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

[Edie]

Sunset Tree Ive just read an article that DLR sent to me, that says that identity politics really turns a useful idea on it’s head. So originally the term “white skin privilege” was coined to point out that the people ruling (and profiting) in the Southern United States used the idea of white priviledge to bribe poor whites, and stop poor white people uniting with poor black people (inc slaves) and rising up.

So the intention of the term was to point out this mechanism to try to get unity, not only to highlight the social injustice of poor whites having privilege over poor blacks (although obviously that existed and is important in itself). That the use of racism in that context was harmful to poor whites as well as black people, and benefitted the plantation owners.

But the use of identity politics today often does the exact opposite. By pointing out ‘white Privilege’ it divides people. What can a poor white person say except I guess your right? Rather than being an idea that unites people, it’s a divisive idea. That’s a problem.

(Edit: article here: https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/a-marxist-critiques-identity-politics/ although for the record I didn’t find it particularly easy to read in parts!).

 

[Dragnet]

(Edit: article here: https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/a-marxist-critiques-identity-politics/ although for the record I didn’t find it particularly easy to read in parts!).

That's a really good interview - going to have to get his book. Anyone read it?

 

[danny la rouge]

That's a really good interview - going to have to get his book. Anyone read it?

Yes, I've read it. If you've read his articles, you've read it. Each chapter is just an expansion on an existing essay. Sometimes barely that. It's worth reading if you haven't read all his articles, but it's not a major new work, and it's quite slim too.

 

[elbows]

Or accepting that trigger warnings are complete evidence free bullshit (can’t agree enough about that one, what adult needs a trigger warning- jesus christ).

I'm not terribly familiar with how far the whole trigger warning thing has been stretched these days. But I cant say it was a great fun to go to the cinema with someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of violent rape, only for the film to then feature an unexpected scene of terrible sexual violence. And I will always be haunted by the time someone was explaining that the painting we were looking at was The Rape by Magritte, and then wouldnt stop pressing her as to what was wrong when she reacted badly to the detail.

 

[Treacle Toes]

What can a poor white person say except I guess your right? Rather than being an idea that unites people, it’s a divisive idea. That’s a problem.

I don't agree with this all the way around. Identifying the existence of and acknowledging when White privilege is at play can be a unifying thing and build solidarity against prejudice and inequitable treatment. This is a good thing...it gives us a clear deck to focus our attentions, in an honest and meanongful way on class struggle. Even amongst working class Black and White people these dynamics play out and can be addressed and changed together.

Saying that people are being divisive because they need/want those elements of their experiences acknowledged isn't helpful, to me it's the other extreme and not unity building either.

 

[Edie]

I'm not terribly familiar with how far the whole trigger warning thing has been stretched these days. But I cant say it was a great fun to go to the cinema with someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of violent rape, only for the film to then feature an unexpected scene of terrible sexual violence. And I will always be haunted by the time someone was explaining that the painting we were looking at was The Rape by Magritte, and then wouldnt stop pressing her as to what was wrong when she reacted badly to the detail.

So you think women need to be protected from confronting sexual violence unexpectedly in art because it upsets us too much?

 

[Dragnet]

I don't agree with this all the way around. Identifying the existence of and acknowledging when White privilege is at play can be a unifying thing and build solidarity against prejudice and inequitable treatment. This is a good thing...it gives us a clear deck to focus our attentions, in an honest and meanongful way on class struggle. Even amongst working class Black and White people these dynamics play out and can be addressed and changed together.

Saying that people are being divisive because they need/want those elements of their experiences acknowledged isn't helpful, to me it's the other extreme and not unity building either.

I realise you're replying to Edie's point here, but I think what Haider says in the Q+A linked is that the pointing out and acknowledgement of inequality does nothing to change the structures that confer those inequalities - '...reaching people in neighborhoods and communities outside of your own social circle, and building alliances with other organizations' is what does that.

 

[Edie]

I don't agree with this all the way around. Identifying the existence of and acknowledging when White privilege is at play can be a unifying thing and build solidarity against prejudice and inequitable treatment. This is a good thing...it gives us a clear deck to focus our attentions, in an honest and meanongful way on class struggle. Even amongst working class Black and White people these dynamics play out and can be addressed and changed together.

Saying that people are being divisive because they need/want those elements of their experiences acknowledged isn't helpful, to me it's the other extreme and not unity building either.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be acknowledged or addressed, or that they aren't important.

I'm saying I can see how it can come to be used in a divisive unhelpful way if you don't look behind it at who is benefitting from it, because perhaps if you do that you see that white privilege is only really privilege if you aren't poor. If you are poor then the concept of white privilege risks either making you think 'well I'd better hold on to whatever privilege I've got cos its hard enough as it is, and might give me an advantage over POC or immigrants, and I badly need some kind of advantage', or else it might just piss you off and shut down because you justifiably do not feel privileged.

I mean it might not, it often might have the desired outcome you want and people might think 'well yeah I'm poor and white, but my neighbour is poor and black and on top of the poverty shit they also have to deal with stop and search or institutional racism or police violence or all the other fucked up aspects of racism'. But it might just point it out, cause division, and do nothing to change it.

I agree that that is an important aim, to recognise that and try and stop it. I can just also see the risks of that kind of line, and a big risk is shutting people out.

I dunno Rutita1, I honestly dunno if I'm talking shit here. Very new to that idea and may have got it totally wrong.

 

[elbows]

So much of idpol comes from that position of privilege and you end up with upper middle-class uni students writing off working-class people as stupid, ignorant, racist etc because they just can't understand working class perspectives and frustrations.

I think someone on these forums thought I was an example of that phenomenon recently, when I mentioned that most of the working class people I clashed with over racism and sexism were right wingers. But I said it because it happened to be true for me, with the key word being 'clashed with'. Probably my own fault for my choice of words and not explaining properly, but I was stuck in a job at a shit employer where there was no union and there were no shortage of loud, right-wing shits. I clashed with them because they were proudly racist and sexist and my earlier efforts to explore what they were saying and get to know them revealed them to be right-wing. If I had been clearer that I was only talking about the people I clashed with, not all the other working class people I knew who were either left wing or not very far to the right at all, and with whom I could discuss a range of concerns without me clashing badly with them or being even vaguely tempted to writing them off as racist and sexist shitheads, maybe I would have avoided the assumptions about me.

I worry about the state of things at universities these days, my own experience is now 25 years out of date but it was bad enough then, and not limited to the upper middle-class. Without droning on about my own class status too much, I'll just say that I think I occupy some awkward space between working and lower middle class, and there were probably a number of years where I could so easily have made the same sneery mistake as you described. For a good few years it was probably more luck than judgement that helped me avoid that shit, eg the friends I happened to make at uni that really helped with balance and not rushing to idiotic judgement.

 

[elbows]

So you think women need to be protected from confronting sexual violence unexpectedly in art because it upsets us too much?

No, I wouldnt put it like that at all and I can see all manner of problems with such a concept. But I do think that people with post-traumatic stress disorder and related stuff do very much deserve quality information that allows them to make their own well informed choices up front about what stuff they are confronted with on the art and entertainment front.

 

[killer b]

So you think women need to be protected from confronting sexual violence unexpectedly in art because it upsets us too much?

Interesting question this - I think it's reasonable for people (not just women) to want to be able to make an informed choice about whether they want to see extreme sexual violence or whatever... at the same time, it's also important that art is able to shock and horrify and disgust us, and if we totally avoid stuff that might upset us I think we end up missing some of the most significan things that art plays in our lives.

That said, there is a lazy tendency to resort to sexual (or sexualised) violence against women as a theme in modern culture - I found this short radio show by Doon Mackitchen very thought provoking on that subject: BBC Radio 4 - Body Count Rising

 

[Treacle Toes]

I realise you're replying to Edie's point here, but I think what Haider says in the Q+A linked is that the pointing out and acknowledgement of inequality does nothing to change the structures that confer those inequalities - '...reaching people in neighborhoods and communities outside of your own social circle, and building alliances with other organizations' is what does that.

It's not just about acknowledgement though, it's a unified acting against those things too. Either by individuals or groups. In our day to day interactions, at work, with family and friends also. That doesn't mean you can't do all the other stuff too, in fact they go hand in hand in my experience.

 

[elbows]

Interesting question this - I think it's reasonable for people (not just women) to want to be able to make an informed choice about whether they want to see extreme sexual violence or whatever... at the same time, it's also important that art is able to shock and horrify and disgust us, and if we totally avoid stuff that might upset us I think we end up missing some of the most significan things that art plays in our lives.

Yeah, and I mention post-traumatic stress disorder for a reason. There is a difference between finding something really shocking and upsetting, and having terrible flashbacks, disturbed mental health, not being able to sleep for weeks afterwards etc.

 

[Edie]

elbows I know you didn't put it like that, but that's kind of what I read from what you wrote. You gave two examples, both of women, both relating to sexual violence, both encountered in art.

For the record I'm not convinced that people need protecting from life or reality or art. I don't think it necessarily helps, or that there is evidence that it helps get over traumatic events not to have to face it. And I think the idea that you should try and (as Loki says) reorder the world around our own personal difficulty usually ends in failure.

The trigger warning shit also directly feeds into the whole 'safe spaces' bollocks. And my god the alt-right are correct to try and take this down. The world isn't safe. There are dangerous ideas out there. Grow up and face them.

 

[Treacle Toes]

You can't imagine any situations where a safe space policy is the right thing to have and enforce? Seriously?

Again, this is the other extreme IMO.

 

[Edie]

You can't imagine one sit uation where a safe space policy is the right thing to have and enforce? Seriously?

Give me one? I've never encountered one in the wild.

 

[elbows]

elbows I know you didn't put it like that, but that's kind of what I read from what you wrote. You can two examples, both of women, both relating to sexual violence, both encountered in art.

For the record I'm not convinced that people need protecting from life or reality or art. I don't think it necessarily helps, or that there is evidence that it helps get over traumatic events not to have to face it. And I think the idea that you should try and (as Loki says) reorder the world around our own personal difficulty usually ends in failure.

The trigger warning shit also directly feeds into the whole 'safe spaces' bollocks. And my god the alt-right are correct to try and take this down. The world isn't safe. There are dangerous ideas out there. Grow up and face them.

The reason both my examples were of women is that I wanted to draw on my own experience of seeing the harm done, and I havent got much of it, both of those incidents were the same person.

Honestly, people confronting terrible things that have happened is important. But its equally important that they have as much control as possible of this process, and take it at their own pace. Of course the world cannot be made safe, but what is wrong with taking small and reasonable steps that can help some a little, some of the time?

'grow up and face them' is just 'get over it' to me, offensive shit that does a gross disservice to what little we have learnt about mental health and wellbeing. I think I understand where you are coming from, but not the destination you have reached on this.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Trigger warnings and safe spaces aren't really ID Politics are they.

 

[Edie]

Trigger warnings and safe spaces aren't really ID Politics are they.

In my mind they are certainly bundled into that "movement with no name/IDpol/SJW" thing.

 

[Treacle Toes]

The alt-right doesn't just ridicule over zealous uses of trigger warnings and safer spaces...they use ridicule to justify their abuse, often similar to the very reason these things exist in the first place.

 

[elbows]

I will shut up about trigger spaces very oon, but one last point.

People can do a lot of things with warnings and advanced information. A lot of people choose to watch documentaries where the topic is something they have a lot of personal experience and hurt about, eg the loss of a child.

But there can be quite a large difference between actively choosing to watch something, having prepared yourself as best as possible beforehand for the stuff you will likely face, and being completely blindsided by something that was unexpected and out of context.

 

[Athos]

Surely the issue isn't whether the left should recognise that certain characteristics can (though don't always) confer privilege - of course it should - but whether it's most beneficial to all of us to address those problems within the context of class (which isn't even to say that they are necessarily subordinate to class in all circumstances), as opposed to an end in themselves. It's like the difference between, say, a union meeting encouraging input from immigrants to explain how they experience capital attempting to sow division amongst workers (which, others might have been blissfully unaware of, not having suffered it), versus some middle class student politico dismissing (often with ridicule) the opinion of worker because he has no sex/gender/race/ sexuality etc. oppression 'points.' One builds solidarity with the aim of radically changing things, the other is very divisive - people squabbling over often very superficial notions of 'fairness' within the status quo.

 

[8ball]

elbowsThe trigger warning shit also directly feeds into the whole 'safe spaces' bollocks. And my god the alt-right are correct to try and take this down. The world isn't safe. There are dangerous ideas out there. Grow up and face them.

We've had warnings on TV about programmes with violence (sexual or otherwise) etc. for years.

 

[Edie]

The reason both my examples were of women is that I wanted to draw on my own experience of seeing the harm done, and I havent got much of it, both of those incidents were the same person.

Honestly, people confronting terrible things that have happened is important. But its equally important that they have as much control as possible of this process, and take it at their own pace. Of course the world cannot be made safe, but what is wrong with taking small and reasonable steps that can help some a little, some of the time?

'grow up and face them' is just 'get over it' to me, offensive shit that does a gross disservice to what little we have learnt about mental health and wellbeing. I think I understand where you are coming from, but not the destination you have reached on this.

It's a good question... what is wrong, or what is the risk, of taking small and reasonable steps to help people not have to confront things which upset them?

And thinking about your example, giving a woman who has been raped and has PTSD a chance to avoid meeting distressing images in a public place seems hard to argue against. Like that seems an unequivocally good thing.

But do you think there might be a risk as well of treating people like delicate things that need to be protected from ideas or images so that they do not become distressed? Is there not something disempowering in that in itself? I do not think it is a coincidence that the examples you used were of a woman. This sort of stuff is very often aimed at women, its often around sexual abuse, it's often around self harm or suicide attempts. As women are we doing ourselves a favour by avoiding this stuff?

(as an aside I'm not immune to this stuff, I remember watching This is England when Lol got raped by her Dad. I was so shocked I went and vomited and put my head in the washing and cried so the kids couldn't hear me. Would I have avoided watching it if I'd known it was coming? maybe. Would that of been right? Maybe, maybe not though. Cos I still remember the rage I felt for Lol, and how it met with my rage).

 

[elbows]

That'd be my biggest criticism of it; baby out with the bathwater.

I've been dwelling further on this as the baby out with the bathwater is a phrase I've had cause to use of late.

I suspect there is an additional complication in the struggle against ID politics. That some people who are full to the brim with reactionary shite confuse it with their own struggle.

 

[Athos]

The alt-right doesn't just ridicule over zealous uses of trigger warnings and safer spaces...they use ridicule to justify their abuse, often similar to the very reason these things exist in the first place.

And, worse, they use some of the more extreme examples of this sort of nonsense to discredit the left I the eyes of ordinary workers. Which is why we need an explicitly left wing critique of it that doesn't throw the baby out with the batch water.

 

[elbows]

But do you think there might be a risk as well of treating people like delicate things that need to be protected from ideas or images so that they do not become distressed? Is there not something disempowering in that in itself? I do not think it is a coincidence that the examples you used were of a woman. This sort of stuff is very often aimed at women, its often around sexual abuse, it's often around self harm or suicide attempts. As women are we doing ourselves a favour by avoiding this stuff?

It ought to be possible to furnish people with information so they can make their own choices without falling into that trap. I do appreciate what you are saying here though. I think the first thing I said on this topic acknowledged that I am out of touch with how far the concept of 'trigger warning' may have been stretched these days. I would not be shocked to learn that some otherwise well-meaning people have stretched things too far, with unintended consequences. But I need examples of this to learn from.

 

[8ball]

They use those extreme-SJWs as a trojan horse too. Once it's established that these are crazy fuckers to be mocked and laughed at, they'll start applying the same principle towards more rational lefty views. I saw a video where the guy was mocking an 'SJW' youtuber who was talking about how race is socially constructed. Thing is, her video was just a solid overview of race from a sociological/anthropological perspective. Pretty on point, nothing crazy, calmly presented. But the alt-right guy is bracketing her alongside all of the genuinely mental clips. So they do use it to discredit progressive arguments more generally and the properly mental stuff is a gateway to discrediting sensible stuff.

The person most likely just couldn't tell the difference between a cogent argument and stuff that was barking. These guys are really scattergun and will either latch onto people who say anything they agree with (see Jordan Peterson), or attack anything they associate with lefty academicism.

Also, it should be understood that they're primarily making these videos to show off to each other.

 

[Edie]

elbows I guess a concern I have is that the 'trigger warning' 'safe space' arguments is that they are related to the attempted no-platforming of people whose ideas you find offensive. Like the movement that tried to prevent Greer speaking at Cardiff University. Her opinion is that she doesn't think "a woman is a man without a cock". Now you will probably find that incredibly offensive and transphobic (although to me it's merely stating the blindingly obvious), but whatever our individual views on that statement, the fact is that it's a matter of free speech to be able to debate trans genderism with someone like Greer openly. And the alt-right will take the piss if you can't because you are too offended and not safe enough, and rightly so.

 

[elbows]

elbows I guess a concern I have is that the 'trigger warning' 'safe space' arguments is that they are related to the attempted no-platforming of people whose ideas you find offensive. Like the movement that tried to prevent Greer speaking at Cardiff University. Her opinion is that she doesn't think "a woman is a man without a cock". Now you will probably find that incredibly offensive and transphobic (although to me it's merely stating the blindingly obvious), but whatever our individual views on that statement, the fact is that it's a matter of free speech to be able to debate trans genderism with someone like Greer openly. And the alt-right will take the piss if you can't because you are too offended and not safe enough, and rightly so.

For me regarding such matters, I think its very important to see what people feel about such concepts of free speech across a range of topics. Not just one theme in particular where it may be our own opinions about the issue of substance in question that drive the argument, rather than the underlying question of free speech etc.

For example, I am familiar with the modern question of no-platforming people over trans issues. But I am more ignorant in regards other historical examples, eg no platforming racists.