post-modernism, cultural relativity and identity politics - attitudes of progressives

[Louis MacNeice]

Thanks for this thread. I've just gone back to Meiksins Wood's The Retreat from Class which has some good stuff on how space was opened up on the left whch was filled by identity politics; chapters 2,3 & 4 contain some intersting material.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[love detective]

cracking book that

 

[stethoscope]

Was about to say, worth getting a copy as its still a reasonable price where I've looked?! I read Empire of Capital ages ago.

 

[butchersapron]

pdf - http://www.mediafire.com/?80xtabp872eberp - don't click on link, copy the address then paste in address bar, then remove all up to the '?' (or just copy the text of the address, that should do it as well)

 

[stethoscope]

Ta very much butchers.

 

[frogwoman]

Thanks very much mate, just downloaded it.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Cheers.

 

[Idris2002]

Thanks also.

 

[manny-p]

thank you butcher

 

[Das Uberdog]

just started reading that book, really interesting stuff. wondered if there's anything else out there on the issue of the institutionalisation of identity politics movements within local government/national policy-making bodies, etc? or any threads on it?

 

[butchersapron]

just started reading that book, really interesting stuff. wondered if there's anything else out there on the issue of the institutionalisation of identity politics movements within local government/national policy-making bodies, etc? or any threads on it?

All of Kenan Maliks but esp From Fatwah to Jihad - short version: Croissants and Roses - New Labour, communalism, and the rise of muslim Britain.

On here? Everyone you argued against and you let your comrades smear as racist a few years ago.

 

[Das Uberdog]

come now

and ta for both links

 

[ViolentPanda]

All of Kenan Maliks but esp From Fatwah to Jihad...

Agreed.

On here? Everyone you argued against and you let your comrades smear as racist a few years ago.

Ouch!

 

[love detective]

And this from the IWCA

Multiculturalism & identity politics – the reactionary consequences and how they can be challenged

Summary

The following points are intended to act as a brief summary of why we think multiculturalism and identity politics have dangerously reactionary consequences.

1) Over recent decades, the left has increasingly abandoned the working class and class politics in favour of identity politics: the politics of race, gender and sexuality. In turn, this has caused the working class to increasingly abandon the left.

2) Taken to its logical conclusion, identity politics is a conservative, anti-human concept that sees society as static – a view that can translate just as easily to rigid class hierarchies as it can to competing and incompatible cultural and racial identities.

3) Defining people in terms of the ‘identity’ they were born into is a rejection of the idea of a dynamic society, where it is seen as possible – and desirable – for class and cultural identities to be transcended so that everyone can reach their full and unique potential.

4) The promotion of identity politics fosters artificial divisions within the working class and helps to encourage a racialised view of the world, preparing the ground for race-based politics. This view of society simply doesn’t reflect fundamental conflicts over economic and societal power yet it has the potential to fatally fragment each and every progressive working class movement in the future. Like the Labour Party, the BNP is fully signed up to the notion of identity politics, to the extent that their magazine is called ‘Identity’.

5) We support the concept of full equality, where people are judged on what they do rather than on what they are perceived to be. As a consequence of this, we oppose funding for initiatives that are restricted to particular ethnic and cultural groups as they undermine community solidarity. We support efforts to end discrimination, with the aim being equal treatment for all.

 

[Fedayn]

And this from the IWCA

Multiculturalism & identity politics – the reactionary consequences and how they can be challenged

I thought that was a brilliant bit of writing.

 

[Fedayn]

pdf - http://www.mediafire.com/?80xtabp872eberp - don't click on link, copy the address then paste in address bar, then remove all up to the '?' (or just copy the text of the address, that should do it as well)

Great stuff, reading during PCS conference next week I think.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Great stuff, reading during PCS conference next week I think.

if it keeps you off the naked thread it can only be a good thing

 

[smmudge]

And this from the IWCA

Multiculturalism & identity politics – the reactionary consequences and how they can be challenged

2) Taken to its logical conclusion, identity politics is a conservative, anti-human concept that sees society as static – a view that can translate just as easily to rigid class hierarchies as it can to competing and incompatible cultural and racial identities.

3) Defining people in terms of the ‘identity’ they were born into is a rejection of the idea of a dynamic society, where it is seen as possible – and desirable – for class and cultural identities to be transcended so that everyone can reach their full and unique potential.

My understanding of identity an identity politics from an academic point of view is not at all congruent with the way the terms are used here. Do they really change that much when translated to the political sphere?

 

[butchersapron]

Have a try and find out for yourself? Can you challenge the uses above from a position that's not the academy talking? Are the situations/prcocesses outlined real? Are they happening? Have you other explanations for why there are if they are?

edit: and for the record, there's tons of academic work that works on these lines. Are you so sure that your understanding is the official academic one?

 

[danny la rouge]

My understanding of identity an identity politics from an academic point of view is not at all congruent with the way the terms are used here. Do they really change that much when translated to the political sphere?

Where does this academic point of view you cite come from, though? (In the sense of what are the interests being served, what is the bias of the commentator in question, what is the role of the academic in the manufacture of consent; in civil society; in Multiculturalism; and in the neoliberal project as a whole?)

 

[butchersapron]

Exactly, this artificial separation - academic/political - is very damaging.

 

[Fedayn]

if it keeps you off the naked thread it can only be a good thing

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This might potentially sound like a stupid question, but what exactly do people understand by the term 'multiculturalism', and what is the alternative?

 

[love detective]

what most people who are critical of it (from a progressive perspective) understand the term to signify a society that is moving towards being made up of multiple mono-cultural units, a society divided by, and along, cultural/ethnic lines, one where the reactionary view holds that a member of one of these units can be defined as an individual purely through the lense of their host culture/ethnicity, and therefore all individuals within that unit can be represented on the basis of them being a big homogenous lump defined from the top down, rather than free individuals. That's why the BNP are multiculturalists in this sense

the alternative would be real multiculturalism (a phrase that is now so tarnished and discredited that it can't really be used) - as the IWCA article states, where people are judged on what they do rather than on what they are perceived to be

 

[butchersapron]

Multi-culturalism is multiple mono-multiculturalisms. The alternative is a real lived open diversity.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Multi-culturalism is multiple mono-multiculturalisms.

That's easy for you to say.

 

[danny la rouge]

This might potentially sound like a stupid question, but what exactly do people understand by the term 'multiculturalism', and what is the alternative?

Functional racism. The alternative would be a non racist society.

 

[Das Uberdog]

correct me if i'm wrong here but i've always found it useful to split national initiatives for dealing with migrants and settling communities into three historical categories, The Melting Pot, Assimilation and Multi-Culturalism. obviously the Melting Pot most often associated with the US and cities like New York, Assimilation with France and Multi-culturalism with 70s-80s Britain... this is looking through the lens of policy frameworks devised by governments though.

Edit: to add to this i've always seen multi-culturalism, as such, as much of a policy framework as a fully fleshed out idea - something which emerged somewhat anarchically and has slowly been regimented into an instinctive policy at local government level

 

[littlebabyjesus]

the alternative would be real multiculturalism (a phrase that is now so tarnished and discredited that it can't really be used) - as the IWCA article states, where people are judged on what they do rather than on what they are perceived to be

Yeah. I agree with the article on this one. And it seems to me that the word has changed in its connotations over the years - from something that indicated a desire to embrace diversity into, well into what you describe, which is basically the opposite of that. That's the main reason I asked the question, but I wonder whether it is a term that causes confusion precisely because it can mean different things to different people. When David Cameron or Angela Merkel talk about 'multiculturalism failing', they don't mean what I mean by it, I don't think.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

what most people who are critical of it (from a progressive perspective) understand the term to signify a society that is moving towards being made up of multiple mono-cultural units, a society divided by, and along, cultural/ethnic lines, one where the reactionary view holds that a member of one of these units can be defined as an individual purely through the lense of their host culture/ethnicity, and therefore all individuals within that unit can be represented on the basis of them being a big homogenous lump defined from the top down, rather than free individuals. That's why the BNP are multiculturalists in this sense

the alternative would be real multiculturalism (a phrase that is now so tarnished and discredited that it can't really be used) - as the IWCA article states, where people are judged on what they do rather than on what they are perceived to be

I'd agree with this except on two points. Firstly, I don't think the BNP are anything to do with multiculturalism on any understanding of the term: their ends are not some sort of managed 'diversity' but a more ethnically/culturally/religiously homogeneous Britain (though I guess in a sense all nationalists could be understood as 'global multiculturalists': the nation state being the unit of division)

Secondly, I'm not sure that multiculturalism "is so tarnished and discredited that it can't really be used" - certainly no more than 'democracy', 'socialism' or 'social justice': all of which have been dragged through the shit too. For me a progressive multicultural agenda would be one which, in the overarching context of working class unity and solidarity, would recognise that ethnicity is one aspect of an individual's/group's subjectivity to be negotiated within a given polity.