Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

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Today I'm speaking with Yasha Malk. Yasha is a writer and academic,

known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. He was born in

Germany and holds a degree in history from Cambridge and a PhD in government from Harvard. He is

currently a professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins and the founder of the digital

magazine Persuasion. He's also a contributing editor at the Atlantic, a senior fellow at the

Council on Foreign Relations and host of the Good Fight Podcast. His most recent book is the

Identity Trap, a story of ideas and power in our time. And that is what we discuss. We talk about

the origins of identity politics, his concept of the identity synthesis, skepticism as to whether or

not any of these ideas are a problem, racial segregation in schools, the ideological changes that

have occurred on college campuses, the contributions of Michelle Foucault and postmodernism,

the rejection of universalism and objectivity, Derek Bell, Kimberly Crenshaw,

the imagined permanence of racism, the indoctrination of children, intersectionality, white privilege,

institutional racism, equity versus equality, racial preferences during the COVID pandemic,

the asymmetric advantages of authoritarianism, class and elitism, affirmative action,

media coverage of crime and violence, social media and the business model of mainstream journalism

...