A religious and a secular basis for society. (Part 6)

A religious and a secular basis for society

Part 6: Focus on identity categories takes us backwards; ignoring them takes us forwards

What is it about identity that is so important for modern secular ideologies? We have already considered the crucial point that – when you’ve abandoned the assurance that comes from your relationship with God – you desperately have to find some alternative for a sense of identity that will give you a sense of well-being. Further to this, the ideology of identity is an analysis that considers that a person’s path through life is, if not strictly determined, at least very strongly influenced by the “identity categories” that a person belongs to.

No doubt there are genuine factors to acknowledge, that can be measured statistically, to see if different groups of people are faring differently. We can then take action in order to work for a fair and compassionate society wherever we can detect that, in general, particular groups are disadvantaged, or simply not doing so well. However, in the UK, we have made tremendous progress in recent decades, and show every promise of continuing to do so. Crucially, the identity politics movements go beyond valid observations about injustices in society to claim that identity categories are the overwhelming controlling factor in people’s progress in life and in determining their self-understanding. I consider that these claims are simply false.

I do not judge people by the identity categories that they have. Other people might, but our aim in society is to move to a situation where no-one does. A particular fault of secular ideologies is that they overtly seek to reverse the progress we have made in NOT judging people externally, by claiming that we should focus on these external categories as all-important. Our aim should be to look beyond these external characteristics to the inner truth about a person’s qualities. Instead, the identity politics movements claim that it is essential that we focus on these externals, and so, on a point of principle, enshrine identity categories as the essential means of understanding and governing society, and as the essential measure of self-understanding. The key factor making this way of thinking false and destructive is the idea that it is your categories that give you your qualities and which determine the way you relate to others. This is false – and thank God that it is false.

We can sum up the difference of ideas in this way: On a point of principle, identity ideology claims that people gain their identity from belonging to categories where people are different to each other, and in conflict with each other. This means that such an ideology is not, and cannot be, a means of achieving unity and harmony. It intrinsically promotes division and conflict. In contrast, the key religious idea is that we are all one because we are all children of God. This intrinsically promotes unity and harmony because, as God loves us all, we should love each other as brothers and sisters.

It’s possible that identity ideology has some value as a means of diagnosing what is wrong with society. That is, it tells us what we are doing wrong – we are treating one another as members of categories that are different and in conflict – and so this is what we need to change. Instead, identity ideology claims that these ideas are not the problem, but the solution to the problem. Thus we see that identity ideology is the exact opposite of what society needs.