The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk;

Author:Yascha Mounk; [Mounk, Yascha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2023-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

1. Claim the Moral High Ground

There is a strange phenomenon I have observed among many different kinds of people, including critics of the identity trap, who disagree with the views that are prevalent in their social circles: something like an internalized sense of shame. It can be scary to disagree with your friends and colleagues. When there is strong social pressure to repeat certain slogans or pay lip service to certain views, a refusal to join in the chorus can, even to the would-be objector, come to feel like a kind of moral failing. And so many of the people who dare to speak up against prevailing views cede the moral high ground before they even open their mouths.

The first group of people who suffer from such internalized shame might be called reluctant heretics. They are so nervous about disagreeing with prevailing sentiments that they practically seem to apologize for their own ideas. Even when they do speak out, they hedge every point in so many concessions that their own position slips out of view. By adopting this tactic, reluctant heretics hope to insulate themselves from criticism. But that often turns out to be counterproductive. For by signaling that they themselves seem to regard their views as somehow illicit, they encourage the enforcers of orthodoxy to use moral shaming or rank intimidation to shut them down.

There is also a second group of objectors—one that may, at first glance, seem to be much more uncompromising, but simply expresses its internalized shame in a different manner. Call them the defiant heretics. The feeling that they are supposed to hide their real views has understandably embittered them. Convinced that everything they say will in any case be poorly received, they express themselves in the form of aggressive lectures or angry barbs. But this tactic is even more counterproductive. For by agreeing to play the part of the bad guy from the start, they give up on a chance to persuade their interlocutors of the justice of their position.

The best way to avoid these pitfalls is to overcome the internalized feeling of shame. So when I notice that I feel nervous about arguing for a position that is unpopular among many of my friends and colleagues (as I have in parts of this book), I remind myself that I am proud of the views I hold. I have thought about them long and hard. They are rooted in a noble tradition that has done a tremendous amount of good for the world. And though I recognize that I am, like everyone else, likely to be wrong about some important things, the views I hold are—virtually by definition—the ones that seem to me most likely to prove right. This makes it a little easier to speak from a position of calm confidence.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.