Yascha Mounk: Avoiding The Identity Trap
How to battle identity politics and defend liberal values of universalism, free speech, and open inquiry
My guest today is Johns Hopkins professor Yascha Mounk, the founder of the online magazine Persuasion and the author of the important new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time.
The Identity Trap explains how identity politics and social justice discourse have come to dominate contemporary discussions of just about everything, analyzes their negative influence on society, and shows how to confront and defeat them in the name of liberal values of free expression and open inquiry.
Yascha was a prime mover behind the 2020 open letter on "justice and open debate" in Harper's magazine and is one of the most powerful defenders of free speech and the marketplace of ideas at work today.
This interview took place at the Reason Speakeasy, a live, unscripted monthly conversation held in New York City with outspoken defenders of free speech and heterodox thinking. Go here for information about upcoming events.
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