![]() ![]() This has two obvious effects. First, it renders the idea that we can have a confident pluralism of the kind advocated by thoughtful and decent men such as David French and John Inazu a practical impossibility. The politicization of everything means that all disagreements will be cast in moral terms, a simple clash of good and evil, which makes dialogue impossible. I suspect that expressive individualism merely provides the general plausibility structure of the specific problems we face. That it has taken on the aggressive form of sexual identity politics is not a necessary concomitant of such but rather the result of a confluence of various social, cultural, and historically contingent conditions. The real problem is the abolition of the pre-political, that we now operate in a society where everything has been politicized and where (in the United States at least) this total politicization of culture finds its resolutions not through the ballot box, but through the judicial branch of government. He happens to have chosen an identity that is increasingly unacceptable in our world, but he has nonetheless made the choice.Īs Charles Taylor has argued, the rise of expressive individualism is connected to the breakdown of old, honor-based medieval hierarchies and the rise of an egalitarian emphasis on the universal dignity of all human beings. Christians should welcome this. The idea that we are all made in the image of God is vital to Christian ethics, especially in connection to the unborn, the vulnerable, and the infirm. This should temper any nostalgia we have for the pre-modern world, where such universal dignity was not practically acknowledged, and also lead us to reflect on how we might affirm such universal dignity without the problems of expressive individualism. Ahmari’s own story is remarkable and one for which I give thanks. But at its heart lies a choice: the decision to express himself as an individual through a Roman Catholic identity. We are all now subject to expressive individualism. To be Roman Catholic today is a choice, even for cradle Catholics. ![]() As “gravity” is an accurate explanation of why the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11 and yet offers no real insight into the events of that day, so decrying individualism does not explain why some identity choices-homosexual or transgender-are acceptable, while others-traditional Roman Catholic or conservative Protestant-are not. While I agree with Ahmari and First Things colleagues and friends that expressive individualism lies at the heart of our current problems, I do not think there is any clear way out of this dilemma. Expressive individualism is a universal condition in the West. The discussions surrounding Sohrab Ahmari’s salvo against David French have generated much heat-but whether they have produced much light is debatable.
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