The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time

by Yascha Mounk

But liberalism has coherent responses to these ideas. Building on the criticisms I have made of particular applications of the identity synthesis in part III, these responses take well-founded criticisms of past and persistent injustices seriously while offering a more constructive way forward; recognize the great importance that markers of group identity play in the real world without taking them to be the key to all of cultural and political life; beware the tendency of all institutions to favor the powerful while recognizing the ability of universal values and neutral rules to push societies closer toward treating all people as genuine equals; and encourage us to live up to the ideals on which liberal democracy is based rather than to abandon them because we will inevitably fail to do so perfectly.