Ethnotraditionalism: A moderate position on racial identity

Ethnotraditionalism is congruent with liberalism and morally legitimate.

Written by Bo Winegard.

I have an uneasy relationship with racial identity. My best guess is that some degree of racial affinity is innate—perhaps inescapable. Yet I identify with the classical liberal tradition and find overt racial tribalism discomfiting, even distasteful. Race is divisive and sometimes destructive, but also ineluctable. We may long to transcend it, but it remains a permanent source of contention and conflict. Thus we must deal with it honestly.

At the height of the Great Awokening, when accusations of systemic racism echoed through every institution, I came to believe that the only effective response to anti-white identity was a judicious but unapologetic assertion of white identity. The left’s assault on the heritage of the West was more fervent—and more effective—than I had imagined possible. One by one, institutions capitulated, most without even feigning resistance. Change was swift and seemingly unstoppable. In the grim reality of this revolution, what had once seemed radical now appeared necessary. Universalism, I worried, was no match for organized identity politics.

But I had lingering doubts which have become more nagging since the Trump election and the retreat of racial progressivism (for now). Perhaps the best way to battle identitarianism is with an unwavering commitment to liberalism.

It was opportune, therefore, that my colleague at Aporia, Noah Carl, published a compelling piece against white identity politics, contending that they are not only often intellectually confused but also doomed to fail in the West. Since my embrace of a moderate form of white identity politics was always reluctant and tenuous, and since I have increasingly conflicting views about the wisdom of identitarianism, I was open to persuasion. Still, I was not entirely convinced. Some form of white identity appears inevitable in an increasingly multiracial West.