Identity politics and tribalism: the new culture wars

Partners:

Tickets, priced £5 cash, will be available on the door.Pick your tribe: are you pro-mask or anti-mask, Brexiteer or Remainer, gender critical or Trans Ally? The public sphere seems to have turned more toxic in recent years, with the escalation of identity-politics clashes on both the left and right. With the threat of the pandemic and the onset of recession, many thought that the culture wars would take a back seat, or even be exposed as trivial. Instead, with the protests following the death of George Floyd, the storming of the Capitol Building, and the increasing gender wars, things seem to have been turbo-charged. But how do we explain this development?

For Nikos Sotirakopoulos, author of Identity Politics & Tribalism: the new culture wars, the common denominator is the rise of a ‘tribalist mindset’, defined by a particular way of viewing the world in which people are seen not as individuals but as members of groups that have antagonistic relations to each other. Such a view, he claims, is not just flawed but dangerous – robbing people of agency and setting up a potentially ‘everlasting struggle of all against all, in a zero-sum game’.

Are we losing the ability to see, and to discuss, the nuance in others’ thinking? Or do we simply feel safer ascribing to a certain worldview?  Is tribalism an enduring facet of political and social life? And if everyone is convinced that something is wrong with politics, the culture, and our society, what exactly is the problem and how can we overcome it?

Join Nikos to discuss his new book: Identity Politics & Tribalism: the new culture wars.