Boxed In: Making Identities Safe for Democracy

Our lives take shape around identities. Race, religion, sexual orientation, and other collective identities impose scripts that dictate how we should think, act, and associate. African Americans should support reparations and affirmative action. Evangelical Christians should associate with true believers and feel outraged by same sex-marriage. Gays and lesbians should come out and engage in LBGTQ+ activism. When identities are scripted too tightly, we get boxed in and democracy suffers.

In B...