With the relentless demand for reparations, land acknowledgments, and genderfluid pronouns, it can be easy to understand why conservatives are burned out on the concept of identity. The left has used identity politics as a weapon to mercilessly bludgeon their foes and extract political capital, which is then used to bribe the client classes of the Democratic Party. This progressive obsession with an artificial and hollow collectivism can easily drive the right to assume that radical individualism is the only answer. But that would be a mistake. The lack of a true, organic, meaningful identity lies at the heart of our nation sills, and to fight back, we must understand the role identity plays in creating healthy and prosperous social order.
00:01:53.640These are the most fundamental identities and the ones that will inform all the other relationships we encounter.
00:02:00.320These organic familial structures also introduce us to key formative concepts that shape our world like language, religion, tradition, and custom.
00:02:12.940These concepts give us sure footing and help us to understand how we should order our lives,
00:02:19.200how we should treat others, and what common moral vision guides our community.
00:02:23.940Most people don't deeply interrogate these beliefs because they form the bedrock of the social order.
00:02:32.800These unquestioned axioms serve as pillars of identity which hold the broader civilization aloft
00:02:39.920and help to maintain its particular character.
00:02:44.000To be a member of one culture is to be defined by the pillars of identity which set your way of being
00:02:51.620apart from the many other societies across the world.
00:02:55.840Human beings are more clearly defined by their limitations than by their freedoms,
00:03:01.120and it is in the limitations of our identities that we find true meaning.
00:03:06.960The spirit of the strong, independent individual is burned deep into the American psyche.
00:03:13.220The courageous pioneer carving out a new piece of civilization on the western frontier remains the ultimate American archetype,
00:03:23.980even after all of those lands have long been settled.
00:03:27.940But what we often forget about those brave frontiersmen is that their ultimate goal was to bring civilization,
00:03:36.740to create a community where none existed before.
00:03:39.560The first structures built to mark the transition from trading post to frontier town were the church, courthouse, and schoolhouse.
00:03:50.180Even the most rugged individuals knew from their own cultural upbringing that religion, education, and law
00:03:58.220were fundamental to the continuation of the way of life that they held dear.
00:04:03.580Conservatives are often blown away by the speed at which culture now shifts.
00:04:10.520New ideological trends seem to burst forth from nowhere,
00:04:14.620dominate our society, and then recede as quickly as they emerge.
00:04:19.520Mass media is the main delivery system for those memetic contagions,
00:04:24.920blasting them like endless propaganda across every platform of communication
00:04:30.200until they are superimposed on the public consciousness.
00:04:35.200Parents watch their children adopt alien forms of speech and dress,
00:04:39.360chanting strange slogans and spouting ideological pronouncements with no connection to reality.
00:04:45.940The constant drip of social media, state education, and algorithmically curated entertainment
00:04:51.960have the capacity to create entire social movements seemingly out of thin air.
00:04:56.980These social movements often present themselves as forms of identity.
00:05:03.020Transgenderism, arcane sexualities, and protest movements all become costumes that young people try on
00:05:09.360and wear for a time before discarding them and consuming the next round of memetic contagion.
00:05:15.100While it's easy to feel like any one of these particular identities is the problem,
00:05:20.180it's actually the lack of authentic identity that makes modern society susceptible to these relentless waves of ideological possession.