21st century identity politics

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What are your thoughts on topics relating to the form that identity politics has taken in the 21st century? I suppose that needs defining first.

The best definition I can give is 'intersectionality', which is the concept that systems of oppression overlap in a 'kyriarchy', so those who have a form of privilege always need to check it when engaging in discourse. For instance, a non-disabled white woman has abled and racial privilege over a disabled black man, but he has male privilege over her. Both parties should ideally 'check their privilege'. My observation is that this often leads to that cliched term 'Oppression Olympics', where both sides argue over who is the most oppressed, and who therefore has the more authentic account of being oppressed. This distracts from whatever issue is being discussed and prevents different oppressed groups from developing solidarity.

One could argue that the problem isn't the theory of intersectionality, but the way that it is applied. Could the theory be applied in a way that fosters solidarity, though? I doubt it. The reason for this is that it's not rigorous enough in terms of class analysis. It lacks Marxist grounding in material economic conditions, as well as the grounding that older waves of feminism had from the focus on biological sex differences. People either do or do not control the means of production. The vast majority of people are either biologically male or female. Other aspects of identity are all socially constructed, apart from disability - and even that's partly socially constructed (a deaf person is not disabled if society is different). Intersectionality ignores that systems of oppression are different in this important way - correct me if I'm wrong about that.

How would you define 21st century identity politics? I'm trying to sort out my thoughts on it here.

P.S. I'm not saying that people aren't discriminated against on bases other than sex and economic class, they clearly are. I'm saying that capitalism and patriarchy are the fundamental systems of oppression, and the others stem from them. I'm in favour of properly naming the problem.

I don't know how much I can say at length ATM but my understanding of the issue:

The root problem people seem to be trying to address is the sort of 'nature red in tooth and nail' that both compels in-groups to compete and for those groups to pick winners and losers both within their own groups and in the context of certain groups winning or losing. As the world's gotten better most of us have really gotten sick of the might-makes-right dictates of nature, ie. our humanism as well as or Christian heritage really demand that people be seen equal in the eyes of the law as they were assumed to be equal in the eyes of God.

This is part of how Enlightenment values seem to be unraveling also, ie. people are seeing just how biological people's differences are, as Alain De Botton often says in School of Life 'meritocracy' is something pretty coldly Randian in that while it does thrust those with talent quite often to the top it also severely punishes, not just monetarily but with moral finger-wagging, those who have disabilities, lower IQ, fundamental eccentricities that prevent them from working 'up to their potential', etc.. The more we learn about human neurobiology the more we're coming to the conclusion that free will is an illusion, that people can't be anything more than what they are, new information and options only get them so far, IQ isn't something you can take to the gym for growth, and to that end the old fashion moral punishment for low achievement is seeming increasingly cruel and out of touch.

To that extent I'm fully comfortable with the older modes of meritocracy being abridged where better knowledge about the human condition renders certain concepts obsolete, and in the example above dog-eats-dog needs to give way to upholding our value of human dignity (which needless to say - everything else coming down the pike will erode that badly enough on its own without our willful sabotage). The problem on the other side though, and I think this is where modern identity politics really loses it, the people who are at the top need to be there by their merits and financially and socially rewarded for their performance - largely as a measure of both celebrating and incentivising their push for excellence. Without our best and brightest functioning at peak condition and without the best ideas winning (a part of the Enlightenment heritage we absolutely need to keep) our societal structures endure significant degradation and stagnation.

What I think is most important, *especially* as we see automation coming at us to a point where it'll cripple the job market's ability to be our welfare/distribution system, the focus needs to be on bettering life conditions for those in the lower 1/3 - and that should be color-blind, gender-blind, and faith-blind. If western countries don't tend to that and unemployment rises over 25% that's where revolution comes in. As Mark Blyth I think very succinctly puts it the Hamptons are not a militarily defensible position.

As far as intersectionality itself - I think it badly overshoots the merit of ideas and puts race, gender, preference, disability, etc.. so far ahead that the best ideas only make it through on random chance. That's quite a dangerous place for us to voluntarily put ourselves in as a culture. Really the best ideas should be taken from left, right, center, anywhere. We are in very complex and quite new territory when it comes to evaluating ourselves as a race with (at best) marginal free-will, little capacity for anything more than the most educated to make sound decisions (hence the hazards of even non-populist political processes), and we're increasingly in a place where the individual can do profound damage. Especially as AI comes along - we may be in a very different places than our past theories of government have ever seen us and on top of that, to have systems worth living in, we have to take every bit of knowledge we can rake in and optimize it to our understandings and preferences for human rights, preventing rights abuses, and preventing such a system from turning into something dystopian.

I hope all of that didn't dive off the philosophic deep end but in short - I think much cooler heads need to prevail in the intersectional politics arena if we want outcomes that are better than the status quo. As long as it's a domain run by purity testing and refusal debate the people involved in that area who hold the reigns of power will increasingly make their branding of it another problem to be solved rather than part of any solution. I think that's also where the postmodernist koolaid needs to be wrung out of it and if anyone has any suggestions for how Marx can be completely refactored as to not have a replay of the worst of the 20th century we should be hearing much more of them debating the best and brightest minds in the capitalist community and everyone else everywhere in between who has an informed and honest perspective. These our such colossal problems that we can't afford to tell anyone to 'check their privilege' based on things about themselves that have nothing to do with the content of their ideas or character.

That was a very interesting read, and I have to say I agree with the last paragraph you wrote in particular.

No politics in this century can ignore the issues we face environmentally and technologically. Intersectionality as it's currently practised belongs to the late 20th century when it was formulated - I think it was a faulty theory (a 'problematic' one) even at that time - but what good it does hold, only holds until automation, AI and bioengineering become more advanced.

There are some Marxists trying to adapt that theory to the crises in late capitalism and the technological revolutions that are on the way. I find Slavoj Zizek interesting though a lot of people dismiss him as a clown. I'm not informed enough to say much more and need to learn and think more on that subject.

There are no doubt plenty of capitalists thinking about these subjects, as well.

The problem is that the public aren't, most politicians aren't and no activists of any persuasion seem to be thinking about it, either. It's not that they're too stupid to do it; I'm pretty stupid, but I'm willing to give it a go. It's that they're clinging to ideological/dogmatic certainties in uncertain times. Nobody's completely blameless in doing that.

It is the common problem of going too far and angering people instead of solving problems.

The first fundamental mistake was expanding the definition of privilege which centered on one person, his or her connections and unfair advantages they have. Now privilege is a matter of what group you belong to. It implies because you are in the "privileged" group you have an unfair advantage just because you were born that way. The expanded definition guilt trips people and that makes people angry and are part of the reason for the Trump backlash. The expanding definition deflects from the real problem which is discrimination be it overt, covert, institutional etc. Every NT is not unfairly advantaged by their not being neurodivergent. Most autistics are unfairly disadvantaged and often discriminated against. Intersectionality just further muddles the situation.

Judging people as automatically privileged by the basic of the group they were born into is a form of prejudice.

The overuse of identity is causing a "crying wolf" effect. The use of aspie or autistic by themselves has been a positive thing for many peoples self esteem. But now because of the overuse and misuse of identities people that self-identify as them are thought of as "snowflakes" or "SJW's". Same for anybody claiming they have been discriminated against.

At its core, "identity politics" is a way to blame someone else.

Blaming others is such an ugly philosophy.

Identity politics will continue to be a vehicle for economic mobility in the 21st century. Since the mid 20th century, middle class women, men and women of lower social economic status, and various minority rights movements have seen income redistributed and social mobility reshuffled. I think the application of free market principles of individual rights, property rights, and equality under the law to the individual will continue to grow but the extension to previously formed groups will diminish. Late 20th century terms like intersectionality, privilege, kyriarchy, are still based on the dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, they're Marxian. I think Marx was wrong. Marx never anticipated the world wide web or a group fully independent of the preconditions of gender, sexual orientation, race, class, nationality, IQ, health, personality, adaptability, and intrinsic/external motivation. The right to freely assemble, coupled with free speech rights allow groups to form and advocate completely independent of their preconditions. The Generation Z will most likely be divested of these preconditions in their lifetime. In one hundred years today's ideas of identity will be outmoded and archaic.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but white identity politics as seen by Donald Trump's base is the most toxic type of identity politics. While many people on the left take identity politics too far, their claims about race are usually merit based.

Well, 21st century identity politics was never an issue until that idiot took over the Oval Office. Now rational political discussions are nearly impossible to have as more often than not identity issues are slapped on everything, including discussions where identity would never have otherwise been brought up, and it's getting ridiculous, and dare I say petty.

I actually do believe there is still inequality to be addressed, but some people have indeed taken it too far. On the other side of things there are people who believe that political correctness has gone too far, so they in turn decided to try to fight it...by going too far. Nazis and KKK? Really? Come on. There are certainly people on both sides of the political spectrum who need to be checked into the nearest insane asylum with all due haste. In fact, maybe the entire country just needs to be turned into one big insane asylum. I haven't heard many intelligent remarks coming from residents of that country since the 2016 election. Did all the smart Americans make tracks and immigrate to other countries?

Your theory of intersectionality is mistaking the shovel for the digger. The language and meta-philosophy of privilege, discrimination, oppression, social justice etc is nothing but an invention and tool of modern identity politics. It's used primarily because it works (or used to work) on WASPs (who care greatly about fairness and justice) and secondarily to conceal baser motives. Identity politics itself is just good old fashioned intergroup conflict playing out in a relatively peaceful democratic system. That is, one group trying to gain greater safety, status, power, material wealth or whatever at the expense of another.

There's a lot to say about it, but if I were to sum it up in a sentence: While democracy lasts, 21st century identity politics will be exactly the same as 20th century identity politics, except Straight, White, Christian-ish Europeans are on the game board too and everyone is playing for keeps.

Identity politics as a pejoritive term dates back at least to the 1970’s. Then it was used to describe ethnic voting blocks and the politicians that pandered to them. Although it was not called that white identity politics in the Vietnam era it was practiced by 1968 presidential candidate George Wallace and President Nixon’s via his “Southern Stratagy”.

Fair enough and thanks for enlightening me, but would we even be discussing this last year before election season kicked off? I sure as heck wouldn't now if people would just stop bringing it up.

Here in the states it was often discussed well before 2016.

Identity politics has been an irritant to those on the left for as long as I remember taking an interest in politics. People have been talking about it on the left for a long time because it creates tension in the movement. There's been a war going on in feminism since the 1980s, which is from where intersectionality originates.

The conflict has been exacerbated by the economic crisis since 2007/8. Austerity has caused people to rethink how sustainable globalised capitalism is, and about the nature of oppression. Intersectionality has become the orthodoxy, but there are dissidents on the left and the centre.

The right has never had time for this stuff officially, although populist right wing politics engages in it with 'white identity politics'. One could also argue that nationalism itself is the original identity politics. So now it feels like everybody's doing it, and nobody's thinking or listening.

So it's old-fashioned Marxist dialectical class struggle, but not as we know it, Jim? I always saw it as a distraction from such - exemplifying the left's inability to get its shiz together, and the preference for fighting smaller skirmishes which don't threaten the larger capitalist system. But now that the right are resorting to it again with heightened nationalism, so they must be getting desperate too.

A synthesis in the form of a new type of socialism will result according the the doctrine which I think sort-of has some validity.

On the topic of identity politics I wanted to add a few things about the alt-right:

- The ethno-nationalists are even bigger intersectionalists than on the left. Intersectionalists on the left promote, directly or indirectly, the oppression Olympics whereas if we went with the alt-right version of it we'd likely have 10,000+ nation states around the world. That's not immediate on its face but it's a nested problem for anyone who wants to sell the idea that every diverse group of people who can't get along gets their own country in that such disagreements can boil all the way down to the individual and there's no hard line in the sand that operates as a clear stopping point.

- To the extent that some of these same people would promote Julius Evola as a go-to thought leader also boggles my mind. He was a guy who criticized Mussolini for not being far-right enough and had a combination of conservative Hindu beliefs with some rather old-fashion macho concepts that spiritual growth was something best gained on the battlefield through valor (if you're curious to what I'm talking about check out Jonathan Bowden's lecture on Evola). I try to think of what sort of mystic would think of our white nation-building equivalent of the BMV ladies from Domino. My guess is he'd be rolling over in his grave and would have at least a few cutting remarks about their masculinity.

While they might have a few cogent things to say about immigration and closed eyes and ears policies to failures in multiculturalism they're not the only people pointing that out and they're quite a ways away from offering sensible solutions. The one bit of good that I think they may be doing is trolling intersectional politics enough (wittingly or unwittingly) for people who didn't see the absurdity in the oppression olympics to see it more clearly by contagion of comparison or conceptual grouping.

I suppose you can see it through Marxist lenses. Myself, I think Marx was wrong about too much to take his doctrine seriously. I can't say the veil has been completely lifted from my eyes, but from what I can perceive so far:

1) In the identity hierarchy, religion beats class, or any Marx-y social injustice. I suspect, though I'm not sure, that it was the anti-theism inherent in communism and the USSR that prevented his predicted bloody worker's revolt from spreading across the industrialised West.

2) Going further than that, it seems race/ethnicity beats religion and everything else if ever they come into conflict, though race and religion are often intertwined. The dark undercurrent of all human relations. So white evangelical votes white, rather than picking a non-white Christian. A hyper-capitalist black candidate who promises nothing would get the black vote over a white candidate promising the world for black families.

3) As Western societies change due to immigration, Whites and to a lesser extent Christians will start (and some already are) acting more like minorities, aggressively pursuing their interests at the expense of others. Before the demographic changes, normal Europeans barely played identity politics, because their power, status, safety or way of life was not under serious threat. The occasional nutter (or prophet?) ranting about the coming race war was ignored.

4) Identity politics has helped the Left-wing intragroup anti-capitalist struggle in the past, now it's starting to hurt them.
It's important to understand that minorities voting socialist, pluralist or multiculturalist were not doing so because they themselves believe in those things. As demographics change Religion X isn't going to vote left wing any more if there is a Religion X candidate available, non-whites aren't going to vote for a white democrat if there is a more swarthy option available regardless of what's on offer from the other candidates. While not yet apparent on the national stage, this is very obvious in local politics.

Lee Kuan Yew famously said:
"In multiracial societies, you don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion"
He was on the money.