DNA DOESN’T DEFINE WHO WE REALLY ARE:

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s big reveal that she’s got a little Native American DNA in her deserves all the mockery it’s getting. But I just want to use it as an excuse to explain why I hate the way we talk about DNA and identity.

Consider Kyle Merker. You’ve probably seen the Ancestry.com commercial featuring his story. It begins with him declaring: “Growing up, we were German.”

“We danced in a German dance group,” he continues. “We wore lederhosen.” We then see him doing a little German dance in his lederhosen.

Merker signed up for Ancestry.com and noticed very few Germans in his family tree. So he had his DNA tested through Ancestry.com’s test service and discovered: “We’re not German at all. Fifty-two percent of my DNA comes from Scotland and Ireland.” In the ad, a little pie chart shows that the rest comes from Scandinavia, Italy, Greece, and “other.”

And then the kicker: “I traded in my lederhosen for a kilt,” Merker says. And we see him in his authentic Scottish garb with a big smile.

This is terrible. And Merker is hardly alone. Other ads and services make similar appeals. And they are all based on the idea that your “real” culture and identity exists in your DNA. That is grotesque and profoundly illiberal.

But consistent with an era in which media and political elites have pushed the notion that identity is entirely fungible. As Victor Davis Hanson asked a few years ago, “What Does the Modern Malleability of Gender and Race Mean for the Future of Affirmative Action?”