Given the relentless demands for reparations, land recognition, and gender-fluid pronouns, it’s easy to understand why conservatives are exhausted by the concept of identity. The left has used identity politics as a weapon to relentlessly pummel its opponents, extracting material and political capital from them and using it to buy off its Democratic clientele. Progressives’ obsession with an artificial, hollow collectivism makes it easy for the right to assume that radical individualism is the only answer, but that would be a mistake.
The lack of a true, organic and meaningful identity is at the root of our nation’s ills, and to combat it we must understand the role that identity plays in creating a healthy and thriving social order.
Human beings are defined more by their limitations than by their freedoms, and it is in the limitations of our identity that true meaning is found.
While modern Western culture is obsessed with the idea that individuals choose their own identity, it is important to realize that none of us build ourselves up from scratch. We are all born into families and communities that form the foundations of who we are as individuals.
Identities are never formed in a vacuum. We define ourselves by our relationships with others and by our place in the larger society. Father, son, mother, daughter, elder, child. These are our most fundamental identities and are the ones that influence all other relationships we encounter.
These organic family structures also inform us of the important formative concepts that shape our world: language, religion, traditions, customs, etc. These concepts give us a firm foothold and help us understand how we should organize our lives, how we should treat others, and what the shared moral values are that guide our communities.
Most people never deeply question these beliefs because they form the foundation of social order. These unquestioned axioms act as the pillars of identity that underpin the broader civilization and maintain its unique character. To be a member of a culture is to be defined by the pillars of identity that set it apart from many other societies around the world.
Human beings are defined more by their limitations than by their freedoms, and it is in the limitations of our identity that true meaning is found.
The spirit of the strong, independent individual is deeply etched in the American psyche. The intrepid pioneers who carved out new civilizations in the Western frontier remain the ultimate American archetype, even after those lands were long since settled. But what we often forget about these intrepid pioneers is that their ultimate goal was to bring civilization and create communities where none existed before.
The first structures to mark the transition from trading post to frontier town were churches, courthouses, and schoolhouses. Even the most stubborn people knew from their cultural upbringing that religion, education, and law were essential to the continuation of the way of life they cherished.
Conservatives are often amazed by the speed with which culture is currently changing. New ideological trends seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere, dominate our society, and then disappear as quickly as they appeared. The mass media is the main delivery system for these memetic infections, blasting them like never-ending propaganda through every communication platform until they are superimposed on the general public consciousness.
Parents watch as their children speak and dress in alien ways, chant strange slogans, and spew ideological rhetoric that has no relation to reality. A constant stream of social media, state education, and algorithmically curated entertainment has the power to create entire social movements out of seemingly nothing.
These social movements often manifest as forms of identity: transgenderism, cryptic sexuality, protest movements all become costumes that young people try on, wear for a while, then discard to be swept away by the next wave of memetic infection. Identity may seem like an issue, but it is actually the lack of authentic identity that makes modern societies vulnerable to these relentless waves of ideological possession.
Like a tree with deep, ancient roots, individuals woven into an organic network of rights, responsibilities, and traditions are much less likely to be swept away by the tides. The fundamental nature of our identity is what orients us and stands firmly against the fads and trends that ideologies bring.
Only a strong understanding of who we are and what our allegiance is able to counter propaganda. People whose lives are filled with meaningful relationships and connected to the shared morality of their community have no need to look for a cheap, artificial identity offered by modern leftism.
In the preamble to the Constitution, the Founding Fathers remind us that America is not simply the vision of the current generation, but a legacy to be passed on to our descendants. If conservatives want to fight back against the corrupting identity politics of the Left, they must instill the organic identity that the Founding Fathers relied on to make America great: Christian faith, local traditions, mostly European, before they took on a distinctively American flavor, and the voluntary community associations that defined much of our daily life. This also means reclaiming our responsibility to educate our children and to carefully choose the media we consume. We cannot hand over the minds of the next generation to those who seek to destroy us and expect them to return intact.
In a sea of ideological propaganda and social conditioning, only organic networks of faith, family, tradition and obligation can withstand the raging waves. In the fight against identity politics and social programming, the answer is not the radical decentralization of the individual, but a healthy and vibrant identity that our Founding Fathers promised as the birthright of this great nation.
