ABSTRACT
Marc James Léger’s introduction to Identity Trumps Socialism argues that identitarianism, on both the left and the right, is today working to the advantage of the plutocracy. Reactions to contemporary woke wars are shown to have been strongest among conservatives, who have not only advanced the confusing concept of cultural Marxism but also begun to organize services for people seeking to contest unfair cancelation in the workplace. This latest version of the culture war is described as a shift from concepts that were created to build solidarity to concepts that emphasize incommensurability. The intellectual sources and historical origins of this postwar shift in leftist sensibilities are addressed as are specific debates, like those between Slavoj Žižek and Ernesto Laclau, and between Adolph Reed and Ellen Meiksins Wood. The introduction provides readers with a broad and detailed presentation of the intellectual reference points that inform the identity and class debate. It closes with a mention of Mark Fisher’s concept of the vampire castle, relating it to recent trends like diversity training and the despair created by neoliberal policy, which Léger relates to the decadent phase of postwar petty-bourgeois ideology.
