Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.
- Thread starter danny la rouge
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BigTom
Well-Known Member
If you're asking questions about those articles / identity politics, that won't be disrupting/detailing this thread, since that's the topic here, and in any case most of the discussion on this thread was done a while back and you asking more questions (especially "basic" ones) could spark more discussion/debate as well.
Sunset Tree
Well-Known Member
It was a few days ago I watched this, but don't remember her talking much about trans issues at all?
Thanks.
Well, since you asked, I'll state my position and see if it does indeed spark conversation.
I'm not hugely informed about these things as my environment is about as 'normal' as it gets, being cis white straight and living in a very unradical environment. I've been trying to understand the politics of differnet groups but everything seems to centre around that wretched phrase SJW, and the voices I hear the most, or who seem to get broadcast the most, are of course the likes of Sargon or Dave Rubin, or Stefan Molyneux, Joe Roagan, and now Jordan B Peterson. There are plenty of others, I'm sure you know them all. They seem to spend their time shouting about free speech and how universities are run by these SJWs who hate free speech and want safe spaces etc.
You get the picture.
I have found it very difficult to understand the truth of all this. I don't believe them, to be clear. When I say I don't understand I'ms aying that I agree with things like feminism, in the sense that women are oppressed and shouldn't be, but I don't have a background in feminist theory for example. I wouldn't even know where to start (I don't read good either, so if kind souls are to recommend books, which is fine, just don't expect me to read them quickly).
I hope that's clear. For the record, I find the likes of Sargon/Rubin etc utterly mendacious, bad faith operators who aren't interested in having an honest discourse but in winding up the masses (re: Anita Sarkeesian, who seems to have spent 7 years being roundly shat on by cunts) for patreon dollars.
As you were
Thanks for that — it’s excellent
That’s really interesting
Shechemite
Be the sun and all will see you
Shechemite
Be the sun and all will see you
Apparently
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Touches on it by quoting Miranda Yardley, and saying that being trans is just men trying to 'absolve' themselves of their sins. A quick glance at her twitter makes her general position pretty clear. It's not surprising quite a lot of people (who watch far too many of these kinds of videos) aren't that keen on her.
I am a bit surprised as to why this simple undergraduate essay is being so widely praised. It's a quite reasonable advocacy for the basic position of the simplistic pseudo-materialist argument. It makes some perfectly sound points, and of course kicks against some obvious pricks. But that's about it. Her definition of 'Identity Politics' is so narrow that it doesn't really apply to the vast majority of people involved in campaigns around womens/black/trans rights. Sure, its fine to criticise simplistic notions of 'privilege' and those who base their whole politics upon that notion. But it's way too simplistic, I dont know a single person who would subscribe to the notion that one can simply tot up ones oppression points as she claims. There are claims that none of the forms of ID politics can explain why oppression arose, which uis just wrong. Fair enough, completely disagree with their analysis (I'd probably agree with her), but don't deny it even exists.
e2a: I also find it a bit weird, that a Welsh person would use the American term 'social justice warriors' to refer to a movement in, prsumably, the UK. Why import that right-wing Americanism?
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friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
I don't think that is a derail at all. Be careful asking for homework though this lot just keep telling me to read Marx.
Must admit I drifted off about about 5mins of that video, as I had to look up what a SJW type was that she was going on about. I'd never heard of social justice warriors, I suppose its only an internet thing and I really don't do twitter/facebook etc so I don't see it.
I don't meet people who talk about this stuff much in real life either.
friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
Thanks for explaining that. Is there any UK equivalent of the term?
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Yeah, I found the use of 'SJW' annoying and anyway I think it's not a helpful term. In my mind it's filed under 'snowflake' as something the alt-right use.
I also broadly agree with you. I'm a sucker for critiques of ID politics, but I found this one one of the weaker ones generally.
Only saw first couple of mins yesterday, might watch rest later... But SJW isn't an outre or exclusively American phrase any more.
Well I did ask about Marx - ironically the one writer that waterstones never has in stock. Nevermind. I'll find Capital second hand somewhere buy it and then never read it.
Is it? Perhaps in the internet communities from where it was vomitted
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
There's loads of good shorter relevant articles that have been quoted on here on various threads covering this topic.
Dude, you're on the internet... Posting in a community. It's just a few clicks hither and thither on a thematic trajectory to stumble across mentions of SJWs. Of course loads of people don't know what it means but it's not some odd term just invented last week.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I was hardly expecting Grundrisse, but this is just picking at the low hanging fruit, really. And so much of it isn't even specific to identitarians. All the religious stuff is straight from John Grey's criticism of the socialist left (a criticism oft repeated on here by a certain miserablist poster), people being ridiculously shouty and not listening to their opponents has surely been a staple of student politics for decades.
Add in complaining about Americanisms and then using SJW's is just odd, and shows how much the author is sucked into the small world she is complaining about. And it's a bit...odd/telling that Black Lives Matter comes in for attack (albeit in passing) and the idpol movement that doesn't are the anti-sex work feminists. There's a perfectly valid argument around that issue, of course, but why is it the only acceptable such movement that is mentioned?
Sunset Tree
Well-Known Member
It was a solid overview of the key points around class vs. identity politics.
They don't listen to people on their own side either (the broad left) unless you have the necessary oppression status.
Just my experience, but the form of idpol she rails against isn't just a few pricks in niche online cultural spheres. I've noticed that form of politics become quite widespread among people who consider themselves left wing. Particularly about how class is relegated to just another identity and representation becomes more important than structural equality.
They don't listen to people on their own side either (the broad left) unless you have the necessary oppression status.
Just my experience, but the form of idpol she rails against isn't just a few pricks in niche online cultural spheres. I've noticed that form of politics become quite widespread among people who consider themselves left wing. Particularly about how class is relegated to just another identity and representation becomes more important than structural equality.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
I've seen SJW used a lot but never to mean 'advocate of identity politics' as opposed to 'someone with class focused politics'. I think that video is probably the first time I've seen it used by someone who wouldn't consider the speaker to be one tbh.
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Athos
Well-Known Member
Telling how?
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
To be honest, no. Of those you list, I've heard of Peterson, but only from mentions on here.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
flimsy as fuck, imo. Simple materialism v a straw man for five minutes, followed by ten minutes of irrelevance.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I agree with belboid. Awful shallow waffly stuff and exactly what i hoped we weren't doing with this thread and wider critiques of identity politics. Its normalisation of alt-right term, it's ownership of them in fact is rank.
Athos
Well-Known Member
I have mixed feelings about her use of that term. Part of her idea is that is workers see these behaviours by people who, like it or not, have come to be more widely known (i.e. outside the right) as SJWs, and are turned off the whole of the left, and into the hands of the right. Something which an explicity left wing criticism of this identifiable trend seeks to counter. I think there's some value in distancing the left from that sort of politics. Though I do have reservations about co-opting the language of the right to do so.
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