The Voxiest Vox article imaginable: There’s nothing wrong with identity politics; in fact we need more of it!
Here's a thread explaining why that’s exactly backwards. Sorry for the length but there’s a lot to unpack here!
vox.com/2020/2/20/2095…
Here's a thread explaining why that’s exactly backwards. Sorry for the length but there’s a lot to unpack here!
vox.com/2020/2/20/2095…
First of all, never take an article seriously that contains the line “All politics is, in a certain sense, identity politics.” It reveals a complete lack of serious thinking on the subject. People can indeed pursue politics based identity, as when they vote for someone who
shares their race. But they can also pursue politics based on interest, as when a working person votes for a pro-union politician. They can even pursue politics based on ideals CONTRARY to their interests or identity, as when a rich person votes for a politician
promising to raise taxes on the rich!
But the sort of sloppy thinking expressed in nostrums like “All politics is identity politics” isn’t just incidental, it pervades this entire sort of analysis.
That is, the article repeatedly confuses Identity Politics with any politics designed to remove barriers based on identity. That is, it argues that Identity Politics just means being anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, etc.
But that’s simply false. Identity Politics is just ONE PARTICULAR IDEOLOGY designed to attack those social injustices; there are others. That is, it’s possible to both oppose racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. AND oppose Identity Politics.
So what is Identity Politics? What makes it different from other forms of politics? What makes it different from other forms of social justice politics? Identity Politics, like all social justice politics, is a reaction against the old-fashioned political and social constructions
that treated superficial and morally and intellectually irrelevant characteristics – e.g. race, sex, orientation – as politically significant. But, crucially, Identity Politics doesn’t claim those characteristics are irrelevant, it claims they are the real and beneficent basis
for individual identity and mass politics. The old-fashioned bigoted politics proclaimed, for example, “You don’t count because you’re black.” Identity Politics responds, “You count BECAUSE you are black.”
Once this is seen clearly a better alternative comes into focus: “You count because blackness doesn’t matter.” This was the ideology of the early Civil Rights Movement: Race is a malignant fiction, one used to unjustifiably oppress and exploit part of the population, a part of
the population that’s not in any meaningful way actually different! It’s a fiction which we need to supersede entirely. This is the social-justice ideology that is also opposed to Identity Politics: Race, sex, orientation, etc. have no moral, intellectual, or
political significance, and society needs to be based on the conviction that those categories are irrelevant. Basing policy or identity on orientation, e.g., is as silly as basing them on hair color or left-handedness.
It’s true that society, sadly, still treats those old-fashioned categories as relevant. That is, broader society treats blacks, women, gays, etc., as lesser. But Identity Politics is explicitly based on the notion that because of this ongoing oppression only blacks can
understand and appreciate how society treats blacks, only gays can understand and appreciate how society treats gays, etc. Intersectionality slices the identities down even further: e.g. only disabled Hispanic lesbians know what it’s like to be a disabled Hispanic lesbian. Etc.
There’s obviously some truth in these points: Society does indeed still treat such groups as lesser (though not as bad as in the bad old days) and people from such groups understand that in ways others cannot. But Identity Politics claims that because of all this individuals
in such groups must stick together to support each other in distinct and self-conscious groups, they must affirm the goodness of their group identities, that they must derive their personal identities from their belonging in their respective groups, and they must be
represented roughly proportionally among economic, cultural, social and political elites. That’s why it matters so much, e.g., that there must be black, women, gay, etc. CEO’s of major corporations.
But it’s easy to see the problems with this line of thinking. How exactly does a black CEO making millions help poor blacks in the ghetto? Does it inspire them to become CEO’s too? Or does it merely leave intact a system where a CEO makes hundreds of times what working people
make while glibly claiming to have struck some great blow for justice? How do we distinguish Identity Politics from glorified tokenism?
And the stress given to lived experience seems to be what lends Identity Politics its intolerance. That is, if you’re not black you’re not allowed to question a black person’s understanding of society and his situation within it. A white person can’t argue that a particular
accusation of racism is unfair, or an over-reaction, or simply mistaken. But this is not honest discourse: Beware of any ideology claiming no one disagrees with its analysis in good faith.
And there are other downsides, one egregious one in particular: Identity Politics alienates large sections of America that would otherwise be very friendly to social justice initiatives. Black separatism, e.g., rightly or wrong, makes whites anxious.
That is, if you loudly proclaim “My blackness means you must treat me as essentially different and defer to my judgments” you must expect that many people, simply out of self-respect, will not merely fail to defer but will run in the opposite direction.
And since so many practitioners of Identity Politics seem to have no idea there are other ways to fight injustice, they assume – much to their rhetorical advantage – that anyone who opposes Identity Politics must be a racist, sexist, homophobic fascist.
Thus, people who find Identity Politics objectionable but who would otherwise support policies to protect minorities are turned away as irredeemable bigots. Does that advance the cause of social justice?
And at its further reaches white unease can even become white identity politics, the notion that whites are a group like any of the other groups and that identity and policies based on whiteness are as justifiable as those based on other categories.
It’s hard to imagine an ideology better designed to unleash the sort of racial mistrust and hatred that would destroy any hope for social justice.
Sadly, the Trump Era demonstrates all too well how many right-wing politicians out there are ready and eager to exacerbate and exploit white anxieties, legitimate and otherwise.
But the Vox article blithely ignores all these serious concerns, bizarrely claiming that not only is Identity Politics smart politics, it’s not dogmatic or intolerant, but is, in fact, the way forward for liberalism!
This is not a serious article; it’s an exercise in burying one’s head in the sand. And it provides what it calls examples of Identity Politics doing good: “defeating prosecutors with troubling records on race at the ballot box, getting sexual assault allegations taken
seriously in the workplace, and securing health care coverage for transition-related medical care.” But these are all examples in which universal standards were – thank God! – applied universally.
That is, they’re cases of making sure people are treated the same REGARDLESS of identity. They are examples of happy policy outcomes, but they’re not examples of Identity Politics at all.
But so much of the defense of Identity Politics consists in shifting goalposts. Consider that both of these things can’t be true: “All politics is identity politics” and “Identity politics is simply pushing for equality for the marginalized.” In fact, they’re both false.
Identity politics is a particular set of ideas and tactics for addressing those inequalities. But since they’re largely based on unjustifiable ideas – individual identities should be based on entirely irrelevant characteristics,
only members of a group can properly represent that group, etc. – they lead to all sorts of political and social pathologies, such as intolerance and alienation of potential allies.
The more the Left embraces Identity Politics and the more the Right swerves into the white version the worse our polarization will grow, and the worse for America as a whole.
And what makes it all the more frustrating is that there is an over-looked but thoroughly defensible alternative. We can square that circle. There are ways to combat inequality that don’t treat the irrelevant as relevant and don’t alienate whole swathes of the country.
Surely, that must be the way forward for liberalism, and for America.
End thread.
End thread.
