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Full Idea
A criticism of the left is that it is essentialist at some moments, and wildly anti-essentialist at others. We can call this opportunistic essentialism. Gender is fluid - except for transgender kids. Race is a construction - except for white races.
Gist of Idea
Left-wingers are inconsistent in their essentialist descriptions of social groups
Source
Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3)
Book Ref
Gopnik,Adam: 'A Thousand Small Sanities' [riverrun 2019], p.175
A Reaction
[compressed] Interesting. Gopnik's solution seems to be to abandon all social essentialism as wicked. In this context he is probably right, but I am firmly committed to the idea that many entities in the world have essential natures. 'Bourgeois'.