In the New York Times opinion piece The End of Identity Liberalism Mark Lilla presents his

controversial response to the election and what he thinks is the necessary next step in advancing
liberal political agenda. Lillas opinion was one that I had not yet been exposed to and at first
read, made a lot of sense. Identity liberalism is dividing the primary interests of liberal
Americans into a variety of separate areas, making it harder for liberals to advance policy that
does not have to do with social identity. Because people are so focused on making sure the
specific group they identify with is treated with complete equality in comparison to all other
groups of people, it becomes the only thing they are concerned with. While equality is one of the
most important things to fight for, the fact that people are all fighting separate battles makes it all
the more difficult for our nation to achieve anything and make progress as a whole. People are so
focused on the agenda of the group they identify with that they arent acting as a larger, unified
group of liberals to address issues such as war, economy, poverty and the environment. For
liberalism to advance post-election, Lilla argues that we must abandon our identity groups and
fights for social equality in order to focus on the bigger picture and push for legislation that
benefits the majority of Americans.

In this article, Lilla makes a lot of good points regarding how identity liberalism has harmed
political progress in the U.S. However, some of the things Lilla claimed, and I discussed above,
are not free of flaws. For instance, I do not believe it is necessary, or a good idea, to entirely
abandon efforts for equality among identity groups that do not have it. In the article Lilla says
National politics in healthy periods is not about difference, it is about commonality. While
this is true, it doesnt mean we have to stop identifying by the things that make us different.
Instead I think it means that, as a country, we need to learn that these differences in identity do
not make anybody more or less deserving of equality and respect in order to become a more
unified population and reach the healthy period in politics that Lilla mentions. I do not believe
that we should just abandon the fight for equality among groups of people. However, we must
find a way to bring all different groups together to focus on the larger picture in order to progress
liberal agenda.

This image, created in response to The End of Identity Liberalism, was artistically inspired by
the work of David Hockney. Hockney is famous for his photographic collages that utilize many
different photographs to form a single image. I chose to emulate this method in my response to
Lillas article because the separate photographs coming together to create one entire image is a
good representation of how groups of Americans who identify in a variety of different ways must
be able to come together in order to address questions that are relevant to the vast majority of the
populations. The perspectives of all the different liberal identity groups may not coincide
perfectly, yet there is enough commonality between them that we have the ability to advance
liberal policy together. This is represented by the way that the photographs do not perfectly
match up, yet you are still able to see the entire image. They all have slightly different contrasts,
exposures, sizes and angles to illustrate how groups can keep their separate identities and still
come together to create something all encompassing.

The subject of my photographic piece is the Broken Obelisk statue in Red Square, with the
Suzzallo Library in the background. I chose this to be the location of my photo because of the
possible meanings behind the statue. While no one can fully explain exactly what the artist,
Barnett Newman, intended the statue to mean, it is believed that the sculpture is a form of
commentary on our political system and the delicate and precarious state of our government. By
utilizing Newmans sculpture in my photo collage, I hoped to convey the idea that our
government has the chance to remain intact, and not collapse, as the sculpture illudes to, as long
as people in different identity groups are able to come together and set liberal political agenda
that is able to focus on issues that will most collectively advance the common good.

The way in which the argument in The End of Identity Liberalism was constructed reminds me
of The Coddling of the American Mind, an article written for the Atlantic by Greg Lukianoff.
In his article, Lukianoff takes a strong stance, arguing that present day college students are
overly sensitive to and protected from words and ideas they dont like. Similar to the Lillas
argument on identity liberalism, Lukianoff starts off by making some understandable points. He
talks about how oversensitivity to microaggressions can harm conversations and does not prepare
people for their future interactions outside of the college setting. While these points make some
sense, Lukianoffs argument was flawed in that it discourages sensitivity to the feelings and
emotions of others. I find this to be similar to Lillas article because of the way that Lilla argues
for people to abandon their efforts to obtain equality for individual groups of people. Both
writers take the approach of sacrificing smaller liberties to cater to a larger whole, yet the neither
the liberties of individuals or identity groups should have to be compromised.