Fukuyama's Doublethink Argument against Identity Politics

In his essay "Against Identity Politics: The New Tribalism and the Crisis of Democracy," Francis Fukuyama offers a "remedy" for a crisis he sees among the "liberal democracies" of the United States and Europe. The crisis is the rise of populism—especially right-wing populism. Populists like president Donald Trump have skillfully used identity politics to take power, and then have used that power to erode democratic institutions. Fukuyama's remedy is to promote "creedal national identities" within the liberal democracies. These identities would be "creedal," because they are founded upon some set of fundamental beliefs. The beliefs should be formulated to be attractive to the broadest swathe of society possible so that the creedal identity will unify the people beyond the narrow identities that are weaponized by politicians and other power elites to fragment the populace. Fukuyama's remedy—when left in these vague terms—sounds like a good idea. However, Fukuyama does not leave it in these vague terms. And the specifics Fukuyama prescribes are logically self-contradiction. 

The Contradiction in Brief

Fukuyama claims that an appropriate creedal national identity once existed in the United States, which was "firmly grounded in the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment." He argues that this identity "must be revived and defended" by denying citizenship to immigrants who do not embrace it, saying: 

"Although the United States has benefited from diversity, it cannot build its national identity on diversity. A workable creedal national identity has to offer substantive ideas, such as constitutionalism, the rule of law, and human equality. Americans respect those ideas; the country is justified in withholding citizenship from those who reject them."

There is a problem with this: the most dominant liberal ideal of the Enlightenment is the freedom of thought and expression. 

The philosophy of liberalism is more of a post-Enlightenment phenomenon. But it is certainly rooted in the Enlightenment ideal of liberty. Recall the slogan of the French Revolution, liberté, égalité, fraternité. The word "liberal" derives from "liberty." 

John Stuart Mill was a leading proponent of liberalism in the mid-nineteenth century. He wrote an essay entitled On Liberty in which he defines the philosophy of liberalism. Although other liberties are discussed, the main focus throughout the essay is the "liberty of thought and discussion." Mill argues that society should never coerce thought, and that it should suppress expression of thought only in circumstances where the articulation of an opinion is very likely to lead to immanent physical harm to the body of a person (not the feelings of a person). 

Fukuyama appears to be in complete agreement with Mill in a paragraph that reads: 

"[T]he left's identity politics poses a threat to free speech and to the kind of rational discourse needed to sustain a democracy. Liberal democracies are committed to protecting the right to say virtually anything in a marketplace of ideas, particularly in the political sphere. But the preoccupation with identity has clashed with the need for civic discourse. The focus on lived experience by identity groups prioritizes the emotional world of the inner self over the rational examination of issues in the outside world and privileges sincerely held opinions over a process of reasoned deliberation that may force one to abandon prior opinions. The fact that an assertion is offensive to someone’s sense of self-worth is often seen as grounds for silencing or disparaging the individual who made it." 

So, Fukuyama claims to believe that people should be allowed liberty in thought and in expression of opinions, but that immigrants should be coerced in both thought and expression. This claim is logically self-contradictory—and therefore can't be true. This the contradiction in brief. 

An Orwellian Juridical Universalism

Let me put the problem in more concrete terms within the juridical universalism of the US Constitution. In his Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, written in 1770, Abbé Guillaume–Thomas Raynal defined a right to "natural liberty" that belongs to all human beings universally. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 then spoke of "certain unalienable Rights" that are held by all human beings universally. Among these rights is found Raynal's idea of natural liberty—"Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." The Bill of Rights was then proposed in order to define particular universal natural liberties that the US government was to be legally forbidden to interfere with. Ten of the proposed amendments proposed in the Bill of Rights were finally added to the Constitution 1791—the first and most prominent amendment being that regarding the liberty of the expression of opinions:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Freedom of speech is stipulated in the Constitution as one of the universal "unalienable Rights" alluded to in the Declaration of Independence. The United States is not legally allowed to interfere with the liberty of expression of opinions (except in rare cases where imminent bodily harm is very likely). And this liberty belongs to every human being merely by virtue of them being a human being. This is the juridical establishment of a universal human right as a explicit right within the law of the United States. 

Within this framework of juridical universalism, let's consider how Fukuyama's proposed remedy is supposed to work. If an immigrant is to be denied citizenship by the United States government, then it legally must be done through Congress enacting laws. If the denial is to be carried out on the basis of a nationalist creed, then Congress has to define the creed in a law. This brings to mind three questions: 

(1) how is Congress to come up with the legal creed? 

(2) how is Congress to institute a program of creedal indoctrination? 

and

(3) how is the government to know the ideas in the mind of an immigrant?"

Let's take the last question first: How is the government to know the ideas in the mind of an immigrant? The First Amendment (quoted above) implies that the government can't know what is in the mind of any person. It only concerns itself with the expression of thoughts in the physical phenomena of words and deeds. It seems that the lawmakers saw no way by which the government would be able to know or coerce the inner thoughts of people. But it certainly could know and coerce the outward expressions of thought. So, it only discusses what was understood to be practically possible. 

Now let's address the second question: How is Congress to institute a program of creedal indoctrination? Congress is the legislative branch of the government. That means that its only ability to take action is through the making of laws. So, to institute the indoctrination program Congress would have to pass a law to forbid immigrants from outwardly expressing certain opinions, and requiring them to express other opinions.

It may seem that there is a logical contradiction in passing such a law. But there is no logical contradiction. There certainly would be a legal violation of the First Amendment, but there wouldn't be a logical contradiction in the act of passing the law per se. However, there would be hypocrisy in the act of passing the law. The behavior of the Congress would be incongruous with the members' oath to uphold the Constitution, but it wouldn't necessarily be a logical contradiction. A logical contradiction can only arise between two verbal expressions. And a law is a verbal expression written in words. So, the law might be worded in a way that contradicts the First Amendment. But it might be worded is such a way that it does not contradict the First Amendment. 

What about the first question: How is Congress to come up with the legal creed? This is perhaps a bit trickier. Since the creed is to be one of liberal Enlightenment ideals, we must presume that freedom of expression would be included in the creed itself. And presumably the law would also indicate that the creed is to be used to coerce the expression of immigrants. It is easy to see how a logical contradiction could arise. But maybe there is some way to word the law so that no logical contradiction arises—just lots of hypocrisy. 

For the sake of argument, let's assume that Congress is able to craft the requisite laws so that no contradiction arises. Congress can be very clever in the concoction of laws. 

Now let's consider things from the perspective of an immigrant who wants to become a naturalized citizen. The immigrant will be required, among other things, to express belief that: 

(1) the United States is a liberal institution, 

and

(2) any liberal institution cannot coerce expression of belief by any member of the human race. 

These two propositions logically entail that the United States cannot coerce expression of belief. But due to the circumstance they find themselves in, the immigrant will know:

(3) the United States is coercing their own expression of belief.

The immigrant cannot logically believe (1), (2) and (3)—because they contain a logical contradiction. 

It is ironic that Fukuyama downplays George Orwell's dystopian vision found in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel. Fukuyama says it at one point "became a potent symbol of a totalitarian future that people wanted to avoid; the book helped inoculate societies against authoritarianism." Fukuyama says this as he is in the act of proposing an immigration policy that would require any person seeking to become a naturalized citizen to practice "doublethink." 

Orwell describes "doublethink" in the following way: 

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

In Orwell's fictional world, doublethink is pervasive throughout society. But within the mind of a rational person it is not possible. And this is what Fukuyama expects of the immigrant seeking citizenship. The same would be expected of any person who was merely aware of the existence of a government policy to deny citizenship on the basis of an "enlightened" national creed. In fact, Fukuyama asks his reader to engage in doublethink. 

In Fukuyama's vision for the United States, the reader knows that: (3) the United States would be coercing immigrants' expression of opinion. We then rationally have to doubt either: that (1) the United States would be a liberal institution, or that (2) any liberal institution cannot coerce expression of opinion by any member of the human race. But (2) is a direct consequence of the definition of the word "liberal." So, we can't believe that the United States would be a liberal institution—unless the government is going to somehow redefine the word "liberal"—"Illiberalism Is Liberalism." 

But then with all the requisite manipulation of language, and the authoritarian coercion of speech—Fukuyama is asking us to adopt some kind of doublethink. Fukuyama's remedy is far from being grounded in the actual liberal ideals of the Enlightenment. Fukuyama's remedy is a recipe for a dystopia that is truly Orwellian.