In a world of increasingly heterogeneous societies, matters of identity politics and the links between collective identities and national, racial, or ethnic intolerance have assumed dramatic significance - and have stimulated an enormous body of research and literature which rarely transcends the limitations of a national perspective, however, and thus reproduces the limitations of its own topic. Comparative attempts are rare, if not altogether absent. Identity and Intolerance attempts to shift the focus toward comparison in order to show how German and American societies have historically confronted matters of national, racial, and ethnic inclusion and exclusion. This perspective sheds light on the specific links between the cultural construction of nationhood and otherness, the political modes of integration and exclusion, and the social conditions of tolerance and intolerance. The contributors also attempt to integrate the approaches offered by the history of ideas and ideologies, social history, and discourse theory.

1. THE RACIAL ANALOGY

Across European societies, pluralism is experienced in new and challenging ways. Our understanding of what it means for societies to be accepting of diversity has to therefore be revisited. This volume seeks to meet this challenge with perspectives that consider new dynamics towards tolerance, intolerance and respect.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Origins of Political Order offers a provocative examination of modern identity politics: its origins, its effects, and what it means for domestic and international affairs of state In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people,” who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole. Demand for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today. The universal recognition on which liberal democracy is based has been increasingly challenged by narrower forms of recognition based on nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, or gender, which have resulted in anti-immigrant populism, the upsurge of politicized Islam, the fractious “identity liberalism” of college campuses, and the emergence of white nationalism. Populist nationalism, said to be rooted in economic motivation, actually springs from the demand for recognition and therefore cannot simply be satisfied by economic means. The demand for identity cannot be transcended; we must begin to shape identity in a way that supports rather than undermines democracy. Identity is an urgent and necessary book—a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continuing conflict.

Identity politics is a lightning rod in American society. To both its progressive supporters and conservative critics, it is seen as defining the agenda of the Left. Both sides are wrong. Identity politics is not a leftist project. Instead it enables the neoliberal political economy that has caused historic levels of inequality and triggered repression and mass incarceration to deal with the social wreckage. Identity politics is a form of biological essentialism, impeding morality built upon universal humanism and politics built upon solidarity. Unlike the conservative assaults, this book avoids the trivial and silly pronouncements of identity politics (a term generally avoided in the work as loaded and pejorative). It challenges the following key principles of the Identity, Diversity, and Multiculturalism Program: Diversity as Justice—the most important struggle for justice today is increasing the representation throughout society of individuals from historically marginalized groups by ending discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, and similar characteristics; Colorblindness as Racism—race-neutral solutions to the problems caused by racism are harmful to blacks; Race as Culture—members of different races, specifically blacks and whites in the United States, belong to different cultures; Culture as Virtue—cultures should be respected and celebrated. This book forcefully argues that none of these tenets is—or rather should be—a leftist commitment. For progressives who accept the principles, it poses a challenge: How do you defend them from a leftist critique, one that does not deny the continuing significance of discrimination, rather than from the weaker attacks of conservatives? For those on the Right, this work represents a threat. Once leftists return to their core commitments they will form a powerful movement for political and economic change.

Recently, there has been a notable rise in interest in the idea of "toleration", a rise that Ingrid Creppell argues comes more from distressing political developments than positive ones, and almost all of them are related to issues of identity: rampant genocide in the 20th Century, the resurgence of religious fundamentalism around the world; and ethnic-religious wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In Toleration and Identity, Creppell argues that a contemporary ethic of toleration must include recognition of identity issues, and that the traditional liberal ideal of toleration is not sufficiently understood if we define it strictly as one of individual rights and freedom beliefs. Moving back and forth between contemporary debates and the foundational writings of Bodin, Montaigne, Lock, and Defoe, Toleration and Identity provides a fresh perspective on two key ideas deeply connected to current philosophical debates and political issues.

Since the sixteenth century intolerance has been defined primarily as the undue condemnation of an opinion or behaviour. Liberation movements of the 1960s extended the notion of intolerance to the dimension of identity the oppression of another human being on the basis of what that person is. Noël argues that comparative analysis of the relationships of domination must therefore focus on all six parameters. She analyses these parameters from the perspective of discourse (the social production of meaning) and finds that the discourse of intolerance validates the most brutal forms of oppression: intolerance is the theory and domination and oppression are the practice. She finds common patterns from one parameter to another and also from one country to another, including Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and France. Noël attempts to demystify the dominant discourse and to pick apart the logic of the dynamics which intolerance engenders. She reveals the shared and distinguishing features of dominated groups, examines the nature of relations between dominated groups and the Left, and challenges the validity of using concepts such as "difference" to defend the rights of the oppressed. Awarded the Governor-General's Award for Non-Fiction (French) in 1989, Intolerance serves as both a practical guide and a theoretical work for activists and those who help define the discourse.