Identity Politics

If only we all listened to jeff lackey in 2008!

I have no idea what “era” it would be, if there ever was one. I’d have to be a political historian. From personal experience, I’ve only ever thought of politics as a battle between belief systems – at least deep down when you start talking about values – until recently.

If you’re saying that I only experienced that due to privilege then you’ve put me into an impossible position. Well, call it unreasonable. I’m not going to spend years deconstructing politics just to defend a point on the Internet.

If you demand that I concede the point then I will. That’s a lot faster.

In fact, the quote I posted in the other thread about postmodernist political discussion applies directly here. I was enjoying a political debate within what I thought was a normal frame of reference, and you’ve pointed out that some people reject that frame entirely.

This is helpful because I try to understand where others are coming from before engaging in whatever limited political debate I do these days. This will help me be more sensitive to that. Thanks!

That shouldn’t be necessary. If you’re a white man complaining that politics is all about identity now when (you say) it wasn’t before, then just imagine being a black woman in 1860, or 1890, or 1935, or 1955, or 1963. Or, indeed, 2019. Would you say in those circumstances that what passed for politics included you, or excluded or marginalized you? If it excluded or marginalized you, on what basis did it do that? Oh, right: Identity.

It’s a simple thought experiment that anyone can do, and the intellectually honest result is always the same. I’m sure you can manage it.

If I recall correctly, I only need a single counterpoint to disprove the fallacy, right?

Let’s say I’m an unidentified person who holds libertarian beliefs in 2019. I would say politics marginalized me on the basis of my beliefs.

It seems more accurate to say that from certain perspectives, politics has always been about identity.

And what happens when we fail to see the perspectives of others? That’s right! Conflict, frustration, and ineffectiveness. I’m with you on that one.

That’s a category error. Political philosophy isn’t like skin color, or gender.

Yes, the oppressor always thinks it is totally normal and right and not identity politics. Which fact should make one stop and think about why they might not perceive identity politics…

Heh, I feel like I’m in a postmodern vortex on this one.

Definitely. I will reflect on this. I just hope we can conclude now that your thought experiment sucks.

Indeed, I was relatively sure that you would conclude that. Imagine my surprise!

Touché for the callback to surprise. I admit a chuckle.

Seriously, you can’t discern the difference between identities like race and and an identity you choose like political affiliation?

Privilege.

I can discern the difference. I’m laughing at the careful framing of the category to disallow political belief as one of the choices for “what politics has always been about.”

Why? I mean, they’re fundamentally different. You are born with your race. Period. Full stop. And if you’re a minority, the majority will use it against you.

A belief is just, like, your opinion, man, no matter how deeply held or indoctrinated into you it is by having read too many Ayn Rand novels in your youth. You can change it, or hide it, etc. Not so with your race. Ya’ dig?

Absolutely, since I said above I can discern the difference.

I’m still not sure why we’ve limited the category to innate things that can’t change. My political beliefs might change, but politics may still be all about political beliefs, at least to my privileged perspective. shrug

Because, generally speaking, those are the things people refer to when they complain about identity politics. If identity politics just means liberals vs conservatives vs libertarians vs marxists, etc, you don’t need identity as a qualifier. Identity is added to complain about how how people of a different race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic background, economic status insist that they not be marginalized by politics.

Beyond that, opposing someone politically because of their views isn’t the same as opposing someone politically because of their skin color. Opposing people with e.g. fascist views is good! Opposing people because they’re brown is bad! I’m pretty sure you know that.

Agreed on all points. We might be thinking this debate is about different things, which is mildly annoying.

I’m not complaining about identity politics, per se. (I mean, I totally am in other contexts.) But this discussion is about your assertion whether or not politics has always been “about identity.”

I honestly had never heard this or thought about it before due to my admitted privilege. You offered a thought experiment to prove that politics is always been about identity by framing it in the context of identity. I said, hold on, I’m all the way out of that frame. From my perspective, politics has always been about beliefs.

A good way to demonstrate this might be to think of marginal white voters. Not diehard white supremacists, but run-of-the-mill whites who previously thought that politics was a debate between conservatism and progressivism. Let’s say that white man – I think it’s safe to assume he’s a man, don’t you? – now becomes aware of identity politics as the marginalized speak more loudly about it. That white man realizes this political framework is extremely powerful, and it’s able to reject political discussion before it even starts. Seeing a useful tool, the white man now sees himself from the framework of identity instead of belief system.

Was it always that way, or was there a change (from his perspective) on what politics is “all about”? I assert the latter. If you tell me that the white man was fooled when he thought politics were all about beliefs, and now the truth has been revealed and it was identity all along, then I disagree with you, but at least I respect that position.

No. You’re deliberately placing yourself out of the frame by pointing at your beliefs rather than your identity. There have always been people with your beliefs inside the frame of politics in the modern era, just as there have always been socialists or marxists or monarchists, etc. They may not have won, but they were participants in the process; provided, of course, that they were straight white men, or at least closeted white men.

What there weren’t was black people, women, openly gay people. That’s because the nature of politics was, as always, identity politics. White men kept everyone else out of the political process, or marginalized them if they happened to squeeze their way in. They still do that. Only now, you know, it’s harder. There are more of those Other People, and they have more political power, and suddenly, it feels to white men as if their white maleness is under attack. Of course, this is how everyone else has felt all along, right?

Okay, I think what you’re stating here is that identity is the primary or over-arching foundation of politics. Within that framework, one dominant group created a separate, illusionary framework where politics appeared to be based on beliefs. This was not a different perspective but rather a limited perspective on what was objectively a system built on identity.

Does that work?

No. Within the polity, the framework isn’t illusory. But some people have been excluded from the polity, or marginalized by numbers and power. Now that they are no longer excluded, and are not so marginalized as before, the prior beneficiaries of the exclusion and marginalization are threatened by the inclusion of their numbers, so they complain about identity politics. But their own politics were, of course, identity politics. They excluded and marginalized people based on identity.

Dang, I really need to start that thread on Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory I’ve been meaning to start for the last couple weeks.