I could not help but think “three-axes model” when I read Strangled by Identity, by Rishabh Bhandari and Thomas Hopson.

American politics features three concepts of identity, but Americans are rarely clear-eyed about how these differ and disagree. Ethnic identitarians think civic nationalists are closet racists. Civic nationalists think that ethnic identitarians are “race-baiters.” And while cosmopolitans wrongly believe themselves to be above the fray, the other two sides of this entangled triangle don’t trust them or the institutions they lead. So it is that, at the end of the day, people on each side can blame those on the other two sides for playing identity politics while nonetheless playing the game themselves.

For “Ethnic identitarians” read progressives, interpreting their opponents along the oppressor-oppressed axis. For “Civic nationalists” read conservatives, interpreting their opponents along the civilization-barbarism axis. For “cosmopolitans” read libertarians, interpreting their opponents along the liberty-coercion axis.

In the very same issue of National Affairs, there is Civility and Rebarbarization by Arthur Milikh. Citing essays published under a pseudonym in 1763 by the man who became the second President of the United States, Milikh writes,

According to Adams, the human passions — in particular anger and the desire for revenge, which especially characterize man in the barbaric state — must be ordered, moderated, and channeled so as to form human beings capable of civilized self-government and rule by laws. These passions, however, are ultimately ineradicable, which means that a permanent transformation into a state of civility is not possible. Indeed, entertaining such hopes is dangerous. Rebarbarization always remains a human possibility. Should it occur, nations may find it impossible to re-civilize major portions of their inherited order. Adams’s purpose is to educate his readers on both the origins and fragility of the constitutional liberty that we enjoy.

The entire essay is eloquent along these lines. My guess is that if a survey were taken, conservatives would check the box “strongly agree.” But it will not be so well received by progressives or libertarians. This is a case in which speaking in a single language means that only your tribe will understand what you say.