The proliferation of identity-based political grievances is no accident. Nothing is more plastic and…

The proliferation of identity-based political grievances is no accident. Nothing is more plastic and manipulable than identity, and nothing more seductive in a world where all social and collective ways to define your purpose have been stripped away. /1

Just watch how the little collective action we have left is immediately bogged down in swarms of objections from people who see the change as violating some aspect of their identity-based agency. This is endgame political libertarianism, not freedom. /2

As Robert Hughes said in his The Culture of Complaint': "The self is now the sacred cow of American culture, self-esteem is sacrosanct." What we see as freedom is trapping us more every day. Nothing but angry carping and complaining about inconveniences to ourselves. /3

Like we're all just customers now of democracy, demanding the best possible products and services. Centred on our own constantly confected identities, role-playing fantasies drawn from the most obscure and ridiculous sources. /4

The terror of causing 'offence' across the entire political spectrum, nowhere more strongly than by those who claim to promote free speech without a care for the offence it might cause. They're the most easily offended of all. /5

We're all trapped in this. Fighting tooth and claw for some agency in the complete clusterfuck of 70 years of the dismantling of anything public or social. Team sports, between rival individual identities. /end