Let us ask ourselves what we are defending today: the free individual and his personal achievements or his loyalty to a particular community? Why “identity politics” is something harmful and poisonous. And an example that gives hope.
In just a month, Kamala Harris managed to kill a particularly sinister hydra that has been strangling politics around the world for over a quarter of a century: “identity politics”. And with a joke or two, he brought democratic politics back to where it belongs – where, regardless of class, race, gender or occupation, individuals are equally free (i.e. no one is master of anyone) and equal - they have the same rights and follow the same moral rules.
The most important legacy of the Enlightenment
About a quarter of a millennium ago, the philosopher Immanuel Kant asked himself the following question: What would be left of people if we stripped them of their visible characteristics – skin color, religion, language, gender, nationality, etc.? They will remain simply... people, a collection of individuals, equally capable of following reason and arriving together at rules of conduct that ensure a peaceful life for them. Thus was born the most important legacy of the Enlightenment: the free, self-determining individual, capable of infinite development (as long as he wants to) and insisting on being judged by his personal achievements, not by the achievements of any of the groups in which he (willingly or not ) member. As Martin Luther King said two centuries later:
„I have a dream - that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by their character.“
This particular “Kantian” individual is built into the foundation of modern democracy, right and law. Its weakening inevitably destroys democracy, law and law.
How "identity politics" destroys democracy
This is exactly what the ultimate American took up and subsequently – European left sometime at the end of the last century. Her message was: “We will not judge you by your personal efforts and achievements; we will judge you solely by your identity – gender, race, religion. Because you cannot be anything other than being a representative and spokesperson of the group in which you were born”. By this logic, if you're a man it doesn't matter what effort you've made for your own aggrandizement. You will forever be a spokesperson for the “man” identity. - i.e. by nature “above women”, and if you are also white – colonizer of brown and black people. And you can't be anything else.
A few years ago I watched an embarrassing scene on CNN in which a nice black activist lashed out at a decent college guy: “I'm a black woman and you're a white man; and there is no way we can not only ever agree on anything, but even make contact across the chasm that separates us”. This, of course, makes any social contract impossible (it does, however, embody a negotiated agreement). And condemns the people instead of agreeing with each other, to wage tribal wars against each other.
Where has group irresponsibility led
In the place of individual responsibility came group irresponsibility, which returned political culture to the age of early settlement: if you steal your neighbor's hen, the punishment falls on your whole family, since you are its representative. And if you hit your neighbor, his whole family flocks to your gate to cut off your ears.
This throwback to the savage past proved welcome to the far right, which happily embraced “identity politics” and clothed it in its usual forms: religious and national fundamentalism and aggression towards “others”. Thus, the extreme left, which destroyed the ideological basis of liberal democracy, gave birth to the extreme right, which in turn tried to destroy the legal and political basis of the democratic order. The result: Trump, Orbán, Brexit and Putin's war on Ukraine and civilization.
People do what they do because of the ideas they have in their heads. While these representations remained group ("Bulgaria"), and culture centered on individuals was ridiculed ("Eurogays") – there was no way the triumphant extreme (and increasingly Nazi-minded) right would be definitively defeated. That's why fascists and authoritarians swept across the world.
What exactly is her identity?
Kamala Harris has pulled the ideological pole from under the feet of the extreme right (and left) in recent weeks. It dismantled the ideology of group identity that replaced the Kantian individual. And thus made possible the restoration of the democratic and legal order inherited from the Enlightenment.
She is from India on her mother's side, and on her father's side – from Jamaica. She is American by conviction. What is important in this case? “Skin color and identity!”, the “identityists” would croak, but they did not succeed. Whose skin color should determine who Harris is? Indian Brown or Jamaican Black? Or the motley color of her American beliefs? Or her “identity” hiding in being a woman?
Quit this job, Harris herself claims. And he continues: “I am running for president because I am convinced that I am the best person for the job right now, for all Americans, regardless of race or gender.”. It thus brings the focus back to the individual and his own achievements, rather than – on his group affiliation. The ideas of Immanuel Kant and Martin Luther King, on which the civilized way of life rests, have been saved from the clutches of the fundamentalists.
"Don't put me in boxes"
In her campaign, there is not even a hint of the messages in the campaigns of Barack Obama (“the first black president”) or Hillary Clinton (“the first woman who has a real chance of becoming president”). All of Kamala's messages hit on one point: don't put me in boxes, don't look at my color or gender; i'm just the best to date.
With unexpected ease, Harris excavated both the house of the left-wing “identityists”, who took shelter in her Democratic Party, and of the right-wing “identityists”, who managed to take over the Republican Party and broadcast Donald Trump as their leader and candidate. No less important, it showed the vulnerability of the whole “identity” building. If Kamala can, then everyone – at your own level – can (this is, of course, a purely Kantian judgment...). Thus Harris gives courage to all liberal-Kantians around the world, who until yesterday felt helpless in the face of both the extreme left and the extreme right.
Kant strikes back in a terrifying and truly magnificent way. The view is literally breathtaking. Hence the return of the world to the bosom of civilized behavior is far more probable than its descent into barbarism. One victory of the Kantian Harris against the “chief“ Trump would make such a development practically irreversible.
This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and of DV as a whole.