WBM summarizes his book succinctly in its closing lines: “When it comes to economic inequality, we should stop finding ways to ignore it, we should concentrate not on respecting the illusions of cultural difference but on reducing the reality of economic difference” (p. 200). In other words, we should focus on the essentials and not be distracted by the illusory elements of identity politics, particularly when those elements are complicit in the effort to perpetuate the economic system which generates economic inequality.
One example: affirmative action changes the ‘complexion’ of a university’s student body, but it does not increase the number of the poor there, a number which remains pitifully small. At the same time, the putatively progressive admission standards distract us from these economic realities. We look around and see a rainbow of people; this makes us feel ‘just’; however, those people are nearly all upper-middle class. The same is true in the corporate board room; we add some black or female faces and take pride in our virtue; meanwhile we perpetuate a system in which the CEO continues to make 600x more than the average worker. The illusion of ‘opportunity’, respect, and so on masks the fact that the real distance between rich and poor continues to widen.
The book is courageous in demonstrating the nudity of the identity politics emperors and empresses, but in all fairness we knew much of this already. Cornel West and Skip Gates, e.g., have famously noted the fact that affirmative action in the universities has principally benefited the progeny of already-successful professionals, not the struggling young men and women in the inner city. Thomas Sowell has made the point as well and noted (decades ago) that black students were very successful at ivy league schools before the days of the diversity industry.
The vast majority of the book is devoted to exposing the distractions and illusions. There is very little consideration of the socialist alternative which, WBM argues, should be our real focus. He mentions unionization and the raising of the minimum wage without talking about the side effects which these practices sometimes entail. Nor does he mention the role played by federal regulations in hamstringing the small businesses which serve an important role in job creation. He does mention two propositions which he supports: the elimination/outlawing of private education and making college free. There are some problems with each of these. He knows, e.g., that the first is not going to occur for a multiplicity of straightforward reasons, not the least of which is the fact that our elites are generally the beneficiaries of private education and it is a defining characteristic of elites to promote elitism. ‘Free’ college did, of course, exist in the California system once upon a time as well as in the British system. There is no reason why we couldn’t have ‘free college’ in the way that we have ‘free K-12’, i.e., education paid by taxpayers. What WBM does not discuss in this regard is the systematic reduction in expectations that we have seen in higher education since the matriculation of the GI Bill generation. We need ‘free college’, presumably, because this will lead to greater job opportunities and because the new jobs require such an education. The fact is that many good jobs were once available to people with a grammar school education and a few years of high school; however, the expectations were much higher then and students simply knew more. Now 60% go to college; half fail to graduate; only half of the graduates find employment commensurate with their ‘educations’. Free college (which we already have, more or less, through the community college system) would exacerbate the current credential creep and require individuals to have master’s degrees (or multiple master’s degrees) for entry-level positions that were once held by high school graduates. Meanwhile, the failure of vast numbers of students to perform at grade level hamstrings the colleges which must divert scant resources to remedial education. In the PISA test administered to industrialized democracies our performance is pathetic. Our highest position (in reading) is 19th; we fall far lower in math and science skills. We all want our fellow citizens to be successful and we all want to reduce the grotesqueries of income disparity, but unless and until we raise our expectations and reduce the focus on self-esteem (valorizing self-respect and a sense of achievement instead of a delusory sense of identity-driven entitlement) we will continue to be surpassed by other nations in the global economy.
The book is essentially an exposé of the illusions created by identity politics and in that effort it succeeds very nicely. The arguments are persuasive; the evidence that is adduced is incisive and apt. This is not a book about socialism; it is a book that is designed to persuade us that we have overlooked the opportunities offered by socialism. Those opportunities, of course, could be debated. I see little interest in immigration to Venezuela, e.g. and one sees rightward movement in Scandinavia, though Scandinavia is not purely socialist and is, at any rate, a special case for various demographic reasons.
The book is heavily influenced by Stanley Fish (as WBM acknowledges). The rhetoric is designed to capitalize on the putatively counterintuitive and to offer some gentle discomfort to those on multiple positions across the political spectrum. It is well-written and interesting throughout. It is far more significant than, e.g., Mark Lilla’s recent book , The Once and Future Liberal, which argues that identity politics is keeping the democrats from winning elections and keeping their eyes off the electoral prizes. This book gives us a look at identity politics that is far more serious and searching.
Highly recommended.
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Squid Rasslin'
Another prolix, disingenuous smokescreen for Cannibal Capitalist re-colonization of Americans. Bebb Michaels begins this goofy, unedited screed with a fabric of 20 year-old genetics ( all humans are identical re: their DNA - not), garden variety liberal kool-aid on race relations from 19th century slavery to Jim Crow to present , he asserts that there is a fundamental difference between one's culture and one's ideology (not) on this basis, the old hippie smart-aleck word-juggler shames his own tribe ( contemporary USA academia) for its efforts to create a more accepting (diverse) climate between social class, ethnicities, levels of handicap. He makes fun of this era of diversity and accuses purveyors of this attitude of ignoring accelerating inequality in the USA. His argument: liberals do not concern themselves with income inequality in the universities they operate. Liberals self congratulate, camouflage larger social disparity between poor and rich. All human societies since forever have been convection engines that devour a significant proportion of those living in them. Ours is no different. This is not a newsflash. Michaels takes a slivver of this and a slivver of that to make his little slivver of a point here - to what end? He says nothing of the corporate poisoning of the poor and many of the rest of us via foodstuff and enviro chemicals, nothing of the predations of the "Health" industry, nothing about big agra, big pharma, big banking-finance or big, ugly predatory anything that might be adding lives to the poor-pile. He spends the bulk of his text trying to shame his own cohort of academics, sh****g in his own nest for some odd reason. This book was published ten years ago. WBM wrote an extensive afterword that shows ZEEERO understanding of the past ten years of epigenetic research that would dissolve his thesis in its entirety. Michaels is a word-juggler who would rather read lit-crit show-off Frederic Jameson than a book on epigenetics or current thinking about human evolution or African history. He's facile, funny at times in the wildness of his orbiting armada of Russell's Teapots but intellectually lazy. This book is tainted by its flashy legerdermain, it would be radioactive if it weren't so narrow in scope.
Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
Intelligent reading to aid understanding of where we are
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 27, 2019Amazon Customer
A valuable critique of the over-emphasis on diversity
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2017
