Modernity, Rawls, & Identity

This week two things have been on my mind: modernity and identity. The first is a perennial topic I keep returning to, and I imagine I’ll continue to do so for a long time. What is modernity? How do we experience it today? How do we address its limitations? This week I’m approaching modernity from the perspective of the body – flesh, bones, lungs, and heartbeats. These material components were all affected by the processes of modernity, most emphatically through the modernisation utilitarians in British Parliament in the 19th century, the philosophical radicals, who used statistics and the state to improve sanitation across Britain. The historical and philosophical concern here is that this logic, as Adorno and Horkheimer warned, has a tendency to improve the health of some at the expense of preserving the lives of others. We can see this most obviously through a genealogical lineage that progresses from the early public health reformers, through to Social Darwinists, and finally to eugenicists and the Nazis. The warning motif, as ever, is that logic is valueless, values must be applied, and values can be genocidal. This is the topic of my next video – The Flesh of Modernity – next week.

Which leads to me to my second topic, John Rawls, who was acutely aware that rights were foundational precisely because individual health and liberty could be violated for the greater good of others without them. Rawls, it seems to me, is the essential liberal philosopher, the thinker who has most clearly articulated the ideal of the 20th century. Some have argued though – as a commentor on my video on Rawls did – that the Rawlsian brand of liberalism is toothless in the current climate; that he discards race and sex – identity – in a way that’s unhelpful. 

Contrary to this, I think that seeds of radicalism can be easily found in Rawls, one that addresses the problems of our times while retaining the essential freedom of the liberal tradition.

The reason Rawls doesn’t focus on identity is because you would not know yours under the veil of ignorance. This is simply a more thought provoking reformulation of the idea that justice is blind. Someone’s immutable identity, skills, and characteristics, then, have no place in any theory of justice, a theory that draws the boundaries of the ‘basic structure of society.’ 

Does this mean that Rawl’s would reject the current focus on identity? Well, yes and no. Policies and programmes like positive discrimination that target those with immutable characteristics like skin colour would likely be met with disapproval from a Rawlsian. But this is compensated for by the perspective derived from the difference principle; that policies should be designed with the least well off in mind. From this perspective, an African American, for example, shouldn’t be granted benefits of any kind because of their skin colour, but they could based purely on pecuniary considerations. Ie, that they fall under an specific income level or live in a deprived area.

In short, the issue for Rawls is class. This is my central contention with political action that focuses solely on identity. When you dig into statistics on crime, jury biases, police violence, educational disparities – whatever it is – you always arrive at the unignorable central problem of class and economics. Highlighting the plight of marginalised groups is fine, but it’s ineffective unless the conversation is supplemented by one on effective policy, namely, the redistribution (or predistribution) of wealth. We must return to a robust inclusion class politics in any critique of the current system.