Every Tool is a Weapon if You Hold It Right: Solidarity, Civics Education, and Use-Oriented Politics

Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of the November 2016 election, Mark Lilla argued in the New York Times that to win, the Democratic party would need to replace identity politics with a unifying vision of citizenship. Becoming aware of and celebrating our differences was "a splendid principle of moral pedagogy," Lilla claimed, "but disastrous as a foundation for democratic politics in our ideological age." We need, Lilla argued, "a post-identity liberalism." Education plays a prominent role in Lilla's challenge, as he calls on teachers to "refocus attention on their main political responsibility in a democracy: to form committed citizens aware of their system of government and the major forces and events in our history." He calls on the press to "begin educating itself about parts of the country that have been ignored" and "take seriously its responsibility to educate Americans about the major forces shaping world politics, especially their historical dimension." 1 Lilla's article and the book-length version of his argument, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, raise important questions about the means and ends of civic education and political strategy, the role of facts and imagination in citizens' self-understandings, and the fraught relationship between rhetoric and justice. This paper grapples with the promises and perils of educating for "solidarities of identity" and "solidarities of citizenship," the two poles of Lilla's critique.Lilla reminds readers that "identity politics" is a political technology. It is a rhetorical strategy that cultivates imaginaries of co-belonging, solidarities that can then be mobilized through collective action towards particular political ends. Furthermore, it is a technology susceptible to dual use. It has been used