But the general rule in our current elite circles is to maintain a grim face of what might be called “performative realism”, as if political justice for marginalized communities depended on our acting as if the language currently used to describe those communities tapped into fundamental reality.

Culture is always a web of individually untenable beliefs, which generally work just fine until anyone stops to notice and interrogate them

Today this approach to understanding culture —taking seriously, and respecting, what you do not necessarily take as true — is virtually absent, and desperately needed. Whether you are observing a Balinese cockfight or a Wall Street board meeting or a sexual-harassment-prevention training session at an American university, you will find people... See more