Identity, Culture, and the False Promise of Liberation

Wisdom of Crowds

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Parents in the 1990s believed they were doing their children a favor by instilling in them the ethos “do what you like, follow your dreams, and things will work out.” But Michael Brendan Dougherty, author of My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search for Home, argues that sometime in the 2000s, this promise of liberation revealed itself as a curse, feeling more like abandonment than instruction. In a wide-ranging conversation, he, Shadi, and Damir talk about the meaning and importance of identity, where modernity falls short, the promise and peril of nationalism, and much more.

In Part Two, available here for subscribers, the conversation continues with a discussion about immigration in America and Europe, if Islam is the religion of the future, whether white Americans have a distinct identity, and if right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary are harbingers of the future or the last gasps of a dying ideology.

Subscribe here to listen to the rest of the discussion. Members will also have access to our recent two-part conversation with Ross Douthat as well as our weekly Friday Essays.

Recommended Reading:

• My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search For Home, by Michael Brendan Dougherty (Amazon)
• "Critical Race Theory as Metaphysics," by Michael Brendan Dougherty (National Review)
• "Why the Fight Over Critical Race Theory Matters," by Michael Brendan Dougherty (National Review)