American Awakening
Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time
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Narrated by:
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Chris Abell
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Written by:
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Joshua Mitchell
About this listen
In American Awakening, Joshua Mitchell compares today’s secular politics of identity - skin tone, gender, and sexuality - to the religious awakenings of America’s past. The book asks where the clerisy of identity politics came from, how identity politics claimed a death grip on liberalism, and how can it be defeated.
We are living in the midst of an American awakening, without God and without forgiveness. The first two awakenings brought religious renewal; the third - the social gospel movement and its aftermath (1880-1910) - invoked the authority of religion to bring about political and social transformation, but lost sight of Christianity along the way.
The awakening through which we are now living comprehends politics through the categories of religion without recognizing it, has no place for the God who judges or the God who forgives, and has brought America to a dead end, beyond which no one can see. Identity politics renders judgment not based on sins of omission and commission, but on the publicly visible, unalterable attributes that precede whatever citizens might do or leave undone. Identity politics offers no forgiveness for transgressions, because they are irredeemable. Liberal politics was once concerned with working together to build a common world. Identity politics has transformed politics. It has turned politics into a religious venue of sacrificial offering.
For the moment, the irredeemable scapegoat is the White, heterosexual, man. After he is humiliated and purged, on whom will innocent victims turn their cathartic rage? White women? Black men?
Identity politics is the antiegalitarian spiritual eugenics of our age. It demands that pure and innocent groups ascend, and the stained transgressor groups be purged. If religious revivals are understood as collective efforts to redeem a stained world, then identity politics is an American religious revival - this time around, without God.
©2020 Joshua Mitchell (P)2020 Blackstone PublishingWhat listeners say about American Awakening
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Thomas L.
- 2021-06-13
great book
will listen to it again, many current event topics discussed supported by classical philosophy. well worth the time to read
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- philip moss
- 2022-06-07
A deep look, with some shortcomings
I listened to the author being interviewed on a podcast in 2021 and he was very interesting (especially in connection with Tocqueville) and very penetrating. By contrast, I was slightly less enthralled by this book. He uses too many terms of art (eg. "selfie man") too often and it breaks the flow of the story as it might be told in more ordinary language. Also, the narrator's delivery, while serviceable, was not my favorite.
Anyway, I will probably listen to it again, or find other stuff by J Mitchell, because he's extremely thoughtful.
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