Doha Debates: Has social justice become the new religion of the West?

[0:07] Traditional religious frameworks have been losing influence in many Western societies. [0:11] So what is filling that void? Many say it's social justice movements, [0:16] that they offer an alternative to help people find meaning in their lives. [0:20] I'm Mohamed Hassan and this is the Doha Debates Podcast. [0:27] I don't start from the supposition that human beings are naturally good. [0:37] I start from the supposition that human beings are going to surround themselves [0:41] with their own kind if they can. [0:43] And it is a minor miracle if we get anything like toleration or pluralism. [0:47] But I think broadly speaking, if you if you decenter Christianity from the conversation, [0:53] you see that, you know, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, [0:59] but also globally in many ways that I think it's critical for the world to sort of unlock, [1:04] you know, seeing itself in the mere opposite image of the West. [1:08] But we've never tried a basic thing called for by your understanding of original sin. [1:15] Repent! Where is the repentance of America? [1:19] Where is the acknowledgement that what we have done is wrong [1:22] and we must do something to correct what we've done? [1:27] Our question today, has social justice become the new religion of the West? [1:32] I'd like to introduce our guests. Joshua Mitchell is a professor of political theory [1:44] at Georgetown University. Khaled Beydoun is a professor of law at Arizona State University. [1:49] And Michael Eric Dyson is a distinguished university professor of African American and [1:53] diaspora studies at Vanderbilt. A very warm welcome to the three of you. [1:57] Thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. [2:00] We're all near Detroit or in its invariance, so we feel at home. [2:03] So that's what we figured out is that the three of you have that in common. You all grew up in [2:07] Detroit or you have some kind of connection to Detroit. So I hope you bring that, you know, [2:12] that sense of generosity. We're going to agree too much. I'm sorry. It's over. [2:15] I highly doubt that because this is an interesting provocation [2:21] because it taps into a lot of very personal things, identity, religion, morality. And at the same time, [2:27] I would like you to disagree and I would like you to really put your stake in the ground of where you [2:34] stand on these issues, issues that relate very much to our modern moment, whether it's justice, [2:40] whether it's social movements, whether it's the decline of religion in the West. And you might [2:44] even want to challenge that notion. Is religion declining in the West? Joshua Mitchell, can I have [2:50] you start by answering this question? Has social justice become a new religion in the West? [2:56] Joshua Mitchell, Well, the term social justice covers a lot of area. I'm more familiar and [3:01] more comfortable with the term identity politics. And I'd be curious whether gentlemen around the [3:06] table also agree. But my training is officially in political science, but I did half my work in [3:14] divinity school. And so I've been paying very close attention to the deepest longings, I think, [3:21] of social justice and of identity politics. And I think the deepest longing on the left [3:26] and this is where conservatives, I think, don't get it, is a longing for cleanliness, [3:31] a longing for purity. And that is a religious impulse. And in fact, the term innocent victimhood, [3:37] which I think is central to the analysis of social justice and identity politics, [3:42] in fact, emerges out of Christianity. It's a central Christian category. So my view is with the collapse [3:48] of Christendom, you don't get secular world. What you get is what Tocqueville called incomplete [3:53] religions. And I think the French Revolution was the first one. Marxism was the second one. [4:00] You could say post-colonialism is a third one with the colonizer colonized. And I think identity [4:06] politics is attempting to find the answer to the question of purity and stain. That's why conservatives, [4:10] and I speak mostly conservative circles, I keep telling them, what you don't understand is that [4:14] the left does grasp that the central question of life is a religious question, either understood, [4:19] transformed as social justice or as the religious longing for cleanliness. And I don't think the [4:24] right understands that. But I think the left doesn't understand that this really is a kind of, [4:30] call it an incomplete religion, that's Tocqueville's phrase. And I think that's where we are. [4:34] So why do you choose to use the language of religion to describe what many young people would see as a [4:41] fight for morality or fight for social justice? But I think, to come back to my observation about [4:46] cleanliness and purity, the innocent victim category is the central category of Christianity. And I [4:54] think what's happened is that when the mainline churches collapsed in America and in Northwestern [5:02] Europe, I think a younger generation was looking for a way to think through cleanliness and purity. [5:08] And I think identity politics has come along to provide exactly that. So when people say, [5:14] we're not religious anymore, I say, you're asking the wrong question, you're looking in the wrong [5:18] place. Because I think right now we're in what I call the great awakening around the world, [5:24] and it's an awakening under purity and stain. But it's without God and without forgiveness. [5:29] So I think it's an incomplete version, as was Marxism, as was the French Revolution. So I think [5:34] there's a several hundred year development here, and this is the latest iteration. [5:39] Now, Michael, if I can bring you in here, you are somebody that not only grapples in your [5:45] scholarship with issues of identity and issues of justice, but also you are an ordained minister. [5:52] So how do you see these two things side by side, social justice and religion? [5:58] Yeah, well, I think Joshua's presented a very vigorous and engaging kind of genealogy, [6:04] theology, if you will, both in the sense of Nietzsche and Foucault, about a very explicit expression [6:12] of identity and how it has been shaped by circumstances and how religion has played a role. [6:20] I happen to think that identity politics is intriguing, but misnamed in the sense that there's no identity [6:31] identity, more aggressive, vigorous, vile or violent than the conception of whiteness as the backdrop [6:39] against which so much has unfolded. If we want to do a kind of specific genealogy in the West, you know, [6:47] in terms of colonialism, in terms of enslavement, in terms of projecting a white identity as a neutral [6:54] and objective arbiter of competing and rival identities in the marketplace. [7:00] So everybody else gets to be called an identity except the major identity itself [7:05] is never called to account and called on the carpet of responsibility. I think Joshua's point about [7:11] innocence is powerful, but think about another former Christian, James Baldwin, who talked about [7:16] white innocence as a way of absorbing the contact of a dominant culture and coming out yourself innocent, [7:26] not holding yourself accountable. What about this idea that there has been a decline [7:31] of religiosity in the West? Do you even agree with that statement? Do you think it's true? And if so, [7:37] has there been a void left in its place? Yeah. I mean, I'm a Baptist preacher, so I'm preaching [7:43] a lot on Sundays. So I hope it ain't no decline. Are your congregations growing or are they depleting? [7:51] You know, the love offering is pretty steady and it's great. But the thing is, of course, [7:57] I think, you know, we can talk about, you know, Joshua's point about the decline of religion and we can [8:01] say certainly in terms of mainline religious formations, there's certainly been an erosion [8:06] and a decline. But there's also been a concomitant rise and resurgence in some religious circles. [8:15] I can speak about the African-American one. I don't know what's happening in Islam and [8:19] among Muslim brothers and sisters, but I can tell you that there has been a kind of recrudescence, [8:26] a kind of resurgence of religious belief, but a spirituality, right? And I know, Jonathan, [8:32] that Joshua talks about, you know, spirituality in a very powerful way. I think, you know, [8:38] spirituality makes religion behave right. So if religion is ligare to bind together, [8:43] the formal institutional matrix that receives the spiritual impulse may be on the decline, [8:49] but the impulse towards spirituality, I think, continues to be a very powerful and vigorous one. [8:56] Hence Joshua's point about certain elements of social justice being connected to notions of identity [9:03] and notions of religion as well. [9:04] Now Khalid, you're somebody that, you know, aside from being a teacher of law, you are [9:12] somebody that is very upfront and center, not only about your identity as a Muslim, [9:17] but also about your place as an activist. What do you say to the idea that this identity politics or [9:24] social justice movements have become this placeholder for something that we've lost in our society? [9:29] Well, two things. I think that there's an unfair ascription of identity politics to the left [9:35] and specifically to critical race theory and wokeism and whatever term you want to use that is, [9:40] you know, I think myopic because there's an identity politics that is, I think, more sinister, [9:45] as, you know, Michael has stated. And I think a lot more has a deeply, more deeper rooted history in [9:50] this country, specifically tied to whiteness and tied to the weaponization of Christianity to advance [9:55] whiteness. I think it is filling a void, largely speaking, with younger segments, predominantly [10:02] white Americans who are not steeped in organized religion and Christianity specifically and are [10:08] yearning for and searching for a range of things, right? First, community. There's a lack of community, [10:14] which is also being intensified with the rise of social media, right? That's exacerbating individualism, [10:19] being disconnected from real people. Second is, especially on the left, I think this is where [10:27] I'd agree that on the left, there's a nebulousness tied to identity, specifically with younger [10:35] white folks, because whiteness is stigmatized and derided within leftist spaces. So, you know, [10:41] adopting a leftist or radical or progressive identity sort of like fills that void in ways that, [10:47] you know, makes them more palatable, for instance, in specific communities. Third, I think that there's [10:52] a really, you know, frightening development with regard to dogma, right? I wouldn't call it religion [10:59] necessarily, but zeal and dogma, you know, in sort of like subscribing to specific ideologies in ways [11:05] that are not untrained and not well thought out, that is taking place. So there are some, you know, [11:10] I would say symptoms of the way we think about organized religion that are taking place, you know, [11:15] in social justice spaces on the left, but also on the right, right? So for instance, if you look [11:19] at the followings of people like Nick Fuentes or Candace Owens or Nick Carlson, there's similar [11:25] patterns of zeal, dogma, but also reverence of these figures as almost being quasi, you know, [11:31] religious icons in some regards, right? So I think that it's important to broaden the conversation [11:36] to think about this development of neo-religion as not being just sort of like taking place only [11:43] in the left. It's taking place on the right as well. [11:45] That's really fascinating, Joshua. Yeah, what do you think? [11:47] So I started writing about this a while ago. So again, I am right of center, [11:52] though I call myself a liberal and we could talk about that. I think it's a threefold division. [11:55] I don't think it's liberal versus conservative. I think it's liberal, conservative and left, [11:59] and I'm still a liberal. So I'm very worried about what's happening on the right. It's the alt-right, [12:05] and I mean this in a very precise way because this does trace itself to Nietzsche. And Nietzsche's view was [12:10] Christianity had exhausted itself. You have this extraordinary burden of guilt and no way to [12:16] discharge it, and that's why the West was slowly dying. He wrote about this in the 1880s. And so [12:21] his proposal is in order to have a tomorrow, that's his exact formulation, we have to forget. And what [12:28] that means is we're going to forget slavery in America. We're going to forget colonialism in Europe. [12:32] We're going to forget two world wars. We're going to forget the Holocaust. We just don't care [12:36] anymore. And that is the attitude. I don't know Nick Fuentes. I've never talked with him, [12:40] and I don't follow him, but I've heard enough about him. But I think that is the attitude of [12:46] the alt-right, and I think that's a very, very dangerous development. [12:49] I wouldn't ascribe this ahistoricism only to the alt-right. This has been a fixation of the [12:56] traditional right for a long time. And you see this specifically with the ways in which [13:00] the traditional right has eroded and undermined a range of policies that have been enacted to [13:07] redress the inequalities and segregation that have been doled out against communities of color. [13:12] I mean, affirmative action comes to mind, right? The erosion of affirmative action [13:15] and forgetting about segregation, Jim Crow, slavery, chattel slavery, colonialism. That isn't an [13:22] innovation or a contribution of the alt-right. This has been a protracted plan of the traditional [13:28] right that's been taking place for a long time. So ahistoricism is not unique to the alt-right by any [13:33] stretch. But there's something new going on. I mean, just follow the debates on the right. [13:38] We can talk about all the things that you identified, and I'm happy to do that, but [13:42] something new is happening. You've got a new generation that is completely unhinged from any [13:48] sense of moral center. And there's a lot of things that say... I'll go back to Reagan. There's a lot of [13:53] things that the Reagan conservative party has to answer for in terms of undermining communities, [13:58] shipping jobs overseas. This is the great catastrophe of America from the late 20th century. [14:04] But I do think something new is happening here, this infatuation with Nietzsche. [14:09] Look, I grew up in Ann Arbor on the left, University of Michigan. Slowly but surely, [14:14] I do move toward the center. But I never encountered anything like the Nick Fuentes. [14:21] The John Birch Society was driven out of the conservative movement. Were there races in there? [14:25] Of course. I don't start from the supposition that human beings are naturally good. I start from the [14:30] supposition that human beings are going to surround themselves with their own kind if they can, [14:34] and it is a minor miracle if we get anything like toleration or pluralism. [14:39] Let me come back to what you're saying. Look, the reason why... I'll speak positively about identity [14:44] politics. The reason why it emerged was because of the failure of the American pluralistic model. [14:51] Madison says, there are all these differences, they'll compete, everything's going to be fine. [14:55] And it collapsed because of the civil rights crisis, and it collapsed because of women's rights. [15:00] And that's why? Because presumably under pluralism, everybody's visible, but two groups weren't. [15:07] And so what happens is you get the attempt to render visible those who had been invisible. [15:15] And the central mythos of Christianity, and I don't mean falsehood, the central story, [15:19] is that here's a person who everybody thought was guilty, but in fact turned out to be innocent. [15:24] And so identity politics reveals that the person who's been made invisible should be visible. [15:31] And that to me is a tremendous advance. The problem, in my view, is that the way it does this [15:38] is that it makes everybody a representative of a particular group. So there's whiteness, [15:43] there's blackness, there's these different groups that are effectively essential. And so [15:50] you can't be a black conservative. You can't be a woman who wants to be traditional. [15:58] Look, it's fascinating, you know, getting rid of Nietzsche on the one hand, [16:03] and Sullivan back in, in terms of genealogy, is a brilliant move. And look, the second essay, [16:09] on the Genealogy of Morals, about, you know, that forgetting is devastating. But I think about [16:15] Gore Vidal, who talked about living in the United States of amnesia. So that there's one thing to [16:21] forget, to be made to forget, and to erase, to eviscerate, and to not remember. The gesture of [16:30] not remembering, the point you're making in terms of, say, women's rights, or African Americans, or, [16:37] you know, anti-Muslim, and so on, the truth is that there is one particular identity that is a [16:44] master signifier, so to speak. And that identity is a whiteness that never has to own up to itself. [16:50] So when you say, you know, there's whiteness and blackness, there was never whiteness and blackness [16:54] and brown and the like, until whiteness was challenged. Whiteness was presumed to be universal, [17:00] so that even the quest for a neutral, objective, or universal identity, masks the power of whiteness. [17:08] I mean, you're speaking about the Tocqueville, think about the tyranny of the majority there, [17:13] that gets slipped in. So for me, it's not a matter of, as you said, those invisibilized identities now [17:20] clamor for and stand in need of recognition, what Charles Taylor talks about, the kind of politics [17:26] of recognition. That is true. But at the same time, to have that then indicted as the means by which [17:35] America has, or the West has, somehow disappeared before our very eyes, or the reawokenings, [17:42] the reawakenings that are occurring, I think means that we're missing a central point. And that central [17:48] point is, who gets a chance to validate or invalidate identities? Who gets a chance to say this is [17:54] destructive or creative? And I think that in our own culture, if we had an open competition of [18:01] identities, which sounds rather miserable, according to a kind of fair basis, it would be one thing, [18:09] but it's not fair at all. And now that we are here, it evokes a kind of resistance. Because I think, [18:16] given your, I think, rather powerful and persuasive argument about a, and yours too, [18:21] about a neo-religion and a religious formation, that happens because the real religious impulse [18:27] has been displaced onto these social movements because of a failure of the religious institutions [18:33] to do what they're supposed to do. They got theologies of luxury, you know, ethics of leisure, [18:39] about accommodation to capital, as opposed to the need of human beings to feel connected to each other. [18:47] And social media, I would suspect that Khaled and I would agree with you about some of the damaging [18:54] cancel culture, if we can call it that, that we would both stand tooth and nail against. Because it [19:00] has destroyed the fabric of community that allows people to make mistakes and to say, [19:07] I'm sorry, and to grapple with how our own fallibility has to be acknowledged in the [19:14] context of our relations to one another. [19:15] I think social media is a fascinating point to touch on because it's become this battleground [19:21] for a lot of these conversations. Khaled, do you think that social media overall, [19:26] on balance, has been positive or negative in terms of understanding some of these... [19:30] Let's figure it out right now, right now. [19:31] He's the young guy. Oh, I'm not that young. Is it in balance? You know, I think in balance, [19:36] I would say it's a good thing, even though it's sort of, you know, strapped with a range of perils [19:43] and concerns that I have. And I'm sure that the gentleman with me would echo. But I think by and [19:47] large, I think what's been the greatest sort of net positive with social media is its democratizing [19:53] effect that it's sort of given voice to communities, largely subaltern voices, marginalized communities, [20:00] you know, silenced communities for a long time to finally have space and platform to air their [20:04] grievances. I think what's been happening in Reza over the last two years definitely represents [20:08] that, right? That you could see for the first time the real struggle of Palestinians taking place [20:14] in real time, right? I think that democratizing effect of social media giving voice to silenced [20:19] voices has been a net positive. But, you know, the perils, the cancellation, de-platforming, [20:26] disabling the kind of conversations you should have with people that you disagree with, [20:30] you know, brings forward sort of like, you know, claims and movements to stigmatize individuals [20:35] or to sort of ostracize them, which has a quasi-religious dimension to it as well, right? [20:40] This sort of policing. But I think by and large, it's transformed discourse, but also the ways in [20:46] which we can air news in ways that were impossible before its emergence. [20:51] And it's also allowed people to gather and form communities. [20:55] Yeah, yeah. Which has had, that's kind of like that coalescing is definitely has a religious or [21:01] new religious dimension to it. And some rather destructive and dangerous ones when you think [21:05] about, you know, people coagulating around ideas being radicalized. You know, we ascribe this to the [21:13] Muslim terrorists and as Talal Al-Assad would talk about the suicide bomber, but look at the way in [21:19] which Christianity has mercilessly exerted terror on people's lives, one Christian killing another. [21:29] Yeah. [21:29] I think about when Josh was mentioning about the way in which, say, certain forms of discrimination and [21:35] racism existed. I mean, you had the prospect of Martin Luther King Jr. saying, [21:40] I look at your churches sometime and wonder who is your God, right? I don't even know that God. [21:45] I'm an atheist. Now, he didn't say this is Dysonian interpolation of Dr. King, forgive me. [21:50] But, you know, I'm an atheist. I don't even know that God. I don't even know that religious [21:56] orientation. So I would have more in common with a person who claimed not to know God, [22:01] not to be religiously involved, but who was concerned about care for the other, concerned about [22:07] the demonization and stigmatization of marginalized or minoritized communities or people whose voices [22:14] need to be heard. I mean, I live in Tennessee, so I have a kind of affection for, you know, [22:20] white hillbillies and white southerners who are marginalized. [22:23] I want to pull back a bit from the United States and take a look, because, I mean, I think there's a [22:29] lot going on here. But part of it is this discussion about identity and justice and how these things [22:36] come into play with each other. How do you talk about them politically? And we've seen over the [22:40] last couple of years, over the last decade and a half, a tremendous social upheaval in many parts [22:46] of the world. The Arab Spring, which you've written about before. Of course, the Palestinian movement, [22:52] which is not just rooted in college campuses in the United States, but it is a global movement. [22:56] You're seeing lots of social upheaval in Southeast Asia and Africa. Khaled, when you look at what has [23:01] been happening, how do you explain why there's so much discontent and so much of a search for [23:11] justice happening in the world as we live it today? Yeah, I don't think there's a single thread [23:16] like across these distinct geographies. I think social media has been a conduit for, you know, [23:22] a group communities across these spaces to raise issues and to mobilize. And I mean, [23:26] the Arab Spring was definitely an example of the ways in which it can be galvanizing, [23:31] give rise to revolutions that were once preempted by authoritarian governments. [23:36] But I think that there's also, you know, tying it to, if you want to sort of to globalize the [23:41] conversation on whiteness, and it's not a perfect analog, right? But I think that there is some sort [23:45] of parallel with the way in which colonized populations, right? And specifically populations [23:51] that have been colonized by Western European countries have been imposed upon governments that [23:57] are essentially proxies for those governments that have not served them, right? We can talk about, [24:00] you know, across the Arab world, across Southeast Asia, you know, across Latin America, where, [24:07] you know, populations are finally rising up. And I think Gaza has an interesting role. [24:11] Gaza might be a sort of like common denominator to sort of highlight the idea that, you know, [24:15] this myth of like Western rule of law and human rights that has been sort of like flouted by, [24:22] you know, powerful Western governments is in fact mythic, right? And in some respects, [24:26] like whiteness, like whiteness, you know, being used as a sort of like agile and, you know, [24:31] malleable tool to advance the interests of a select few. The rule of law has had that similar sort [24:36] of dynamic, right? Where Western governments have said, look, we want you to democratize, [24:40] we want you to implant these forms of government, you know, codes, criminal codes, civil codes, [24:46] and so on that look like ours. But they haven't worked for these populations, right? [24:50] I mean, one of the things that you've written about is the racialization of the Muslim identity, [24:54] for example, and how that fits into the global war on terror. How do you think this fits in with [25:01] this conversation about identity versus religion? What happens when those two things, I mean, [25:07] what was that a consequence of identity politics? [25:10] Well, look, there's so much I want to sort of chime in on. I think what's interesting around [25:14] the conversations tied to Islam specifically, is that because Islam, and we can talk about Edward [25:22] Said and Orientalism, has been oriented as a non-white religion, it's been constructed in ways [25:28] that have been demonized for centuries, and specifically, I think even more ominously in [25:32] the post-911 context, where it's easy to castigate Islam as being warmongering, violent, you know, [25:39] prone to violence, patriarchy, lack of modernity, backwardness, sexism, misogyny. [25:45] So it's been, in many respects, classed as non-religion from the vantage point of the [25:51] Christian West, right, which has greater traction now, you know, in the aftermath of 9-11 and the [25:58] war on terror. Muslims who are especially pious and practicing are classed as being collectively [26:03] guilty as a consequence of their identity. We see this in Gaza specifically. Remember that picture [26:07] where the IDF rounded up 40 Palestinian men, stripped them of their clothes, blindfolded them, [26:13] lined them up like animals on the soil, right, in Gaza? The message there was that these brown [26:20] Muslim men are automatically guilty of terrorism as a consequence of who they were, not what they did, [26:25] which clashes entirely with principles of due process and the rule of law that the West touts. [26:31] Joshua, do you think that the West still sees itself through a Christian lens, [26:35] especially when it looks at its role in the world? [26:37] I'm going to say something controversial if I stop now. [26:40] This is why we're here. [26:41] Okay. So, you know, in the 18th and 19th century, Christian missionaries went out to the world and [26:47] tried to Christianize the world. And my view is that identity politics is the latest version of [26:53] Christian missionary work. When I taught at Georgetown starting in 2005, identity politics did not exist and [27:00] my Muslim students came in and they felt just fine being Muslim students. And the last time I was there, [27:05] which was 2019, I had a covered Qatari woman come in to me and say, Professor Mitchell, why are your [27:13] colleagues, mostly on the left, telling me I have an identity, I'm a Muslim? Now, this is very, very [27:20] telling because my view is this, to come back to what I said at the outset, identity politics is linked in [27:26] the Christian category of the innocent victim, full stop. The category of the innocent victim is not a [27:31] theologically central category in either Islam or Judaism. And so my view is in the 17th and 18th [27:37] century, the Christian missionaries went out and tried to Christianize the world. Why would any Muslim [27:42] in their right mind adopt this Christian derivative as a way of thinking through their problems? This is [27:49] the confirmation of the West's continued influence on the Muslim world and the rest of the world. And my [27:55] view is, if you want to talk about the Palestinian issue, don't adopt, in purely Islamic, Muslim, [28:02] Middle Eastern terms, do not use this language of identity politics. But that's what's happened. This [28:06] is the Christianization of the rest of the world, seeing the very real problems of the world in terms [28:13] of the category of innocent victimhood. Including, by the way, sorry, the colonized and the colonized. [28:18] This is the colonizer and the colonizer. This is the same language. Here are the pure ones, [28:21] here are the dirty ones. It's the same language. But it started, but it didn't begin now. Your [28:27] genealogy is powerful, but to me incomplete. The origin of that us versus them, that Manichaean [28:34] distinction resides in a Christianization of the world. And I don't know how far you want to go, [28:40] the auto defeat, the crusades, what Christianity did when they got in power, the Constantinian [28:45] compromise, and so on. My point is that identity only becomes an issue when the dominant identity, [28:53] which never has to assert itself, becomes challenged. There are no identity politics [28:59] when Columbus is slaughtering West Indians, or trying to establish the world, and blankets that [29:08] are full of disease are given to native peoples and indigenous folks. There's never a question of [29:14] identity when the dominant identity has to come out the closet. I'm not here to apologize for [29:19] the Trump administration, but let me explain what I think the problem on the right is. [29:25] And I think this is bigger than the Trump administration. I started out by talking about [29:28] this earlier when I said I talk to conservative audiences and I say no race is a wound in America, [29:33] and you hear a pin drop. I think the failure of the right has been an absolute inability [29:38] to recognize that the wound of slavery is, we are still enduring it, and it's going to take another [29:46] century or two to get over it. And to pretend that there isn't a problem confirms exactly what you [29:52] guys are saying. These guys are, it's the James Baldwin problem of amnesia. So I'm with you on that. [29:56] But let me pick up on something. I know I'm older than you, but... [30:00] I don't know. How old are you? [30:02] Seventy. [30:02] Seventy. [30:03] Oh, you look good. [30:04] You'll look good. [30:06] We'll start saying what he's saying. [30:10] What's your skin care routine? [30:12] After. [30:14] So you raised something that kind of jammed in my mind. You're talking about what was happening in [30:19] the 50s and 60s at Martin Luther King. And there's something that I called the John Rawls problem. [30:24] So, Rawls writes this book, The Theory of Justice, in 1971. And my view was, that put an incredible [30:29] damper on American political discourse. Because prior to that, whether it's Martin Luther King or [30:34] Bishop Fulton Sheen in the 1950s, these Catholics had television shows, the most watched shows in [30:40] America. And what happened starting in 1970s was John Rawls talks about this thing called [30:46] public reason. Basically, your religious convictions, check them at the door. If you [30:51] can't make an argument based on public reason, then we're not going to listen to you. And that [30:55] meant that Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, they had to put duct tape over their mouth and do an [31:02] active translation. So I'm saying we're now entering a new phase, I think, the post-1945 order, [31:08] John Rawls, all that, where you can't have strong beliefs. Martin Luther King was the last one, [31:13] which is why he's the greatest one of the 20th century. [31:15] I think you have a very narrow and, I think, politicized definition of what identity politics [31:21] means that is only being described to the left. Where Michael and I have been trying to tell you [31:26] that we agree in part, but you can't excise, I think, the fundamental identity politic that made [31:33] the United States and much of the West what it is. And that is- [31:36] So why didn't that show up 200 years ago? Why didn't we start talking about identity 200 years [31:39] ago? Because whiteness wasn't challenged to the same degree. [31:42] Because not outed as one among a variety of ethnicities or racial formations, because we [31:50] began to understand in arguing for freedom and struggling against white supremacy and struggling [31:54] against economic inequality and social injustice, the whiteness had to contend for the first time [32:00] with settler colonialism and racialized capitalism, all that stuff. If you're a Muslim, you are automatic [32:06] terrorist, right? The stigma that has been associated with every identity that is not white [32:12] has not been accounted for. And as a result of that, there's a missing link. The resentment [32:18] of contemporary white people misses a historical epic where we had to grapple with whiteness [32:23] for the first time, and it had to be held to account. Black people were the most powerful [32:27] form of Christian articulation in this country, and I would argue still are. White nationalists [32:33] are not the most valuable, valid, or vital, or even virtuous expressions of Christianity. [32:39] And we can't get that acknowledged because race trumps their religious belief. The real [32:44] Christian, the real religion in America is whiteness. It is not Christianity. [32:49] I agree with you that there are lots of problems. I'm not disagreeing that there aren't problems. [32:53] What I'm disagreeing with you with, about, is the categories you're using in order to address [32:58] these problems. I don't disagree with you in terms of understanding the consequences of a 1619 [33:05] project. But the beauty of the 1619 project is that it brings front and center the grappling with [33:12] what the origins of this nation have been about, and the refusal, and I used earlier the term from [33:17] Gore Biddle, living in the United States of amnesia. All the major books on the New York Times best-selling [33:23] all about history, but it's history from a particular point. It's about Bill O'Reilly trying to tell us [33:28] about what really happened with Lincoln and so on and so forth. Bless us hard. And so there is a hunger [33:33] for history, but accept those histories from beneath, those histories that say we have a grittier [33:40] conception of what the truth is about, a genealogy that doesn't comport well with a kind of self-identity [33:49] of whiteness that wants to remain innocent. At what point, Joshua, do we say that whiteness is not [33:57] unsolvable? It's not something that can't be undone. We don't have the will to do so. There are [34:02] all of these complications and consternations around it, but we've never tried a basic thing [34:07] called for by your understanding of original sin. Repent! Where is the repentance of America? [34:13] We don't disagree. [34:14] Where is the acknowledgement that what we have done is wrong, and we must do something to correct what [34:20] we've done? And when you call us neoliberals, I'll take this. The neoliberal argument is about the [34:27] retelling of racial remedy based upon, you know, forms and sales of entrepreneurships. [34:34] I do agree in some respect. I'll take me to take this conversation to this angle, but the way in [34:41] which left-oriented identity politics has been deployed by specific segments, I find to be highly [34:48] problematic. And this whole notion of like collective guilt that is being doled on to white men and white [34:54] women, I find to be problematic. Back to Michael's point, this notion of collective guilt has always [35:00] been assigned to black and brown and Muslim bodies, and still is today, you know, with regard to [35:05] conversations around criminality, terrorism, you know, illegality, mass incarceration, exactly. [35:12] But it only becomes an issue, collective guilt, that is, when it's finally being assigned to white folk. [35:19] Right. Like, why has it been an issue? Why has it not been an issue over these last 25 years of the [35:23] war on terror, Patriot Act, countering violent radicalization, anti-loitering policies, anti-gang [35:29] policies in predominantly black communities, the way in which ICE is now moving into Latinx communities [35:34] like my own where I live in Arizona. Why isn't this notion of collective guilt being ascribed to black [35:39] and brown bodies a principal issue for the right when it's being weaponized against non-white bodies? [35:46] But it becomes like this huge issue of concern when it's finally being assigned to white folk. [35:51] I'm really curious to what you have to say to Joshua's point that identity politics has created [35:56] a sense of impotence where people feel like they're trapped in these categories, but that doesn't [36:02] actually lead to a sense of collective action. Would you agree with that? [36:05] You know, in some ways, in some ways, I definitely do. I mean, even in my work, right, as a consequence [36:09] of the things that I write about who I am in the world, you feel as if this sort of like [36:14] intellectual or existential confinement is assigned to you in ways that really stifles [36:21] your ability to speak freely on issues that you care about, right? Or in dissident ways, [36:28] you know, in ways in which I might sort of like veer away from the groupthink on the left [36:32] amongst critical race theorists. And I have in many ways. I mean, for instance, speaking [36:35] up on Gaza, as openly as I have within legal academia, you know, has brought about a lot [36:41] of, you know, ostracization, even within leftist progressive spaces who have been sort of like [36:46] silenced as a consequence of staunch Zionist pressures within legal academe, right? But I [36:52] think there is a concern where identity politics, you know, can be a, you know, a straitjacket. [36:58] But see, here's the point, and to Joshua's point as well. The problem with the wholesale repudiation [37:06] of a politics of identity is that it disregards the internal machinations of dissent [37:16] in these minoritized and leftist communities. There's a lot of disagreement. There's a lot [37:22] of argument. There's a lot of wrangling about what's the appropriate way. A lot of fracture. [37:28] There's a great disdain in some segments for the very cancel culture about what you speak. I'm calling [37:33] at that, right? And the ways in which you can't automatically just disown people. When I was [37:39] in class teaching a class on Kendrick Lamar, and, you know, my TA said, Dr. Dyson, you know, [37:45] it's about police brutality. What's your favorite album is? I would say, you know, Good Kid, [37:52] Mad City. That's one. And then the one after, what's the one that he got all of the, not the [37:57] one he got the Pulitzer for, damn. To Pimp a Butterfly? To Pimp a Butterfly, because he has [38:01] Tupac weaved throughout. But I'm a Drake man. Don't hate me. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. See what I'm [38:06] saying? See, Joshua? I'm a Drake man. Trust me, I'm in a minority right here, right? And I'll tell [38:12] you why. Because to me, not like us is the most white supremacist, mannequinian distinction between [38:16] us and them that demonizes the other, that reduces blackness to Compton and not the global [38:23] understanding that Drake coming from Toronto and using different identities of blackness that they are [38:28] unfamiliar with and therefore they are illegitimate. But anyway, back to my point. [38:32] I would love to keep having this conversation because I'm deeply engaged. [38:34] Let me say just one thing about Drake. This is what I said. So I'm in the Kendrick class [38:40] and, you know, it's the video where he used the cop is not a real gun, but he's using a gun. [38:49] And my TA says, Dr. Dyson, do you think we ought to issue a trigger warning? [38:54] I said, yeah, okay. Look, this is a video about police brutality. The cop has a gun. The gun [39:05] got a trigger. He going to pull it. Show the video. Like, look, a lot of us are through with [39:12] the fastidious attention to narcissism masked as rigorous commitment to revolution and resistance. [39:19] Come on, bro. But I'm saying we don't understand that, that there is this kind of argument, [39:26] this vital disquisition, this vital dispensation of difference that's being distributed among [39:33] ourselves. And we're arguing in ways that because we're being painted by one brush, [39:37] we never get acknowledged for the kind of nuance and the complexity that we can bear. [39:42] I think this is a good moment to try and drive ourselves home a little bit. And I find it so [39:47] fascinating that so many of these words, redemption, repentance, original sin, keep getting invoked [39:53] again and again in how we talk about this issue. And Joshua, if you can take us forward where [40:00] you think this movement is going, you called it an incomplete religion. Does that mean that [40:05] there's a way to complete it? Or do we have to give up on this religion? Do we have to become [40:10] agnostic or atheistic to it and then return to something else that was there before? [40:14] And invite me back when you do the Drake versus Kendrick, I want to be in front of this. [40:18] All right. Thank you, bro. That's a serious discussion we have to have. [40:21] I'm agreeing with many of the problems. I just think the language of identity politics, [40:26] where you sort out who's pure and who's stained, that's no way to solve it. So either we're going [40:30] to have a continuation of this identity politics or this incomplete religions, or you're going to [40:36] have more and more of the Nietzschean option, which is the alt-right, which is we don't care. [40:40] And I don't want that. I've been fighting about it in print. My view as a Christian in the West is [40:46] the incomplete religions make a promise of thinking through redemption of the world, [40:51] but ultimately it ends up destroying half the people who are the impure ones. [40:58] And so I think that the categories of redemption have to be returned to the church fully so that [41:04] we can solve the problem of staying there so that we can get on to solving the actual problems [41:10] that we're all agreeing exist through political means rather than theological means. [41:15] Are there either of these options you think is the way that we're going, first of all, [41:22] but also is the way that we should be going? [41:23] So I'm a Muslim. I'm from the Midwest. I'm from Detroit. If you go to places like Dearborn or parts [41:29] of Detroit or Philadelphia or Camden or Minnesota, Minneapolis, I would offer the alternative of [41:38] religious pluralism, right? This whole notion that individuals have the right to freely exercise [41:42] their faith in ways that they see fit, whether it's through, you know, the sort of structure of [41:47] organized religion or if it's agnosticism or new religion as being sort of solutions, but [41:51] or new sort of like, you know, you know, prisms in which they can sort of like organize and see [41:58] themselves and organize their communities. But if the only solution in sort of construction of [42:05] American identity and salvation is to be sort of anchored in Christianity, I think that's problematic [42:10] because it sort of perpetuates the sort of cycle that if you're not this, then you are not first [42:17] class. [42:18] Michael, unfortunately, we have limited time, although there are so many branches of this [42:23] conversation we can go in. But to give the final word to you, talking about identity politics, [42:28] which you have defended, talking about religion and religiosity, do you see them as being walking [42:35] hand in hand towards a path towards justice or are they in conflict with one another? Do we need to [42:41] pick one route or the other? [42:43] Thank God, and I mean this literally, that a certain variety, a genus and species, if we look at the [42:54] relationship of Christian identity, has not been permitted to eviscerate my standing as a human [43:03] being, as a citizen and as a member of the church writ large. So for me, given what Khaled just said, [43:13] and I can identify with what Joshua was saying in terms of the West and religious discourse and [43:19] specifically Christian discourse, but I have found it to be an enemy of my humanity that white Christian [43:26] nationalism has undercut me. White Christian nationalism has not said, as a fellow Christian, let me join with [43:33] you to figure out a way beyond the impasse imposed upon us by arbitrary or contingent barriers that [43:40] we must now together remove. No, it has deferred to whiteness as the ultimate option in its own moral [43:49] discourse. The quiver is full of arrows, but they are all pointed at me, not in my defense. So I believe [43:57] at that point, what Khaled has said, that the disestablishment clause is a gift from God. [44:04] No religion shall be established as formal and institutionalized from the American government. [44:11] Therefore, they all can flourish. If Tim Tebow bows on the ground and prays to God, he is celebrated. [44:19] If a Muslim does that and prays to Allah, he is seen as an enemy of the state. So I believe ultimately [44:27] that we must together work toward the belief and what Josh was talking about, that there can be [44:33] transformation. We can believe in God as the motivation for participating in a language that is [44:39] universal, that includes everybody, that allows all people's religions, orientations, [44:46] sections, and divisions to come together under a language that respects the integrity of our [44:53] individuality and yet confers upon us a value in our collective spirit. [44:59] We also have a global audience. And I wonder, Khaled, what you think they can take away from this [45:03] conversation today? Oh, a lot. I mean, a lot of concern that I think. I'm very pessimistic about the [45:09] future of the United States with its rifts, racially and religiously, and these culture wars that are [45:14] taking place. But I think broadly speaking, if you decenter Christianity from the conversation, [45:20] you see that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States, but also globally in many ways, [45:26] that I think it's critical for the world to sort of unlock seeing itself in the mirror opposite image [45:34] of the West, right? And to build a sort of indigenous sort of separation in ways that can promote pride, [45:42] can promote self-determination, can promote ideas for state building, society building that are not [45:48] centered to the West and not centered to Christianity. And I think you're seeing that in some regards [45:53] with some of the movements that you made mention of earlier. And I think that's one primary takeaway [45:59] that I'd highlight. And Joshua, is there a universal takeaway from this message, this conversation, [46:06] that you think we can end on? So my caution is the one I raised before, which is, I do see this [46:13] identity politics language as emerging out of Christianity. And, you know, having taught in [46:19] the Middle East for the better part of 15 years, the thing that really does surprise me is young [46:24] Muslims who want to recover an authentic Islam. But I listen to them and I hear echoes of Rousseau, [46:32] of Marx, of Nietzsche, of postmodernism. And my view is a healthy Islam, I'm confirming what you're [46:39] saying, that a healthy Islam is going to have to draw on indigenous resources. And my worry is that [46:45] the West has so penetrated the Muslim world, especially with identity politics, that in fact, [46:50] you're doing harm to your attempt to find your own voice by invoking these categories that are [46:56] essentially Christian. And I want to thank you, Joshua Mitchell, [47:00] for being here today, Khaled Beydoun, Michael Eric Dyson. This has been a fascinating conversation. [47:06] We are going to come back and talk about Drake and Kendrick at some point. [47:09] Yes, yes, let's do that. Let's do that. That's the real division in the world. Drake or Kendrick? [47:15] Which one are you? Absolutely. I'm not going to say who I am, but... [47:17] Oh my goodness. You look like a Drake guy. [47:19] Huh? Listen, man, we're getting along. [47:23] That's on a diss. [47:25] I mean, see, see, I guess I gave myself away a little bit there. [47:28] You're going to make me join Joshua. Okay. [47:31] I want to thank the three of you for your rigorous spirit, your intellectual [47:35] rigor, and the passion that you brought to this conversation. I hope that you enjoyed listening [47:40] to this. I know you have a lot to say about this conversation as well, whether it's identity [47:45] politics, religiosity, redemption, original sin. Drake said jealousy is just love and hate at the [47:50] same time. Just remember that. Okay. I mean, we might, yeah, I don't know if we want to end on [47:54] with the Drake quote, but let's, let's, here we are now. Kendrick said, ain't nobody praying for me. [47:59] Kendrick said, I ain't black. Don't call me no more. [48:01] There we go. That's okay. That's your guy. [48:03] Joshua, do you have any music lyrics that you want to know? [48:07] The answer, my friend is blowing in the wind. Let's give him some love. [48:09] There we go. There we go. Thank you very much for listening. [48:13] My name is Mohamed Hassan, and this is the Doha Debates Podcast.