krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Indeed. A right bunch of shits, on that I'm sure everyone can agree.
Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.
- Thread starter danny la rouge
- Start date
Indeed. A right bunch of shits, on that I'm sure everyone can agree.
Treacle Toes
Time
Thanks for the solidarity krtek a houby it was like being rushed by a gang of hostile toddlers.
He referred to my tagline because he is the one who inspired it by calling me hysterical for similar non-reasons about a month or so ago. It was his usual non-involvement in the discussion then wading in to shit-stir or have a pop. I rewarded him by wearing it with pride. I have a new tagline now.
Perhaps over the course of the next year i'll make a list of the best overblown, self-aggrandising insults I receive around here and do a social study. No doubt they will teach me all about the politics of solidarity.
He referred to my tagline because he is the one who inspired it by calling me hysterical for similar non-reasons about a month or so ago. It was his usual non-involvement in the discussion then wading in to shit-stir or have a pop. I rewarded him by wearing it with pride. I have a new tagline now.
Perhaps over the course of the next year i'll make a list of the best overblown, self-aggrandising insults I receive around here and do a social study. No doubt they will teach me all about the politics of solidarity.
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Shechemite
Be the sun and all will see you
Ah, so the full extent to which I and others are using ‘shared language’ with the far right regarding identity politics is... the term ‘identity politics’.
And you talk of others snide comments
People on the left used to be passionate about economic structures and ownership of the means of production. Is that what the right wingers are calling “identity politics” these days, then? Or could it be that identity politics is not, in fact, just whatever the left are passionate about?
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Yes - that's the focus of this thread. Identity politics. Are you unaware of the use of that term by right wingers online?
I know how they use it. To shut down debate and make any concerns a person has about racism, homophobia and injustice. Or that other shit term; "virtue signalling". I'm assuming that isn't used here.
Saying that using the term identity politics is shared with right wing commentators isn't snide. It's what happens.
Being all clever with posters who don't see it as clearly as you do and calling them victims or childish etc... to me, that appears to be snide.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
It could be. But then the whole term is (imho) a very nebulous one that's difficult to pin down and define. And I don't mean one poster saying to another "oh that's typical IDP etc" when the dialogue does not elicit the preferred response.
It's not at all difficult to pin down, nor is it nebulous or ill-defined. It has been quite pithily summed up over and again on this thread. There are none so blind as those who won't read and remember a few fucking lines on a message board.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
It's been summed up, argued, debated,expanded on, questioned and disagreed. But there are many of us out there who still don't get the vociferous backlash to those who question it.
We all identify with some issues more than others, it doesn't mean we don't care or think any less of such issues. People have experiences for good or bad,which will bind them (for good or bad) to those issues. There are also people who may not be able to comprehend the mintiuae of IDP. If I walked into my old local and asked someone (for clarification) on what IDP is, I guarantee you, most people wouldn't be able to explain it. Doesn't mean they are stupid or anything like, we just haven't heard of it before.
So is the concept difficult, nebulous and ill-defined, or is it just that you don't understand the backlash?
What does this piece of sentimentality have to do with any of the rest of your post?
What has this got to do with anything either? Is it supposed to be relevant to this thread?
At your "old local" -- in the unlikely event that people in there were remotely interested in hearing me talk about politics -- if I took the time to go and tell them exactly what identity politics is, I would actually then expect them to remember the basics of what I had told them five fucking minutes later. And if they wanted to discuss the subject in any depth, I would expect them to either pay attention to the detail or not expect that their uninformed reckons were as valid as those who had paid attention to the detail.
AllEternalsHeck
Active Member
Then could a sense of bitterness about 'scroungers' be bourne in their own poverty and insecurity? I remember a spell when I was working ridiculous hours doing a full time masters, 24 hours in a call centre, 20 hours unpaid placement, 3 hours volunteering per week. And I was so fucking poor. I paid my rent and bills and immediately had less to live on than someone on benefits. At the time I felt some bitterness towards my brother in law who has never had a job, lives on benefits, and had way more expendable income than me. Not that he was loaded but he could afford the odd indulgence while I couldn't buy a new £10 pair of shoes from Asda.
Poverty wears you down and ime you can get quite bitter towards people who appear to have it easier while not having to work. It's annoying for people working a low paid stressful job and feeling no better off than friends and family who don't work, so people vent about it.
Since my situation is more secure now (yay stipend) I find that bitterness has faded. It sucks to have no job and live on benefits. But at the time I was jealous. I think it's easier to dismiss working class complaints from a comfortable vantage, without realising just how stressed out people are.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
1. I'm just repeating myself here. But yes, the concept is all that and yes, I don't understand the backlash to posters here. Or the inference that because it's questioned we're somehow stupid.
2. I mentioned it because experience. That's what everyone brings to politics. Why is it sentimental?
3. Not everyone has the attention span you require of them. Or the memory. There's more to a person's daily existence than getting bogged down in semantics.
And so we're back again to you making a statement that identity politics as a concept is difficult, nebulous and ill-defined. And this statement is made blindly in the face of the repeated straightforward, clear and well-stated definitions of it in this very thread.
Any backlash is irrelevant to this claim about its very meaning.
I remember going swimming at the local pool at the age of 10. I used to always have Frazzles afterwards, and was obsessed by the Streetfighter II arcade machine they had at the foot of the stairs. To this day, the sight of Blanca makes me remember the smell of chlorine.
Marvellous stuff.
No such thing as experts, eh? Or are we all just tired of listening to them? I forget.
Anyway, I'm still none the wise as to why the pre-existing knowledge the nameless denizens of your "old local" are in any way relevant to any of the things you are trying to take objection to.
And fuck your attempt to conflate the straightforward definition of something you refuse to take in with "semantics", you weasel.
AllEternalsHeck
Active Member
Not sure we're talking about the same thing. I wouldn't be so presumptuous to ask you to educate me about your sexuality. I've been shouted down with 'not my job to educate you' just for making a counterpoint to a statement such as 'fuck all straights'. I literally disagreed that was a useful way of looking at things and was told it's not our job to explain this, if you don't understand then fuck off and read about our oppression.
Let us not forget the quote we are currently discussing, here
Still stand by this?
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
In as much as any online dealing I've had with right wingers; yes. That doesn't mean I'm reducing the concerns of those on the left down to a few issues, btw.
That's what (from my experience) the right does.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Thank you to Red Cat and others who are steering us back into reasoned debate. I'd hate for the last few pages of bad tempered squabbling to be used by some as an excuse for saying there's nothing here worth bothering with. There is: the vast majority of the thread has been perfectly reasonable.
And that brings me to my first point: those who say they still don't understand the criticism by those of us who are critiquing identitypolitics are obviously not reading the many lucid and coherent posts on this thread which have outlined the criticism. If you mean you don't agree, that's quite different. I don't expect everyone to agree with me. In fact I'm pretty used to the exact opposite. So that's fine, expound your disagreements. But please don't couch that as an inability to understand, because after this length of time I'm afraid I don't believe you.
While on that track, let me reply to this:
Leave aside terms and terminology for a moment. What is now mainstream is the ideology, the version of 'anti racism', that has been critiqued here by me in the OP and several others. Numerous examples have been given. Many writers have pointed this problem out: Kenan Malik, Salar Mohandesi, Asad Haider and many others.
I argue that at its worst this version of anti-racism is not anti-racist at all, but uses the language and ideas of racism and legitimises, perpetuates and indeed perpetrates afresh that division of humanity. I deplore this. I have given examples, as have others. But it is the language and ideology of exceptionalism, of biological determinism, of biological classification that I deplore.
We cannot, apparently, understand the oppression any group we are told we don't belong to suffers, unless we have ourselves experienced it. I understand where this fallacy comes from. I've expanded on that. But where it has led us is, I'm afraid, back into division and racism.
I wanted to debate the best way of going about fighting those oppressions herein discussed - sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on - and whether what I've termed identitypolitics is helpful or counter-productive. I gave the steer that I thought it was counter-productive. Nothing so far has changed my mind about that.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Not got much to say other than I totally concur with all that danny.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
I'm not saying that, danny. I can;t be as erudite as you but I agree that if someone dismisses a show of solidarity from soneone else because they aren't someone who has experienced the same shit. Well, that's just wrong and divisive as you say.
The writers you mention I have never heard of before. What I'm trying to say is there seems to be so much backstory and context to it all... you realise that not all of us (well, me certainly) aren't as well read as that?
It's comes across as grandstanding. And that isn't meant to be a harsh snipe at you but the ordinary person isn't always going to have all that knowledge to hand or be possibly inclined to read it. Do you see what I'm saying? You're a very clever poster and one of the most interesting on urban but there's room surely for those of us who are concerned about injustice but maybe not so well informed? Personally, I try to take on board what's said but these days its just too hard to follow.
That's my lot. I promised myself I wouldn't get too stuck into the politics threads anymore for various reasons. Thanks for trying to explain again. I get some of it, which is better than nothing. I'll bow out now.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I'm going to ignore must of the stuff on the last 2-3 pages but wanted to address this.
However, I do not see how anyone can claim that identitypolitics and class politics are not fundamentally opposed (note not "totally opposite", I don't think anyone has claimed that). They are two incompatible political frameworks, indentitypolitics reduces class to an identity, class politics makes it the fundamental basis for the changes that occur in society. For example see the Miliband quotes killer b quoted earlier.
Even on a day-to-day level indentitypolitics often promotes political directions that are, form the perspective of class politics, reactionary (faith schools, equal pay for women FTSE100 directors, the racialisation of society), identitypolitics has been used (including here on U75) to smear people as racists, sexists etc. Identitypolitics is being used by both liberals and the hard-right to argue for both policies and a worldview that is at odds with class politics.
Well whether a (marxian) class analysis helps people "see things more clearly" is going to ultimately depend on your politics, what your aims are, how you understand that world etc.
However, I do not see how anyone can claim that identitypolitics and class politics are not fundamentally opposed (note not "totally opposite", I don't think anyone has claimed that). They are two incompatible political frameworks, indentitypolitics reduces class to an identity, class politics makes it the fundamental basis for the changes that occur in society. For example see the Miliband quotes killer b quoted earlier.
Even on a day-to-day level indentitypolitics often promotes political directions that are, form the perspective of class politics, reactionary (faith schools, equal pay for women FTSE100 directors, the racialisation of society), identitypolitics has been used (including here on U75) to smear people as racists, sexists etc. Identitypolitics is being used by both liberals and the hard-right to argue for both policies and a worldview that is at odds with class politics.
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How is this possible? Malik in particular is quoted every time ID politics is discussed, and you're always deep in any discussion, claiming not to understand what we're talking about. Do you never bother reading anything anyone posts to help you understand?
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
The idea that people need to have read the writers danny mentioned or even needed to have past knowledge of politics of identitypolitics is rubbish. Danny's OP assumed no prior knowledge, it clearly outlined what identitypolitics is and why some of us consider it harmful. And while people have mentioned writers in the discussion as further examples of what they are talking about they've clearly explained their points within the thread itself.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
I read them but it doesn't stick in my memory anymore. Sorry. There are so many names and discussions, it's difficult to file them all away, do you understand what I'm saying? And I'm not trying to be dismissive.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
OK, but they're not required reading for the thread; the thread is.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Because most people are decent and they understand that not everyone is at their level and that some people don't have the capacity any more to process and remember the hundreds if not thousands of posts theyve read over the last few days, let alone months.
Anyways, this is becoming all about me again which (believe it or not) I really was tryingto avoid. I really am leaving this thread, any replies/questions please pm me instead of this thread. Cheers sorry for the derail.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You have a responsibility to make some effort now, though, particularly as this thread is in the Theory forum. Not sure what others are supposed to do with this kind of statement.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
OK - so I understand broadly, what class politics are, and I think I understand, broadly, what Danny means by identitypolitics. What perhaps I'm not clear on is when say, anti-racist political action is a good thing, and when it has crossed over into identitypolitics. Now I suppose you could say that it depends on the political analysis that has inspired the action but that's not always clear.
What I've noticed on urban in particular is that the term identity politics tends to get thrown around in response to any argument that involves a minority group (especially transgender rights, but not exclusively). Those of us who have had to fight for our rights as members of minorities over the past few decades are understandably wary about this tendency. I find the online excesses of identitypolitics as Danny describes deeply frustrating and for me, class always comes first... but that can't mean abandoning fights for equality either. It's a baby and bathwater question, and I'm not sure how to tell the difference.
What I've noticed on urban in particular is that the term identity politics tends to get thrown around in response to any argument that involves a minority group (especially transgender rights, but not exclusively). Those of us who have had to fight for our rights as members of minorities over the past few decades are understandably wary about this tendency. I find the online excesses of identitypolitics as Danny describes deeply frustrating and for me, class always comes first... but that can't mean abandoning fights for equality either. It's a baby and bathwater question, and I'm not sure how to tell the difference.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
This is why I keep referring to indentitypolitics as a political framework rather than a set of "behaviours" or "excesses" as characterised by some people (indeed I think such that characterisation is wrong and makes little sense).
For example both class politics and identitypolitics are opposed to the pay differential between men and women, where they come into conflict is (1) how they view that battle in the wider view of the world and (2) the means by which it should be challenged.
But absolutely nobody has argued for "abandoning fights for equality". Indeed much of the criticism of indentitypolitics is that it doesn't actually tackle the fight for equality, but rather just wants to deal with a few aspects of the issue (often the aspects of most interest to the middle class).
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AllEternalsHeck
Active Member
The black lives matter movement in the US is an example of anti-racist action which isn't identity politics imo. There is a clear intersection between race and class in the oppression being tackled (a double discrimination). It crosses into identity politics when people strip away the nuance and interpret it as all white people are guilty of perpetuating racism, even poor white people are oppressing upper middle class black people.
I'm willing to be corrected here but that's an example I thought of.
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