Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.

[ska invita]

But we're not just chatting about personal identity and where we get that from here, but the manifestation of identity politics as a political project, something very different.

Could you clearly define the difference between the two?
How would, for example, the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity differ from a manifestation of identity politics in her?

 

[Athos]

Sure. But you can't have one without the other, and there's no point pretending only the political-economical side matters.

edit - what Red Cat said better

Of course you can have one without the other. Everybody has an identity; not everybody subscribed to identity politics.

 

[TruXta]

Of course you can have one without the other. Everybody has an identity; not everybody subscribed to identity politics.

I should have said you can't learn about identity politics without also considering personal identity. You don't have to subscribe to identity politics in order to wittingly or unwittingly practice it or participate in it though.

 

[alsoknownas]

Who are you oppressing and why?

The people who made my computer components for a start. Those that are starving while i scoff my (basically unnecessary) pan au chocolat come to mind also.

 

[LDC]

Who are you oppressing and why?

And that's one of the key issues I have with identity politics. In that it flattens out systemic/structural oppression by capital and the ruling class to being something we all do to each other, consciously and unconsciously, and equates them as all being of equal importance and also one largely of choice.

 

[LDC]

The people who made my computer components for a start. Those that are starving while i scoff my (basically unnecessary) pan au chocolat come to mind also.

No, you're not oppressing them, capitalism is. Down that road lies the fucked up mess (much of) the left is in now.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I'd never heard of identity politics before joining these boards. From the way the phrase has been used I gathered it was some sort of put down or insult.

I appreciate danny la rouge's OP - but must confess you have lost me some what. Do I need a PPE degree to understand it? or should I have done some specific homework first?

 

[alsoknownas]

How far back do you want to go? The Black Panthers, W.E.B. Du Bois, Hubert Harrison, Harry Haywood, Claude McKay, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Audre Lorde and so many others were all clear they were fighting capitalism in order to fight racism.

I totally acknowledge that. I meant something different. I meant what urgent and immediate (and effective) work was being done to prevent racially-aggravated police killings in the few years leading up to BLM.

 

[Athos]

I should have said you can't learn about identity politics without also considering personal identity. You don't have to subscribe to identity politics in order to wittingly or unwittingly practice it or participate in it though.

Both true (but different to what you said originally).

 

[alsoknownas]

No, you're not oppressing them, capitalism is. Down that road lies the fucked up mess (much of) the left is in now.

I stand by what I said in that people who are starving probably want two things - 1) The destruction of the system that denies them food, and 2) (and significantly more urgently) a bowl of maize meal and gravy. I could choose to provide a bit of that food if I gave up my luxuries. It serves me not to. Oppression.

 

[TruXta]

Both true (but different to what you said originally).

I don't agree with that I'm afraid. Maybe my the initial post of mine you quoted was a bit wider, but it made essentially the same point.

Anyhoo.

 

[TruXta]

I'd never heard of identity politics before joining these boards. From the way the phrase has been used I gathered it was some sort of put down or insult.

I appreciate danny la rouge's OP - but must confess you have lost me some what. Do I need a PPE degree to understand it? or should I have done some specific homework first?

Here's one take on it that doesn't presume too much background knowledge

In a society too short of common goals, identity politics are an imperfect answer | Kenan Malik

 

[Athos]

I don't agree with that I'm afraid. Maybe my the initial post of mine you quoted was a bit wider, but it made essentially the same point.

Anyhoo.

It's not essentially the same, or 'a bit' wider. It suggested that you can't have an identity without identity politics, which is untrue (although the reverse is).

 

[ska invita]

LynnDoyleCooper said: ↑
But we're not just chatting about personal identity and where we get that from here, but the manifestation of identity politics as a political project, something very different.

Could you clearly define the difference between the two? How would, for example, the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity differ from a manifestation of identity politics in her?

Anyone?

 

[killer b]

"The class interest of the working class is not what drives the left politics of today as the working class is viewed mainly as one of the ‘underdog’ identities.”

I was involved in a frustrating conversation elsewhere a few weeks ago: all involved, of all backgrounds seemed to think of class purely as an identity.

A friend, a man in his early 40s who works a poorly paid clerical job with minimal prospects of advancement, lives in a damp expensive private let flat, relies on public transport and has no savings or pension, considers himself middle class because he had a middle class upbringing and his folks have bailed him out once or twice when he was on his uppers.

He seemed to think that because he didn't grow up on a council estate or experience extreme poverty as a child, he wasn't allowed to consider himself working class, despite the fact that his material conditions and interests now and for the foreseeable future, are those of the working class.

With what used to be the lower middle classes increasingly finding themselves in less secure, less well paid work and less secure housing, there's huge numbers of people like him who to all intents and purposes are working class, but who don't consider themselves so - because class has been sold them as only an identity.

 

[TruXta]

It's not essentially the same, or 'a bit' wider. It suggested that you can't have an identity without identity politics, which is untrue (although the reverse is).

Name one identity that doesn't involve politics then, somehow somewhere.

 

[Athos]

Name one identity that doesn't involve politics then, somehow somewhere.

That an identity has a political dimension is not the same as identity politics.

 

[Athos]

Anyone?

Isn't that addressed in danny la rouge 's initial post?

 

[TruXta]

That an identity has a political dimension is not the same as identity politics.

It is these days.

e2a that's the insidious nature of ID-pol, it swallows up every social nuance and rams it onto the ladder of oppression.

 

[weepiper]

huge numbers of people like him who to all intents and purposes are working class, but who don't consider themselves so - because class has been sold them as only an identity.

Deliberately so, in a divide and rule kind of way.

 

[Athos]

It is these days.

Then you must have a different understanding of what identity politics is. I think that's true of many people, and part of the reason posters often talk part each other on this topic. My understanding is along the lines set out in the OP; what's yours?

 

[chilango]

I was involved in a frustrating conversation elsewhere a few weeks ago: all involved, of all backgrounds seemed to think of class purely as an identity.

A friend, a man in his early 40s who works a poorly paid clerical job with minimal prospects of advancement, lives in a damp expensive private let flat, relies on public transport and has no savings or pension, considers himself middle class because he had a middle class upbringing and his folks have bailed him out once or twice when he was on his uppers.

He seemed to think that because he didn't grow up on a council estate or experience extreme poverty as a child, he wasn't allowed to consider himself working class, despite the fact that his material conditions and interests now and for the foreseeable future, are those of the working class.

With what used to be the lower middle classes increasingly finding themselves in less secure, less well paid work and less secure housing, there's huge numbers of people like him who to all intents and purposes are working class, but who don't consider themselves so - because class has been sold them as only an identity.

Yep. An illustration (and a very central one) of how basing politics on personally "felt" identity excludes rather than includes, and of whose interests it ultimately serves.

For every person who feels strongly enough about their identify to build a political engagement around it, how many more don't fit strongly enough?

 

[alsoknownas]

It is these days.

e2a that's the insidious nature of ID-pol, it swallows up every social nuance and rams it onto the ladder of oppression.

If by social nuance you mean things like race, gender, sexuality, etc., they are already on the ladder of oppression, they don't need to be rammed there, simply recognised where they lay.

 

[Athos]

If by social nuance you mean things like race, gender, sexuality, etc., they are already on the ladder of oppression, they don't need to be rammed there, simply recognised where they lay.

But why is ID pol the only/best way to do so?

 

[ska invita]

With what used to be the lower middle classes increasingly finding themselves in less secure, less well paid work and less secure housing, there's huge numbers of people like him who to all intents and purposes are working class, but who don't consider themselves so - because class has been sold them as only an identity.

The Mike Savage et al survey on class attitudes concludes with just this, that people are increasingly actively shunning their traditional (not necessarily Marxist) class status as identity because of perceived social stigmas. Working class people don't want to be prejudged as working class and nor do middle class people want to be judged as middle class. Only the upper classes remain clear on their class position and status

Isn't that addressed in danny la rouge 's initial post?

No. Are you able to define the difference? Because if there is one I don't understand it. LynnDoyleCooper says its "something very different". and you enthusiastically agreed Athos.

 

[killer b]

Yep. An illustration (and a very central one) of how basing politics on personally "felt" identity excludes rather than includes, and of whose interests it ultimately serves.

For every person who feels strongly enough about their identify to build a political engagement around it, how many more don't fit strongly enough?

It works in both directions - the borders of class are sometimes quite rigidly defended by those of more traditional working class backgrounds, as it's identity to them too.

 

[TruXta]

Then you must have a different understanding of what identity politics is. I think that's true of many people, and parry of the reason posters often talk part each other on this topic. My understanding is along the lines set out in the OP; what's yours?

That's a fair question. I don't agree with everything danny says, but his OP was a good starter. When I read this from the OP:

In today’s ‘radical’ politics there is an assumption, sometimes stated, sometimes unstated, but either way underpinning much of the thinking one comes across, that identity and politics are a continuum. We can see this continuum as analogous to spacetime. We’ll call it identitypolitics. In this model, identity is politics and politics is identity. The one is but an aspect of the other. In this model, it is assumed that certain people will necessarily be drawn to ‘radicalism’ because of their identity, and that certain others will tend towards ‘reactionary politics’ because of theirs. This is essentialism.

my take is that identity and politics do form a continuum. I also agree that in today's ID politics there's a tendency towards essentialism. But I don't think that the latter invalidates the former, simply because essentialism is a consequence of the way ID politics has emerged in the West over the last few generations, and identitypolitics runs much deeper than that, right down to the core of who we are as a species in my opinion.

Does that help you see where I'm coming from?

 

[Athos]

That's a fair question. I don't agree with everything danny says, but his OP was a good starter. When I read this from the OP:



my take is that identity and politics do form a continuum. I also agree that in today's ID politics there's a tendency towards essentialism. But I don't think that the latter invalidates the former, simply because essentialism is a consequence of the way ID politics has emerged in the West over the last few generations, and identitypolitics runs much deeper than that, right down to the core of who we are as a species in my opinion.

Does that help you see where I'm coming from?

Not really. Can you explain in more detail everything after "my take...", please?

 

[alsoknownas]

But why is ID pol the only/best way to do so?

I don't think its the only way, and I really do wish that the kinds of identity-based protest you see today was still linked to wider ideological struggle, and cross-struggle unity; but I do think there's a time and a place for uniting around your common oppression as a group and fighting back. I see the practical results of self-determination and cultural identity, and also the truth in compounded oppressions as they hit different groups. I think it's fucking odd that left wing people are all of a sudden seeing these movements as some kind of threat instead of a great opportunity to try and develop left thinking. People are risking their lives to oppose the actions of the state - do you not see that as a more likely breeding ground for socialist ideas and ideals than your average library group meeting or whatever?

 

[TruXta]

Not really. Can you explain in more detail everything after "my take...", please?

Right.

No.