Very much this. Well said.
No, but that’s seriously not a life crisis problem, or a existential problem. Such a mail letter is a bad idea and a good manager would quickly inform people to not do it. You have to prune the garden tree, not cut it.
Is not news to post in the most important newssources on the planet and comment for weeks. And If we believe otherwise, we are beyond redemption.
You seem to think that if women weren’t told they are different, we wouldn’t know, for example. I think that’s silly. Women come together and speak about women things in places of the world where marketing basically doesn’t exist. They did the same thing throughout history, and they didn’t require any commercials to tell them that.
This is again trying to blame one group for being a group instead of giving any responsibility to the group that goes out of their way to treat that group differently, typically poorly.
No, thats not how you create a identity. If you want the people to Minnesota to feel like a different race, you find whatever make them different (it could be something dumb) then you make that different appear important. It can be language, customs, genetics, traditions, history,… you may end with a group of people that feel they dont belong in the U.S.A. and will want to segregate into their own country.
To alienate people you have to make the differences more important, and lower the importance of what they have in common.
I agree that socio-economic inequality is important and something that is worth fixing. Not everyone in a left-wing coalition will necessarily agree that inequality is the most important or best way to achieve what they are looking for. Good-faith efforts to address inequality may not be perceived as benefitting everyone on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. By which I mean, they are often race neutral policies with distributional consequences that tend to leave out minority groups.
I think it is reasonable that people who face discrimination against them on the basis of their identity want to prioritize fighting against that discrimination. We can call that identity politics, but a class focused politics is equally identity based.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. This probably belongs in P&T at this point, so I’ll try to scale back and talk about games.
I think you have a completely skewed idea on how humans function. No one needs to tell you you are different. You know. You know when you’re five. You know when you’re four. Adults teach you how to respond to that difference, often poorly, but the difference is there whether someone tells you or not. You just know.
The groups would exist without anyone deciding what is important or not. They will continue to exist and be acknowledged whether we have the written word or not. The answer is not to try and eliminate groups that will naturally exists. It’s how you respond to them.
My point is not that these differences did not exist. If you read the Hutu vs Tutsi controversy, it seems that they where really different even before the europeans made these differences matter more. Is not how importance you give to these differences.
Except this idea of removing identity politics seems to stem from one group where all their issues, like Scott said, is just called politics. The fact is, women do have different needs. The fact is there are actual differences and there maybe different wants and there is nothing wrong with that.
There is one group that has consistently treated the others as less than through most of modern history. And now that they are faced with something they’ve not expected to face… different suddenly shouldn’t matter. And not only is different not supposed to not matter, after determined for generations that it hugely mattered, they want erase identity, but not theirs because that’s just normal, theirs is just politics.
No. Difference will remain. Different is not bad. Different can be and should be acknowledged, and it can celebrated instead of squashed. And you can’t undo history. And you can’t punish or whisk it away. You acknowledge it. You address it. In some cases, you try to recover form it and at the end, after all that work, and it is work, and after all that, and it is pain, and all that discomfort and uncertainty, and all the ill that some groups want to shortcut their way out of but really can’t, then maybe one day women can talk to each other and support each other and smile and it won’t be seen as some sort of attack against men.
I think maybe you are using a different definition of identity politics than others. The definition you are using (is paraphrasing it as “political needs and wants unique to that group” fair?) is mostly harmless and I don’t think anyone is disputing that.
The definition that @Teiman is using, however, is a very toxic thing indeed. I’d paraphrase it as “the political theory that this identity group is uniquely special and uniquely victimized by another group”. It leads to things like the genocide in Rawanda when taken to the conclusion that because that group is victimizing you, you’re justified in attacking them.
I don’t think that I am. I think i am approaching the same topic from a different point-of-view than some others here. Asking me to not allow what I am and who I am or my experiences to shape my politics, you might as well try and ask me to become a white man and then I’m allowed to talk politics.
Is a labor of creation, creating a identity, and the result is not a fiction, but a reality. A thing that exist, that breathe and have legs. Like everything alive can evolve and not to the direction you want it to change.
But what I am critical is the relation we have to these identities. Do they serve us, or we serve them? Are they a guetto that work against us, or they are a platform to help us. And overall, do they help humanity, or they cause unnecesary fighting?. Maybe when they are created for profit, they should be automatically rejected. Or if you see somebody else is defining your life, go and reject that definition and make your own.
Going back on-topic. Some news organizations create rage, manufacture rage from nothing. They tell you that you have to be angry at things. Rage is addictive, so you would go to these places for your daily 10 minutes of controversy. Is this good for you or everyone? is this like night radio from right wing characters telling people obama is from kenia? maybe?
Some, but let’s be clear here.
The stuff that shocked people after a certain election, the things people say, the videos, the weirdo statements from celebrities… the news didn’t need to tell some of us that this stuff is happening. We’ve been living it for years, but no one listened. They didn’t make these things happen. They’re reporting on them… and you think it’s causing xyz and my response is… Finally! Finally they’re not ignoring it anymore.
You honestly think this shit wouldn’t happen if only for the media… it’s just not the reality. This stuff has been going on forever. And the five and four year old experiences, that is not an exaggeration.
I know.
Then you know the media is not responsible for creating this unwarranted hate against identity politics which is basically just any political position that is not the position of what people think a white man’s position is.
Sometimes we face things that are not comfortable, and more people are facing that everyday. It’s not going to be pleasant, and I don’t fully blame people for not wanting to feel that. It has to be felt though. We cannot move forward with everyone only doing and feeling and hearing what is comfortable. You can’t progress that way.
But again, change does not have to mean a net loss. I think everyone will gain in the end.
That’s not what I’m doing, though. No one is asking you to ignore what you are or your experiences.
Maybe an example will help? If not, I’ll stop detailing the thread.
- Men’s health has some issues that women’s health doesn’t (and vice versa, obviously). You won’t be needing a prostate exam, most likely. If I join a group devoted to promoting men’s health issues and pushing for more male-only exams to be covered by Medicare, that’s totally benign identity politics.
- Men Going Their Own Way or whatever they call themselves are a pretty good example of malignant identity politics. They are defining themselves as victims and using their identity and self-defined “victimhood” to push for some really toxic things.
Again, I think what you are describing is the benign form of identity politics. It’s the malignant form that most people are opposed to. In it’s most malignant firm it literally leads to genocide. Do bad actors sometimes intentionally conflate the two? Sure, but in my experience most people are fine with the benign form and opposed to the malignant one. Unfortunately, we use the same name for both, which lets the bad actors get away with conflation.
That’s enough of a derail from me, though.
Let’s look at Viagra. It’s a common talking point… and do you know why? Because so often it’s considered a need, it’s covered, it’s the default and it’s for men. Now look at how many years it took, decades of pushing science and in some cases begging to get things like mammograms fully covered. Even in health circles there were complaints that women cost more because the needs are greater. It’s a debate. It wouldn’t be a political issue if it was just defaulted to being included without the arguments required.
I just think it’s easier to point at other groups and say look at them, acting like victims, wanting something special as you go get your Viagra or whatever else the default is that maybe you didn’t have to fight as hard for so you don’t recognize the reason for struggle or the push or the need at all to sometimes be aggressive.
The Pink Tax, for example, was not born because people wanted too be mad about something. It’s a real thing. Hell there was a push not too long ago to get taxes off of feminine products because they’re basically a need right up there with food.
Again by you, of course, I don’t mean literally you.
I have serious doubts about how effective they are in that case, but
I’ll go with this too. I don’t have the will or the time to join lengthy socio-economic debates with so many strangers who’ve been at it for a while, so, alas, I won’t take it there. Maybe I’ll start by reading it a bit more one day.
Of course they do. A white male adolescent isn’t told they can’t go outside with skimpy clothes and avoid dark places and strange women. He isn’t told to avoid talking to the police or making any movements if he has to either. Those differences are there and invade their life regardless.
Remember when this was about gaming journalism?
Remember who brought up identity politics as a cheap dismissal device?