This essay was published in the Observer on 17 September 2017, under the headline ‘In a society too short of common goals, identity politics are an imperfect answer’. Last November, Columbia University historian Mark Lilla published a comment piece in the New York Times, entitled The End of Identity Liberalism. Numbed by Trump’s election victory, Lilla placed the blame largely at the door of ‘identity politics’, which, he argued, had atomised American politics, undermined civic culture and destroyed the Democrats’ […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Politics • Tags: freedom struggles, identity politics, left, liberalism, mark lilla, racism, universalism