.

However, there are many ways to satisfy the felt need for
recognition.  Our society and government needs to make room for
(but not provide) many of them,  but not all.  The problem with
Trump is *not* that he received no recognition (glory, attention,
etc.); he got plenty.  The problem is that he is greedy for ever
more of it.  And, is it too much to ask that someone could seek
recognition for something more admirable and beneficial to society
than immense amounts of wealth, fame, and political power?

It takes Fukuyama two pages to get into a rant about Trump.  And,
actually, it might be appropriate to view most of this book as an
attempt to show how identity, the demand for dignity and
recognition, and group resentment can be the basis for how we (in
the U.S.A.) came to have such and unsuitable leader.  Consider the
basic virtues of good leadership such as honesty, reliability, sound
judgement, and devotion to the public good -- Trump fails on all of
those.  His populist nationalism is likely to be harmful for his
base constituency.  And, he is contributing to a world-wide trend
toward a recession in democracy, which is especially disappointing
after a number of years in which we saw hopeful advances toward
democracy in a number of countries across the world.

Is it practical, or even desirable to ask that the government of a
liberal democracy support each citizen's desire for recognition.
The United States Declaration of Independence declares the right of
each citizen to *pursue* happiness; it does not promise that the
government makes sure you are able to achieve it, however nice a
dream that might be.

And, then there is the argument for humility: Why is it that we all
need recognition, a feeling of importance, etc?  Wasn't that
Socrates's lesson when they came to him and asked about a wise man,
and he took them to talk with someone else?  Sigh.  We can't all be
Socrates, I'm sure, but we could try a little.

Certainly it is important that we each feel that we have some
control over our own lives and that we have some influence on the
decisions made be our government.  Our emphasis on individual rights
and fair elections is an attempt to provide that.  But, an identity
politics with its follow-the-crowd mentality, however small each of
those crowds may be, does not seem like a useful way to provide for
that need.

Everyone seems to be talking and writing about identity and
tribalism these days.  We need to ask: Why is this topic so "hot"?
Why is it "trending", as they say online?  Is it because it is truly
disruptive for our politics and governance?  Or, is it because,
although a need for identity, belonging, and even tribalism in
itself is not disruptive, we in the U.S.A. have an extreme form of
it with hard-headed partisanship and an unwillingness to compromise?
Isn't that what causes the dysfunction in our U.S. government and
its inability to act and govern?

Immigration -- Fukuyama has good suggestions for dealing with this.
Most of them revolve around compromises and trade-offs between (1)
more support for helping immigrants to assimilate and become
productive in our society and economy and (2) additional
restrictions and control at the border.  However, he admits that it
is unlikely that anti-immigration proponents and those favoring
liberalization of border entry restrictions will compromise on these
issues.  If they were, they'd have done so by now.

Fukuyama is especially concerned with the assimilation of ethnic and
immigrant group, or more correctly, why nation states, in particular
those in Europe, are failing to encourage assimilation.  He suspects
that a good deal of the problem is that societies and governments
pay lip service to assimilation, but do not devote sufficient money
and attention to it.

In the U.S.A., one of the drivers of our immigration problems is our
conflicting motivations: we may *say* that we want immigration
reform, but employers really want the cheap labor that comes with
loose immigration restrictions and enforcement.

In a conflict and controversy between those who promote the
self-esteem of minority groups and those who think those groups get
too much already and that they do not deserve what the get, there is
not likely to be much compromising.  This conflict is an emotional
one, not one that is being worked through with the guidance of
reason.  This is also a conflict between those who believe that
people are good and estimable when they serve a larger society and
those who feel that the larger society is a malignant force and the
people are good when they have self-esteem and feel good about
themselves.  And, isn't that one of the conflicts that is at the
heart of the conservative-liberal or conservative-progressive divide
in the U.S.A.?

It's also possible that this is an in-group vs. out-group conflict:
We don't think you people are any good, and you should not be helped
to feel good about yourselves (to have higher self-esteem).  Rural
people think that urban people are corrupt, greedy, and do not care
about community.  Urban people think that rural people are
uneducated and unsophisticated.  Etcetera.  If that *is* part of the
problem, then we're not likely to fix it, and saying "Why can't we
all just get along?" won't help.  Pleading for tolerance might help,
but when there are genuine political differences (disagreements
about allocating money, taxation, foreign policy, enforcing moral
and legal rules, etc.), an appeal for tolerance is likely to have
little effect.  One of the important benefits of Fukuyama's book is
that he identifies and analyzes these areas of conflict.

And, even areas where tolerance seems applicable are a source of
conflict.  There are many, likely on the right, who view demands for
political correctness as pandering and view those who are
excessively politically correct as inauthentic and even dishonest.
That may be part of what is behind the appreciation of Donald
Trump's bases that he "says what he thinks".  It's not bigotry or
racism; it's honesty.  Or, maybe both.

Identity politics has typically been the domain of those on the left
side of the political spectrum: they've promoted it to protect
perceived threats to powerless minority groups.  But, now there
seems to be a backlash as (formerly) dominant groups now feel
neglected, dis-respected, and made fun of by government and by
popular culture, especially Hollywood.  Fukuyama claims that Trump
has promoted and used this backlash.

And, almost everybody feels neglected and dis-respected by the
global, financial, and political elites, except the elites
themselves, of course.

I, personally, want to feel that my identity is something other than
that of some political, religious, or social group, that I'm unique
and special, that my identity is my own and is my own doing.  But,
that really is a symptom of the problem.  Many in our society (or
our different societies?) would feel that I'm lacking a sense of
community and that I and others like me are engaging in a form of
extreme and malignant individualism.

Although he criticises identity politics and the fragmenting
influence of having so many identity groups, Fukuyama does feel that
there are genuine benefits from a reasonably strong sense of
national identity.  Some examples: (1) A strong national identity
produces a wider radius of trust.  (2) Citizens who have feelings of
national identity are more likely to support a stronger social
safety net that cares for all citizens.  We ought to ask, is that
really true?  Won't they support only efforts to aid "people like
us"? And, (3) a sense of national identity enables the formation and
maintenance of a social contract between government and its
citizens.  Again, we should question this.  That's not to detract
from Fukuyama's book, "Identity", since Fukuyama is an analyst and a
theoretician; his goal is to make us think and question; he is *not*
a ideologue with an agenda to make us all believe exactly what *he*
believes.

An interesting comparison can be made between Fukuyama' ideas and
the ideas of Yuval Harari in his book "Sapiens: a brief history of
humankind".  Harari is also concerned with concepts analogous to
that of identity, although he describes them as the stories a
society/civilization tells itself.  It's these stories, Harari
believes, that enable a civilization (or nation or even a community)
to work together in a coordinated way to accomplish things that
would be impossible by individuals acting alone.  But, those stories
(myths, beliefs, ethical rule sets, etc.) give a society a distinct
sense of self, i.e. an identity, and, *importantly* in smaller units
(e.g. province and local community), they enable a sense of self as
distinct from others.  So, one take-away from a reading of
Fukuyama's "Identity" and Harari's "Sapiens" is that that which
divides us also enables us: it enables us to build the cites and the
roads, to create and run the schools and libraries, to develop and
use technologies and medical advances, and much, much more.

Fukuyama spends a reasonable amount of time in "Identity" discussing
the issues of and problems with "modernism".  One problem is that
living in a modern society, we have more freedom about how we live
and what we do and what kind of person are.  But, freedom of choice
produces anxiety: we are responsible for and guilty of and admired
because of our choices and actions.  Those who feel this sort of
anxiety more intensely and profoundly will feel more comfortable in
a community of like-minded people who specify, follow, and even
enforce societal rules (a moral code, a particular political order,
etc.); they will feel better when those rules are well-defined and
clear to everyone, even when they are rigid.  Conversely, those who
feel less or no anxiety with that kind of freedom and those choices
and in an environment where the rules are not clear or rigid are
more likely to feel comfortable in a social unit (if it's a unit at
all) that is large, that provides anonymity, and that gives
individuals less direction.  Again, we seem to be centering around
the rural-urban conflict.

Modern liberal economic and social and political systems encourage
change (and innovation, of course).  These changes exacerbates the
problems of freedom and choice, and likewise the benefits.  In
addition, it further intensifies the urban vs. rural divide by
sharpening the differences between urban society, where change is
encouraged, and rural society where change is discouraged and
conservative values are preserved.

Modernity means, for one, that identity is not rigidly tied to
biology and is independent from biological type, for example, race,
gender, family/genetic heredity, etc.  Thus, we each have more
freedom to *choose* our own individual identity.  Again, that can be
a source of anxiety for some and can produce feelings of
exhilaration for others.  And, perhaps even more important, new
research and discoveries in genetics make our old ideas about racial
and ethnic divisions doubtful.  With respect to race and ethnicity,
and perhaps gender, too, we are not who we think we are; the
boundaries between races and ethnicities are more porous and fluid
than we thought.  The genetic differences that we thought were
distinct and the we felt we understood are turning out to be more
complicated and more murky and often less useful for marking
differences between you and us, whoever groups "you" and "us" are
meant to refer to.  For detailed discussions of this see: (1) "Who
we are and where we came from", by David Reich and (2) "The tangled
tree", by David Quammen.

Although "Identity" is a small book, it is effective at stimulating
thought on a variety of important issues.

11/19/2018

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