{"id":4399,"date":"2024-04-20T22:54:51","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T10:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/?p=4399"},"modified":"2024-08-01T22:36:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T10:36:55","slug":"the-identity-trap-yascha-mounk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2024\/04\/20\/the-identity-trap-yascha-mounk\/","title":{"rendered":"The Identity Trap \u2013 Yascha Mounk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mounk makes the case here for classical liberal values, untainted by what he sees as the distorting effect of identity politics. It\u2019s convenient to treat people as members of their identity groups, according to their racial characteristics, gender, etc. But this is only ever going to be a rule of thumb, an approximation to what we really want. For example, affirmative action policies are probably better than nothing, but we shouldn\u2019t just then sit back and think our job is done. We don\u2019t really want to give people benefits based purely on their identity groups; instead we want to base it on each person\u2019s individual needs. This is much harder of course! We should recognise that identity group-based policies are just a rough-and-ready first attempt; they are not the best solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of good sense in this book. Mounk takes a moderate view on most issues that avoids the polarisation that seems to be everywhere these days. He\u2019s pretty hard-line on free speech though. He seems to take the view that absolutely all kinds of speech should be allowed, even potentially damaging speech like outrageous libel or incitement to violence. I think there are arguments for this extreme view, but he doesn\u2019t really make them; he points out all the dire consequences of restricting free speech, without really exploring the downsides of unrestricted speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel that Mounk mischaracterises Stanley Fish\u2019s view, summarised in the title of his book There\u2019s No Such Thing As Free Speech<\/em>, that speech is never fully free because some kinds of speech would never be tolerated. These would include vicious libel, damaging lies and incitement. So Fish is not saying that free speech should not exist; he\u2019s saying that it could<\/em> not exist. But Mounk misinterprets this and puts Fish in the bucket of anti-free speechers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall I like this book. At least it goes one step beyond the \u201caffirmative action is the answer\u201d \/ \u201daffirmative action is evil\u201d arguments that politicians and the media seem to focus on. Black and white arguments (ha ha) might win votes sometimes but they don\u2019t reflect the real world.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mounk makes the case here for classical liberal values, untainted by what he sees as the distorting effect of identity politics. It\u2019s convenient to treat people as members of their identity groups, according to their racial characteristics, gender, etc. But … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,66,62,244],"class_list":["post-4399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-books","tag-politics","tag-society","tag-yascha-mounk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4401,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4399\/revisions\/4401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}