THE CRISIS OF CHARACTER: Brendan O’Neill on identity politics and the death of the individual:

What the NYT and many others describe as new era of identity politics is in fact an era in which the historical, traditional underpinnings of identity have been ruptured, or even destroyed, unleashing an often desperate search for new identities, a rush for self-identification, for shallow identity construction. The subjectivity of human identity in the 21st century is striking, and alarming.

Read the whole thing, which serves as the flip-side to the headline and lede of an article by Michael Ledeen from September of 2014: “Why Do They Join the Jihad? Because it gives meaning to life, that’s why.”