Grievance Identitarianism

By Shlomo Maital    

WHOM do I complain to about YOU?!

       Today’s New York Times Op-Ed carries a piece by a Princeton University (my alma mater) professor, a Conservative right-wing thinker, advising students with similar views on how to survive in a liberal left-wing institution.

        Avoid “grievance identitarionism”, he counsels.

         What in the world?

         Identitarionism is an ideology in which people act and think and speak, only according to the group or tribe with which they identify.  Grievance identitarionism is identity determined through shared grievances, peeves, wrongs, grudges and insults.

          Does this sound familiar?  It seems to describe many white male Republican voters.  Don’t get me wrong.  This group has lots of grievances. Democratic administrations sold them out, by opening the floodgates to cheap Chinese goods, at a time when China didn’t buy much from the US, thus destroying the livelihood of many factory workers. 

           The current vitriolic Presidential campaign seems to pit grievance identitarionism (spell-check keeps outlining that ghastly word in red!) against the Kamala politics of joy and hope.  The outcome is not clear. Grievance is a very strong emotion.  And Trump knows viscerally how to tap into it, into the very worst of our darkest emotions.

               There is a message in all this.  If you build a global wealth machine, and leave out huge parts of it dooming them to languish rather than thrive, you will in the end sooner or later get grievance – migrants, violence, and far-right candidates who speak lies and still win elections.   Worldwide.

                All this mess could have been prevented with a little foresight.  Foresight and common sense seem scarcer than hens’ teeth these days.