Since the rise of postmodernism in the 1960s, the left has fully embraced the ethos of identity politics. According to this neo-marxist cosmology the most important thing about you, me or anybody else is the group that we belong to. This can include your race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion and a seemingly endless list of categorizations and sub-categorizations.
Who you are as an individual, your dreams, your character, your sense of morality, your work ethics and even the contents of your very soul don't matter at all. All that matter is the group or groups that you belong to and that group's position in the 'scale of oppression'.
So if you are a middle-aged white male you are the most oppressive creature on the face of the planet and your intentions are purely evil and the power of the State should be used against you in order to protect the members of all the other relatively oppressed groups.
The West Is Not Best
In this worldview Western Civilization and all the pillars on which it stands is seen as the root of all evil and oppression and therefore must be destroyed. Christianity, the rule of law, liberal democracy, secularism and even reason and science are being denounced by professors and students in the best universities in the world as tools of dominance and control of the evil white man. All of them must fall.
The radicalization of the left is been going on for decades and it permeates all of the levels of education, government, media and even business. We have seen before our very eyes how freedom of speech is under attack in universities, the very institutions that were supposed to be the custodians of this most sacred right. But also we've seen how people who dare to speak in favor of it are bullied, doxxed, alienated and fired from their jobs. Censorship has become a common practice to silence dissent on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other Internet giants.
We've Been Here Before
Far from denouncing the irrational behaviour of the left, the far-right has embraced the same principal of identity politics as we can see with the recent resurgence of Hitlerism in the United States and many European countries. Things are dangerously starting to look very similar to the way they were in the middle of the twentieth century, when the West lost every ounce of sanity and turned on itself in a genocidal rampage such as it has never seen before.
The Way Forward
If we want to avoid the mistakes of the past we must understand what are the factors that compel an individual to become ideologized or radicalized (is there a difference?). What could make a seemingly normal person surrender his critical thinking to the hands of a violent ideology? There are many theories and hypotheses about it but I think it can be pin-pointed to a single factor: the lack of a fully developed Individual Identity.
Culture, race, religion, family, etc. form an important part of every individual's identity. These, along with mythological archetypes shared by the whole of mankind, form what Carl Gustav Jung called the Collective Unconscious. These elements of the psyche help us navigate through life and should never be completely abandoned or disregarded. The problem arises when these collective elements constitute the core identity of the human being. The individual, in his journey through life, must undergo a continual process of maturation, growth and initiation so that he can ultimately and fully know and understand himself and the elements that constitute himself. This process, as described by Jung, is called individuation.
Know Thyself
The path of self knowledge is a long, dark and dangerous one, for in the depths of one's soul lie dragons, monsters and Minotaurs. Yet it is a path that we must all take if we want to achieve true freedom and self-realization. Once you know who you are and bring yourself up to the whole of your potential you will become an unstoppable force. Once people see your elevated state they will want to become like you and only then you can point them towards the way with the understanding that it is a way that they must walk for themselves.
This is the only way to change the world. There is no politician, no priest, no lover, no book, no God that can walk this path for you. And you cannot walk it for anybody else.