Define workable, define non-snarky, define definition (define looking)
Thanks for the welcome.
Identity politics has no dictionary definition. Examples could include blacks voting for Obama because he’s black, or women voting for Hillary because she’s a woman. Basically anyone voting for the interests of his or her “tribe,” rather than the interests of the nation as a whole.
All definitions are in the context of this conversation only, not necessarily universal.
Workable: understandable by a lay person and meaningful enough to identify real-world examples
Non-snarky: not intentionally exaggerated for humorous effect. Unless you feel that resposes like “treating minorities and women equally to straight white men” are accurate.
Definition: Clear and unambiguous explanation of a concept
Looking: actively seeking for.
All right, I played your little game. Can you provide a definition now?
From the wikipedia link: “refers to political positions based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify” - So voting for anything that aligns with the interests of your social group is identity politics? If so the Republicans do this far more often then the Democrats.
Sounds like just another snarl word to dismiss the reasons why certain groups find conservative policies abhorrent.
What evidence do you have that blacks only voted for Obama because of race or Hilary because of gender? Do you think it’s at all possible that people might consider multiple factors in deciding who to vote for, such as policy positions and may consider that better for the nation as a whole?
Yep. It’s “political correctness” considered as an ideology. And made out of straw.
As to the OP, let’s look at equivalent quotes:
-Those who play the liberty game should be prepared to lose it.
-Those who play the civil rights game should be prepared to lose it.
-Those who play the abolition game should be prepared to lose it.
Some things, it turns out, it’s ridiculous to characterize them as a game. “Identity politics” is one of them.
The idea that cis white men should be the only group without an identity is anathema to anyone I’ve met who believes in social structures linked to “cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious, or social interests.” Indeed, most folks on the left want to make the shared cultural identity of white men explicit rather than implicit. Thus words like “cisgendered”. Thus jokes about “White Steve” instead of “Steve” if you’ve got two dudes named Steve in your office. Too often being white, male, cis, het, etc. are considered not only default, but invisible characteristics.
So there’s a mass of people who treat whiteness as an invisible characteristic. On the left, you’ve got people who want to call it out and call out certain ways in which society advantages people for whiteness (relative to other racial identities) and want to end those advantages. On the right, you’ve got people who want to call it out and increase the advantages for whiteness.
That’s where Trump comes in.
If your point is that racists are gonna be racists, sure, I agree with you. If your claim is that they’re only doing it because of leftists, that prior to a focus on racially-based social structures it had never even occurred to Trump’s ilk that maybe they should be racist, you’ve got a difficult case to make.
Some Democrats have a little bit of a ‘shoot the messenger’ problem. The party just lost an easily winnable election to Donald Trump and has been repeatedly clobbered at other levels of government. Certain people are trying to communicate a major reason why they keep losing. Some Dems don’t want to listen and learn, but instead only lash out at anybody who mentions the topic, and accuse those people of being racist, sexist, etc…
Mark Lilla wrote a column about identity politics, though he calls it “identity liberalism”.
But how should this diversity shape our politics? The standard liberal answer for nearly a generation now has been that we should become aware of and “celebrate” our differences. Which is a splendid principle of moral pedagogy — but disastrous as a foundation for democratic politics in our ideological age. In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing.
If Democrats wanted to win, they would pay attention to what he is saying. Instead, most seem to have decided that he’s a racist and sexist, of course. Likewise Bernie Sanders:
But it’s not good enough to say, “Hey, I’m a Latina, vote for me.” That is not good enough. I have to know whether that Latina is going to stand up with the working class of this country, and is going to take on big money interests.
One of the struggles that we’re going to have right now, we lay on the table of the Democratic Party, is it’s not good enough to me to say, “Okay, well we’ve got X number of African Americans over here, we’ve got Y number of Latinos, we have Z number of women. We are a diverse party, a diverse nation.” Not good enough. We need that diversity, that goes without saying. That is accepted. Right now, we’ve made some progress in getting women into politics — I think we got 20 women in the Senate now. We need 50 women in the Senate. We need more African Americans.
But, but, here is my point, and this is where there is going to be division within the Democratic Party. It is not good enough for someone to say, “I’m a woman! Vote for me!” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry. In other words, one of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics.
More sound words of wisdom. And how to Democrats respond. By saying Bernie Sanders is racist and a sexist. And a white supremacist too, apparently.
So identity politics has a definition, and attempts to dismiss it as merely a term that white men use to attack anyone else are incorrect.
Which swm’s feel like they’re entitled to special treatment?
I understand YOU don’t, but how do you see into the minds of others?
Your special vision - is it like a superpower?
You don’t think that the reason people call him racist and sexist might be because of the things he’s saying?
I don’t think they want special treatment, it’s just that some people absolutely butcher trying to explain the concept of privilege. One ham-handed attempt tried to explain it as ‘playing life on easy mode’. I imagine it would be difficult to maintain a relationship with a peer that you knew believed that they worked harder than you to be in the same position.
It’s an uncomfortable concept to be sure. It’s also uncomfortably married to race. I think it would be better packaged by stressing that privilege comes mostly with being in the majority rather than being white.
I was level 42 when they dropped it from 40 to 30. (It’s 20 now.) Yup, I was one of those people who was angry. I think you are underestimating the power of status. Given how historically men have killed each other over status, why do you feel that taking status away from someone will go without complaint?
Also, I’m feeling a little shocked, because in I don’t think I have ever agreed with ITR before, and I can’t disagree with anything he posted here. I’ve backed off talking politics online for a while now, and he’s hit the reason on the head.
People who disagree with me seem to only want to call me names instead of honestly debating anything. Trying to understand what people opposed to you politically are thinking is hard and requires self-reflection and empathy. Calling someone racist and/or sexist removes that burden. It’s so much easier to turn them into 2-d caricatures which can be safely ignored.
Thanks for proving my point. Did you actually read the cite?
No. At least not if the people accusing him of being racist or sexist are intelligent and rational.
Racist means believing that any race is superior or inferior to another. Sexist means similar thinking about gender. When people accuse Mark Lilla or Bernie Sanders of being racist and sexist, I can read what they actually say and observe that those two men are neither racist nor sexist. Neither has ever said that any race or either gender is inferior or superior. Thus, anyone who accuses them of being racist or sexist is either dishonest or delusional.
And of course Lilla and Sanders are not the only victims of such false accusations. It’s one of the defining characteristics of identity politics: the endless parade of objectively false accusations of racism and sexism against innocent people, or against people who are guilty of other things but not of those two particular things. (Here’s a good blog post making the point in the current political environment.) Is it so difficult to understand what will happen as a result of this flood of false accusations?
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People will get angry at those making the false accusations, because falsely accusing people is a bad thing to do.
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People will eventually just tune out accusations of racism and sexism. Why should anyone bother paying attention to complaints, when most of those complaints are false?
The problem that I see with identity politics is that the way it is presented today is inherently divisive and exclusive. Of course, many of its practitioners are tone deaf to the real-world effects but that is what happens when you micro-categorize people into finer and finer groups. Just look at the Middle East if you want to see the ultimate end-game. You can’t achieve unity through division.
Here is a joke that I think is applicable no matter what your identity or pet causes are.
Ironically, it is an old joke making fun of religion but I think it is still analogous here because many leftist causes today, including identity politics are indistinguishable from religious movements themselves. The message is a warning about taking your own identity to extremes and cannibalizing those that should be natural allies because they differ in some insignificant way.
*"Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over."*
Do you blame them? Honestly?
I believe in a fair go for everyone but at the same time, I totally understand people not being impressed about basically being worse off than before, all so a group of “others” they don’t know or interact with can have more of something those Standard White Guys might argue they already had anyway.
I was talking about Donald Trump, who has said things that are objectively racist and sexist.
I just googled Vote For Hillary Because and the first page of hits seemed to consist entirely of She’s A Woman results. Also, googling Special Place In Hell brings up a whole bunch of interesting stuff about how women should vote for a woman because she’s a woman, and they’re women, and women women women women.
I can’t help but wonder if some men, upon hearing that sales pitch, said, huh; as a man, am I supposed to be voting for men because they’re men? Is there a special place in hell for me if I don’t support male candidates? This is all so new to me!
How is discrimination relevant to identity?
For me, it isn’t that there are attempts to even the playing field when there is some* zero-sum competition going on, for instance in jobs and education. I don’t have a huge issue in calling myself “privileged” in that respect although I can see how a laid-off blue collar worker might disagree.
What doesn’t impress me is saying that I am “privileged” because some other people get free reign to be racist. That isn’t helping me any. We’d all be better off without it. Even if I were the greediest bastard alive, and someone came up to me and said “Ludovic! I’ve found this great opportunity! Let’s let cops discriminate against black people!” I wouldn’t sign on because it wouldn’t benefit me.
*I say “some” because if everyone were better educated and matched to the best job for their skills regardless of race, then the economy would be better off, which isn’t zero sum.
Do you not think that some straight white men see people being promoted because of their gender or colour or whatever and not because of their ability? Do you think they might have a valid grievance? Equality means equality of opportunity, not equality of result; if you’re promoting or recruiting someone for a reason other than ability then you’re discriminating against the other candidates.
I don’t know that you’re right; it is true though that I came out to vote for Obama, but not for Hillary. Not that it would have made a difference either way.