The Political Cube — the Political Compass plus universalism vs identitarianism
Many third dimensions could be added to the Political Compass, but the one that seems most relevant today is the divide between universalists who focus on what unites us and identitarians who focus on what divides us.
Until the late 1960s, the difference between the two groups was simple: most identitarians were on the right; most universalists were on the left. Divisions based on social identities like gender, religion, and ethnicity were primarily exploited by the powerful, so the left responded by insisting we’re all equal. Thomas Paine’s “My country is the world”, Karl Marx’s “Workers of the world, unite!”, and St. Paul’s “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one” are all universalist rejections of identitarianism.
Because prioritizing social identity was so strongly associated with the right, the word “identitarian” was first used in Europe to describe white nationalists. But American thinkers like Adolph Reed saw that white nationalists are only a right-wing manifestation of the idea that social identities matter most. Now the word is also used for leftists who embrace identity politics, and its opposite, universalism, is also used for right-wingers who reject identitarianism.
