Identity politics is suicide for the left. They can't win. - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14922681
If a significant number of people on the left in the West continue down this road of playing identity politics, intersectional social justice etc they are doomed to lose that fight and it will actually make the causes they want far more difficult to achieve in the medium term and possibly longterm.

Why? Because if these particular leftists continue to retreat into their identity and see themselves and others not as individuals first, but primarily as part of victim/oppressor tribal groups ie: women/men, white/person of colour, gay/straight, and continue to antagonize the "oppressors" (mainly white, straight, often male) with their "demands", these "oppressors", who make up the dominant groups in power, will inevitably retreat into their own tribes (white, western, male etc) in order to defend themselves if that's the game the left forces them to play.

And as dominant groups with the most power & voting population, it will mean intensified political backlash by these groups mainly on the right, as well as some of those traditionally on the left drifting toward the right in order to protect themselves.

We've seen this tribal backlash with Trump, Brexit, and across other western countries in their elections, as "populist" politically incorrect leaders become elected to reform issues on immigration, culture/religion etc. where "white, western, Christian, male etc" identity is threatened.

The left can only win longterm if they remain more subtle & abandon the more radical identity politics for 2-3 more decades until the ethnic demographics of the west have changed so much from immigration/birthrates until they become the majority so they can then assume political power. If not, more rightwing backlash will mean further resistance against immigration in order maintain their own dominance. It could even produce conservative movements for whites to increase their birth rates so immigration isn't needed to sustain western populations.
#14922696
Identity politics is being pushed hard by the RIGHT, as they push racism, xenophobia and sexual stigmatism. Populists are merely tapping into this idiocy. It won't last.

Equality for all is not suicide. Your title is misleading and in error.
#14922698
The identity politics of a ‘left’ liberalism has been in reaction to an identity politics of right wingers.
https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/not-all-politics-is-identity-politics/
The origins of identity politics in the late eighteenth century lie with the reactionary right. The original politics of identity was racism and nationalism, and it developed out of the counter-Enlightenment. These early critics of the Enlightenment opposed the idea of universal human values by stressing particularist values embodied in group identities. ‘There is no such thing as Man’, wrote the French arch-reactionary Joseph de Maistre in his polemic against the concept of the Rights of Man. ‘I have seen Frenchmen, Italians and Russians… As for Man, I have never come across him anywhere.’

Where reactionaries adopted a particularist outlook, radicals challenging inequality and oppression did so in the name of universal rights. They insisted that equal rights belonged to all and that there existed a set of values and institutions, under which all humans best flourished. It was a universalism that fuelled the great radical movements that have shaped the modern world – from the almost-forgotten but hugely important Haitian Revolution of 1791, to the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles of the twentieth century to the movement for women’s suffrage to the battles for gay rights.

They are cut of the same cloth because they’re of a liberal mindset aimed abstract equality.
Though this is where identarian politics exhausts itself in that it can’t really offer much in the way of new equal rights or only press for access to resources. Charity rather than change.

My view is that they can be reactionary in function in their sole emphasis of an identity to the neglect of unity to radical ends and change that nullifies the significance of such an identity.
[url]unityandstruggle.org/2013/09/12/i-am-a-woman-and-a-human-a-marxist-feminist-critique-of-intersectionality-theory/[/url]
For several pages, Fanon argues that black people must embrace blackness, and struggle on the basis of being black, in order to negate white supremacists social relations. But to stop there reproduces our one-sided existence and the forms of appearance of capitalism. Identity politics argues, “I am a black man,” or “I am a woman,” without filling out the other side of the contradiction “…and I am a human.” If the starting and ending point is one-sided, there is no possibility for abolishing racialized and gendered social relations. For supporters of identity politics (despite claiming otherwise), womanhood, a form of appearance within society, is reduced to a natural, static “identity.” Social relations such as “womanhood,” or simply gender, become static objects, or “institutions.” Society is therefore organized into individuals, or sociological groups with natural characteristics. Therefore, the only possibility for struggle under identity politics is based on equal distribution or individualism (I will discuss this further below). This is a bourgeois ideology in that it replicates the alienated individual invented and defended by bourgeois theorists and scientists (and materially enforced) since capitalism’s birth.

Basically such identity politics is spontaenous viewpoint of many who at best seem to only shift around such a political landscape rather than have a political view beyond static identities.
But it does seem true such emphasis is impotent in that it doesn’t offer much for many in what they would perhaps best aspire for with many like minds irrespective of their identificiation.

But such events seem to be underpinned more than a reaction to identity politics than the circumstances that have rendered such politics unpersuasive.
#14922798
Humans are tribal. Not all tribes have to be based upon race. It is the belief none should be based upon race that creates the problem. It is the attempt to eliminate a choice that is the main issue today.
This is the result of large centralized governments and globalism.
Any demand for large scale conformity will be eventually met with large scale rebellion. We are wired for tribes and we should respect the differences in all tribes. There is no logical reason today to reject a community based upon race no matter what the race of that community is. Other communities should feel free to pursue their tribes based upon other considerations, but the fact is they are all based upon some type of tribal prejudice. It is a mistake to believe this should be eliminated and replaced with conformity.

Edit: I used race for my example, but it can be replaced with any other identity and serve the same purpose. Race is just more shocking today. :)
#14922810
Identity based on race is only real to the extent that it is created socially. Just as the significance of a universal humanity can be more concrete than that of the liberal human subject. Many who struggled dueing civil rights learnt wuite clearly that whilst many who opposed them politicslly often were white that they would be foolish to exclude radicals on their side because they were white. Seeing that such appearences were deceiving and moving to a larger struggle. I do not identify arbitrarily with other white people because of their whiteness. Rather political interest and values developed through struggle seem better basis of solidarity.
#14922815
Wellsy wrote:Identity based on race is only real to the extent that it is created socially.[/b] Just as the significance of a universal humanity can be more concrete than that of the liberal human subject. Many who struggled dueing civil rights learnt wuite clearly that whilst many who opposed them politicslly often were white that they would be foolish to exclude radicals on their side because they were white. Seeing that such appearences were deceiving and moving to a larger struggle. I do not identify arbitrarily with other white people because of their whiteness. Rather political interest and values developed through struggle seem better basis of solidarity.


What identity isn’t? I am not promoting it, just saying it really isn’t any different than any other prejudice. It was something that needed dealt with due to a ‘lack of choice’. We now have choices, but many want us to believe we should base our decisions on a past period where choice did not exist. We will always have prejudices. We should not futilely try to eliminate something than can not be eliminated. We just need to make sure people have ‘choices’ and alternatives when they disagree with a communities prejudice. There is no such thing as a world or community without prejudice. We just switch from one to another.
#14922835
What has identity politics got to do with the left? :?: The left care about the class divide and support things that will actually help people, more council housing, nationalising all public utilities and vital industries, more unionisation and laws more favorable to workers unions, workplace safety legislation to prevent people dying and being injured so often at work etc.

It is the right who push identity politics as a way of combating the left, if the working class are too busy fighting each other other, race, sex, shoe size and other meaningless minor differences that make no real difference then they are too busy to be lynching their bosses and occupying their workplaces. You only have to see who supports identity politics to see that my statement is true. It isn't the proletarian masses of the midlands and the north who support this trash is it? It is instead the *** southern *** (Rule 3 violation - mod) in London and the home counties. Millionaires and office drones, not one worker amongst them.

Identity politics are the creation of people who employ cleaners and gardeners and other domestic servants, how could these rich London dogs be considered anything other than right wing? They have money in the pockets and the soft hands of children rather than the calloused hands of honest proletarian labourers. The OP is right that identity politics is killing the left, but it isn't suicide its murder.
Last edited by Decky on 09 Jun 2018 16:15, edited 1 time in total.
#14922841
Unthinking Majority wrote:Because if these particular leftists continue to retreat into their identity and see themselves and others not as individuals first, but primarily as part of victim/oppressor tribal groups
...
It could even produce conservative movements for whites to increase their birth rates so immigration isn't needed to sustain western populations.

I don't think anything screams "you are not individuals" more than seeing them as breeding stock to produce "more numbers of people of my colour".

Decky wrote:It isn't the proletarian masses of the midlands and the north who support this trash is it? It is instead the *** southern *** in London and the home counties. Millionaires and office drones, not one worker amongst them.

Identity politics are the creation of people who employ cleaners and gardeners and other domestic savants, how could these rich London dogs be considered anything other than right wing?

I don't think anything screams "I want identity politics" more than dismissing people on the basis of which city they live in, using a Rule 3 violation as a slur, and saying that anyone in an office is not a 'worker'.
#14922856
It's predominantly pushed by college students who don't understand how the real world works. You can't often hold a job solely by virtue of being (for example) the token black guy, as the leftist companies in Silicon valley show, so whatever your tribe is doesn't actually matter in most circumstances. But young people don't understand that.
#14922887
Many people seem to ignore the struggles of traditionally marginalised and oppressed peolle and their roles in their own struggles for liberation and equality.

It is as if many of you think that black people are not interested in freedom and equality for blacks, and it is only white college kids who care.

I think it is a reasonable assumption to think that all people are interested in improving their lot, for themselves and for their communities.
#14922901
Godstud wrote:Identity politics is being pushed hard by the RIGHT, as they push racism, xenophobia and sexual stigmatism. Populists are merely tapping into this idiocy.


They push it hard as a reaction to leftist policies. I'm not saying it's always a just reaction. And yes the left is also pushing hard as a reaction to injustice of the right. I'm saying if the left identity politics folks keep pushing too hard, so hard that it seems like injustice to the right, it will keep causing backlash.

It won't last.


Give me a logical reason why it will just magically stop.

Equality for all is not suicide. Your title is misleading and in error.


It all depends on people's definition of "equality". Most people are fine with equal rights. If some on the left want equality of outcome and not just equal rights and equality of opportunity, it can sometimes mean unjust policies like identity quotas that the "oppressors groups" will backlash against.
#14922908
Decky wrote:What has identity politics got to do with the left? :?: The left care about the class divide and support things that will actually help people, more council housing, nationalising all public utilities and vital industries, more unionisation and laws more favorable to workers unions, workplace safety legislation to prevent people dying and being injured so often at work etc.


The left is much more than just the economic sphere. The left cares about the oppressed in general, that can be economic, racial, gender etc. where policies are seen as oppressive/unfair by the more powerful dominant groups. Women's rights, racial minority rights, LGBT rights etc have all been pushed historically mainly from the left.

It is the right who push identity politics as a way of combating the left, if the working class are too busy fighting each other other, race, sex, shoe size and other meaningless minor differences that make no real difference then they are too busy to be lynching their bosses and occupying their workplaces.


That suggests some kind of conspiracy theory by the bourgeoisie to keep the left busy fighting for identity rights to distract again what you see as the main injustice, being class differences. You can't see everything through a Marxist lens. This is about power. In the west, white straight cisgendered men etc. have traditionally held the political & economic power. Women, LGBT, people of colour, immigrants etc. have had to fight for their rights too. The reason some white men have been reluctant to give up their power to women and people of colour isn't just as a distraction. People in power often like staying in power.

My point in the OP is that we've seen leftist progressive advances among the traditionally oppressed group over the last several decades. It's been gradual but steady. The left, especially the millennial set who have no patience for gradual change, want change NOW. This has sometimes meant advancing unjust policies or rhetoric against the "oppressors" to advance their causes, sometimes including violence (ie: antifa, shutting down college speeches etc). This will continue to cause a counter-reaction by the right & dominant groups, and a fight the "oppressed" can't win, because the dominant groups have the power just by sheer numbers (meaning they ultimately control voting & policy through government, ie: Trump & Brexit, as well as having the economic power to backlash against ie: hollywood political correctness). If the left wants to win this "progress" they need to keep playing the long game. ie: Blacks & women in America have been fighting for rights for 200+ years, and have come very far, so change can take time.
#14922949
Unthinking Majority wrote:It all depends on people's definition of "equality".
There is only one definition of equality.

No one is arguing equality of outcome, in this thread. Here's the definition, and don't try to change it.
Equality: the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.

Recently, the right is pushing gender politics. Transgender issues regarding washrooms were pushed by the right, not left.

The right wing populist garbage will slowly fade. I never said it would disappear magically. Don't be a smartass. :knife:

unthinking Majority wrote:Women's rights, racial minority rights, LGBT rights etc have all been pushed historically mainly from the left.
They were pushed by the left and right, out of necessity. Republicans were the party of civil rights in the 1960s USA.
#14922976
Decky wrote:What has identity politics got to do with the left? :?: The left care about the class divide and support things that will actually help people, more council housing, nationalising all public utilities and vital industries, more unionisation and laws more favorable to workers unions, workplace safety legislation to prevent people dying and being injured so often at work etc.
...
Identity politics are the creation of people who employ cleaners and gardeners and other domestic servants, how could these rich London dogs be considered anything other than right wing? They have money in the pockets and the soft hands of children rather than the calloused hands of honest proletarian labourers. The OP is right that identity politics is killing the left, but it isn't suicide its murder.

You are describing the "real left" that has virtually dissappeared in many Western bankster-run countries like the USA.

The "fake left" abandoned the fight for equality a few decades ago in order to pursue big donations from corporate sponsors. The only adopted "identity politics" as a way of faking some kind of "struggle" for some kind of "little guy," as a way of branding themselves as "strugglers for little guys."

But it's totally fake. Instead of selling wars as a way of converting pagans, they are now sold as a way of promoting feminism, or gay rights, or some chosen minority group. But when the bombs have fallen, it's still just lies, death, and theft.
#14923045
Unthinking Majority wrote:The left can only win longterm if they remain more subtle & abandon the more radical identity politics for 2-3 more decades until the ethnic demographics of the west have changed so much from immigration/birthrates until they become the majority so they can then assume political power.

It's difficult for left wing parties to do this because the interest groups of the various victim/oppressed groups are now strong enough to push for their preferred policies.

Also, once their coalition has become the majority, the most likely outcome it seems to me is that it will break up, and dysfunctional, tribal politics will follow based on smaller coalitions.
#14931117
Another view is identity politics emerged from movements seeking recognition.

https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunde ... litics.pdf
When a social movement assembles into its ranks such a degree of particularity that it has become identity, then we have arrived at a definition of "we" which barely merits the plural at all. Identity politics marked the end of the road for the social movements of the post-world war two period.

Naomi Klein, herself a self-confessed "ID warrior" of the 1990s, expressed the situation perfectly:

"We knew the fast food chains were setting up their stalls in the library and that profs in the applied sciences were getting awfully cosy with pharmaceutical companies, but finding out exactly what was going on in the boardrooms and labs would have required a lot of legwork, and, frankly, we were busy. We were fighting about whether Jews would be allowed in the racial equality caucus at the campus women’s centre, and why the meeting to discuss it was scheduled at the same time as the lesbian and gay caucus - were the organizers implying that there were no Jewish lesbians? No black bisexuals?

"In the outside world. the politics of race, gender and sexuality remained tied to more concrete, pressing issues, like pay equity, same-sex spousal rights and police violence, and these serious movements were - and continue to be - a genuine threat to the economic and social order. But somehow, they didn’t seem terribly glamorous to students on many university campuses, for whom identity politics had evolved by the late eighties into something quite different. Many of the battles we fought were over issues of “representation” - a loosely defined set of grievances mostly lodged against the media, the curriculum and the English language. ...

"These issues have always been on the political agendas of both the civil-rights and the women’s movements and later, of the fight against AIDS. It was accepted from the start that part of what held back women and ethnic minorities was the absence of visible role models occupying powerful social positions, and that media-perpetuated stereotypes - embedded in the very fabric of the language - served to not so subtly reinforce the supremacy of white men. For real progress to take place, imaginations on both sides had to be decolonized. ...

"The backlash that identity politics inspired did a pretty good job of masking for us the fact that many of our demands for better representation were quickly accommodated by marketers, media makers and pop-culture producers alike - though perhaps not for the reasons we had hoped.

"... for many of the activists who had, at one point not so long ago, believed that better media representation would make for a more just world, one thing had become abundantly clear: identity politics weren’t fighting the system, or even subverting it. When it came to the vast new industry of corporate branding, they were feeding it. ...

"The need for greater diversity - the rallying cry of my university years - is now not only accepted by the culture industries, it is the mantra of global capital. And identity politics, as they were practiced in the nineties, weren’t a threat, they were a gold mine. “This revolution,” writes cultural critic Richard Goldstein in The Village Voice, “turned out to be the savoir of late capitalism.” And just in time, too." [Patriarchy gets Funky, Naomi Klein, 2001]
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