My first book coming soon: Contrasting Identities.

My first self-published book is in the process of being edited. This book is called “Contrasting Identities: Navigating Identity Politics Conversations”.

The book is focussed towards people who have an interest in political philosophy and contempory political issues, but do not necessarily have an academic background in these areas. The topic of the book is Identity Politics. In the book, I address criticisms of Identity Politics from a group of public intellectuals called “The Intellectual Dark Web”. Such members include: Sam Harris; Jordan B Peterson; Dave Rubin; and Ben Shapiro. I also address criticisms from Marxist theorist and political scientist Adolph Reed.

Once those criticisms are addressed, I introduce a philosophical method popularised by philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong called “Contrastivism”. In the book I will apply Contrastivism to resolve some of the issues related to Identity Politics and better communicate concepts related to Identity Politics.

The book is a short monograph of less than 100 pages. You could read it in a night. Yet, it will provide a basic understanding of most concepts related to Identity Politics, its popular criticisms and a response to those criticisms. It will also introduce a relatively new philosophical method which is not universally known.

Below is the chapter list to give a sense of what is contained in the book:

Introduction

1: What is identity politics?

2: The authority of acquainted knowledge.

3: Intersectionality: the nuance of identity or the “oppression Olympics”?

4: Universal humanism, empathy, special relationships and group identity.

5: “Judge people by the content of their character not the color of their skin”: MLK Jr misinterpreted.

6: Real freedom of speech: the positive freedom of identity politics.

7: Diversity of identity or diversity of ideas? The benefits of looking at identity for new ideas.

8: White male privilege or white male guilt? Understanding the concept of privilege.

9: Working Class Man: Class struggle is Identity Politics.

10: Undermining a united front: Criticisms of Identity Politics from the left.

11: A new model for Identity Politics: A Contrastivist application.

12: Contrasting identities: Knowledge, privilege, oppression and disadvantage.

13: Back to its roots: the future of Identity Politics.

If interested, stay tuned and I will provide the amazon link to this blog once it is available to purchase. It should be ready for purchase in the next month or two.