The Once and Future Liberal

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics
Mark Lilla

I’ve remarked before on how narcissism has become an all-purpose diagnosis for society’s present ills. (See, for example, my review of Rod Liddle’s Selfish, Whining Monkeys.) I don’t think Mark Lilla ever uses the word in this pointed little book, but his “hyperindividualism” means much the same thing. Either way, the result has been to fragment the once great mountain of progressivism into isolated caves of identity: an identity politics not only opposed to the previous liberal dispensation’s commitment to solidarity but near indistinguishable from the guiding philosophy of the neoliberal world order.

As it now stands, liberalism has become a pseudo-politics focused on theatrics and symbols. The antidote Lilla proposes is a more practical liberal politics built from the ground up around local organizations. Is that still possible? I don’t think “social” media is going to be any help.