Douglas Murray’s latest book The Madness Of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity is a wonderful dissection of the current times we live in. A time in which identity politics pervades every aspect of our lives. It is madness and the book does a great job of showing just how mad things are right now.
At the end of his book Douglas Murray laments on why politics is one of the unhappiest pursuits of personal meaning. This is because politics is laced with a passion and a rage that “perverts the whole enterprise.” The end game of politics is not to discover what is true. However, Murray does believe in retaining an interest in politics, but not to rely on it as a source of meaning.
In the last two paragraphs of his book, Murray talks about why concentrating our energy on identity politics is a waste of time, energy, and life. Here is the direct quote below.
But of all the ways in which people can find meaning in their lives, politics – let alone politics on such a scale – is one of the unhappiest. Politics may be an important aspect of our lives, but as a source of personal meaning, it is disastrous. Not just because the ambitions it strives after nearly always go unachieved, but because finding purpose in politics laces politics with a passion – including a rage – that perverts the whole enterprise. If two people are in disagreement about something important, they may disagree as amicably as they like if it is just a matter of getting to the truth or the most amenable option. But if one party finds their whole purpose in life to reside in some aspect of that disagreement, then the chances of amicability fade vast and the likelihood of reaching any truth recedes.
One of the ways to distance ourselves from the madnesses of our times is to retain an interest in politics but not to rely on it as a source of meaning. The call should be for people to simplify their lives and not to mislead themselves by devoting their lives to a theory that answers no questions, make no predictions and is easily falsifiable. Meaning can be found in all sorts of places. For most individuals it is found in the love of the people and places around them: in friends, family and loved ones, in culture, place and wonder. A sense of purpose is found in working out what is meaningful in our lives and then orientating ourselves over time as closely as possible to those centres of meaning. Using ourselves up on identity politics, social justice (in this manifestation) and intersectionality is a waste of a life.
We may certainly aim to live in a society in which nobody should be held back from what they can do because of some personal characteristic allotted to them by chance. If somebody has the competency to do something, and the desire to do something, then nothing about their race, sex or sexual orientation should hold them back. But minimizing difference is not the same as pretending difference does not exist. To assume that sex, sexuality and skin colour mean nothing would be ridiculous. But to assume that they mean everything will be fatal.
