The Identity Trap
A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time
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Narrated by:
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JD Jackson
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By:
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Yascha Mounk
About this listen
“The most comprehensive and reasonable story of this shift that has yet been attempted . . . Mounk has told the story of the Great Awokening better than any other writer who has attempted to make sense of it.”—The Washington Post
"An intellectual tour de force about the origins of identity politics and the threat it presents to genuine, honest, old-fashioned liberalism.”—Bret Stephens, The New York Times
“Among the most insightful and important books written in the last decade on American democracy and its current torments, because it also shows us a way out of the trap.”—Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, and coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind
"Outstanding."—David Brooks, The New York Times
One of our leading public intellectuals traces the origin of a set of ideas about identity and social justice that is rapidly transforming America—and explains why it will fail to accomplish its noble goals.
For much of history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. It is no surprise that many who passionately believe in social justice came to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity to resist injustice.
But over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minority groups has transformed into a counterproductive obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology aiming to place each person’s matrix of identities at the center of social, cultural, and political life has quickly become highly influential. It stifles discourse, vilifies mutual influence as cultural appropriation, denies that members of different groups can truly understand one another, and insists that the way governments treat their citizens should depend on the color of their skin.
This, Yascha Mounk argues, is the identity trap. Though those who battle for these ideas are full of good intentions, they will ultimately make it harder to achieve progress toward the genuine equality we desperately need. Mounk has built his acclaimed scholarly career on being one of the first to warn of the risks right-wing populists pose to American democracy. But, he shows, those on the left and center who are stuck in the identity trap are now inadvertent allies to the MAGA movement.
In The Identity Trap, Mounk provides the most ambitious and comprehensive account to date of the origins, consequences, and limitations of so-called “wokeness.” He is the first to show how postmodernism, postcolonialism, and critical race theory forged the “identity synthesis” that conquered many college campuses by 2010. He lays out how a relatively marginal set of ideas came to gain tremendous influence in business, media, and government by 2020. He makes a nuanced philosophical case for why the application of these ideas to areas from education to public policy is proving to be so deeply counterproductive—and why universal, humanist values can best serve the vital goal of true equality. In explaining the huge political and cultural transformations of the past decade, The Identity Trap provides truth and clarity where they are needed most.
©2023 Yascha Mounk (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist, Financial Times, Inc., Prospect Magazine, and The Conversation
“America’s academic, cultural, and political institutions went insane beginning around 2014, and I’ve been trying to figure out why ever since. In The Identity Trap, Yascha Mounk explains how a few powerfully bad ideas, propelled through institutions by people with good intentions, are causing systemic dysfunction and dangerous polarization. This is among the most insightful and important books written in the last decade on American democracy and its current torments, because it also shows us a way out of the trap.”—Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind, and coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind
“Illiberalism seems to be flourishing on both the left and the right . . . At such a moment, it is prudent to be open to new alliances with anyone, on the right or left, who genuinely values freedom and democracy. The Atlantic’s Yascha Mounk clearly qualifies under that description, as he proves in his latest book, The Identity Trap. It’s the kind of work that might lead thoughtful conservatives to reflect on the potential rewards of a cross-spectrum ‘liberal alliance.’”—National Review
“A fascinating account of the intellectual origins of identity politics. Mounk . . . a historian of ideas . . . gives a careful account of the work of thinkers such as Derrick Bell, Michel Foucault and Kimberlé Crenshaw, revealing the theory that underpins influential ideas such as critical race theory and intersectionality.”—Financial Times Best Books of the Year
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- By Laura Carrington on 11-23-22
By: Bill Bryson
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The Parole Room
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ben Austen
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Original Recording
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Will Johnnie Veal—convicted of the murder of two police officers in 1970—be granted parole after 50 years in prison? How can he convince the parole board he’s reformed when he insists he’s innocent? What is prison time even supposed to accomplish? These are the questions that propel The Parole Room forward as it builds toward Johnnie’s 20th parole hearing—after 19 rejections.
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Enlightening story & a must read
- By Patsy on 10-07-24
By: Ben Austen
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The Mastery of Self
- A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and these come together to form the dream of the planet, or the world in which we live. Problems arise when our perception of the dream becomes clouded with negativity, drama, and judgment (of ourselves and others), because it's in these moments of suffering that we have forgotten that we are the architects of our own reality and we have the power to change our dream if we choose.
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listen.. .then listen again
- By Casiano on 12-22-16
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The Last Days of Cabrini-Green
- By: Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers
- Narrated by: Ben Austen, Patina Miller, Harry Lennix, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Original Recording
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In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.
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A Gripping and Necessary Work
- By booklover on 11-24-24
By: Ben Austen, and others
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Ho Tactics
- How to MindF**k a Man into Spending, Spoiling, and Sponsoring
- By: G. L. Lambert
- Narrated by: Patrick Stevens
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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I have discovered a group of women who refuse to be exploited, are immune to manipulation, and who never settle in the name of love. These ladies know what they want and take what they want by beating men at their own game. Utilizing the secrets exposed in this book, these women gain power, money, and status. Men call them gold diggers, women call them hos, but they call themselves winners. This is the book that society doesn't want you to listen to….
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I spent $24,000 in 4 months
- By B.M. on 10-06-18
By: G. L. Lambert
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
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it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
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The Philosopher's Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room
- By: Patrick Grim, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Patrick Grim
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
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Taught by award-winning Professor Patrick Grim of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, The Philosopher’s Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room arms you against the perils of bad thinking and supplies you with an arsenal of strategies to help you be more creative, logical, inventive, realistic, and rational in all aspects of your daily life.
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This should NOT be an audio book
- By Brooks Emerson on 03-21-20
By: Patrick Grim, and others
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My Big TOE: Awakening
- Book One of a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics
- By: Thomas Campbell
- Narrated by: Thomas Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.
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What a Trip (but to where?)
- By Michael on 11-26-13
By: Thomas Campbell
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I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)
- Telling the Truth about Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power
- By: Brené Brown
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity. Our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses; they are powerful reminders to keep our hearts and minds open to the reality that we're all in this together.
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I'm sure its great if you are a mother ....
- By Leslie A Hill on 08-09-11
By: Brené Brown
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Mythology: Mega Collection
- Classic Stories from the Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Mythology
- By: Scott Lewis
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser, Oliver Hunt
- Length: 31 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
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An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
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Identity
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In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people”, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.
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Robotic narrator
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Good but Flawed
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The New Leviathans
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Insightful view into “symbolic capitalists”
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For over a generation, shocking cases of censorship at America's colleges and universities have taught students the wrong lessons about living in a free society. Drawing on a decade of experience battling for freedom of speech on campus, First Amendment lawyer Greg Lukianoff reveals how higher education fails to teach students to become critical thinkers: by stifling open debate, our campuses are supercharging ideological divisions, promoting groupthink, and encouraging an unscholarly certainty about complex issues.
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For those who haven’t given up yet.
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left/= woke
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The philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the absence of appealing models of maturity is not an accident: By describing life as a downhill process, we prepare young people to expect - and demand - very little from it. In Why Grow Up?, she challenges our culture of permanent adolescence, turning to thinkers including Kant, Rousseau, and Arendt to find a model of maturity that is not a matter of resignation. In growing up, we move from the boundless trust of childhood to the peculiar mixture of disappointment and exhilaration that comes with adolescence.
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Cynical Theories
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Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only White people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed to challenge the logic of Western society? In this probing volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields.
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Vast Amount of Jargon Lost Me
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In both Europe and North America, populist movements have shattered existing party systems and thrown governments into turmoil. The embattled establishment claims that these populist insurgencies seek to overthrow liberal democracy. The truth is no less alarming but is more complex: Western democracies are being torn apart by a new class war. In this controversial and groundbreaking new analysis, Michael Lind, one of America’s leading thinkers, debunks the idea that the insurgencies are primarily the result of bigotry and reveals the real battle lines.
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Monopoly is good... brought to you by Google
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What listeners say about The Identity Trap
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Christopher Francese
- 11-12-23
Takes opposing arguments seriously
Mounk’s great strength as a polemicist is that he does not attribute bad moves to his opponents, Hseeks to understand their views and respond in a principled way. The book is philosophical rather than empirical, but focus on ideas rather than data is refreshing to me. It looks like intellectual leadership, always a commodity in short supply.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Edward Swing
- 01-11-24
Essential reading
Mounk manages to cut through so many layers of bad thinking and lay out a compelling take on modern ideological and political debates.
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1 person found this helpful
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- M&N
- 10-01-23
Fantastic and worth a listen
This was an intelligent and well written book about an important topic. I read a lot of books about political movements and this one was S tier.
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- Beauregard Ames Burgess
- 03-08-24
Excellent, thoughtful, well written!
Nails it spot on! Very conceptually robust and comprehensive philosophy. Should be read with Cynical Theories and Irreversible Damage.
Thank you to the author for being brave and intelligent enough to write this book!
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- D K
- 12-12-23
Fascinating look into the world today…
…and why it has seemed like many of my politically progressive friends and networks, have seemed to become increasingly intolerant of views other than their own. For a progressive person like myself, this has been disorienting. This book is a great deep dive into that arc
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- Arturo S
- 10-28-23
cathartic. essential. wonderfully read
I loved this audio book. Stellar analysis of what happened over the last few decades and how good intentions can lead to harm. Excellent reading by the voice actor JD as well. I recommend this to everyone
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- David P. Wingert
- 11-05-23
A clear answer from a self-described liberal to the dangers of identity politics
This book is a clear answer from a self-described liberal to the dangers of identity politics. There are areas of disagreement, and a failure to identify the source of liberal values (Christianity). Nevertheless, this book is long overdue!
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- Carlos Nunez
- 10-02-23
An excellent primer on the identity delusion
This book provides a great synthesis of what's wrong with both mostly the left, but which also applies to the right. The idea of immutable social categories that everyone must conform too, which are also somehow socially constructed, is a mental virus that has spread both through academic and mainstream institutions. This attack on universalism and cosmopolitanism is driving our societies apart.
We need to acknowledge that we all belong to a single human group, like Carl Sagan beautifully wrote in The Pale Blue Dot. As a hispanic I don't care if others appropriate the positive aspects of my culture. I loathe the use by woke whites of the term Latinx. They pretend to be speaking in our behalf, but we hispanics never use such a term. Stop trying to help people who haven't asked for your help. Stop cancelling people simply because they dare think differently. Let's embrace our differences and move past the invisible barriers that are tearing at the seams of our current societies.
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- Jamie Fairchild
- 11-28-23
A balanced view by left of center author
Very knowledgeable author. I prefer to hear people that are left of center dissect society’s trend of going crazy with identity.
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- John
- 03-20-24
Clarity in dealing with the major threat to our society
Best book I read in a long time . Hits the problems and real dangers on target
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