Like what? When my hand is "not tipped by force or circumstance?" Sure. — Snakes Alive
↪fdrake I'm in academia, so – I generally choose how much effort to spend on which projects, whether it's worth being a perfectionist or not, whether I should do something well or if doing it just OK is good enough, when to eat lunch and what to eat, what grades I give students, what positions I apply for in looking for new work, what I decide to research, whether I decide to continue researching something or drop it, what I read, what I write, whether I feel like being friendly to people or not, and so on. I have a lot of latitude in what I do personally, though there are a lot of constraints as well. — Snakes Alive
Politics of distribution and access (even epistemic access/privilege) enmesh with politics of identity as soon as people act together, and we always do. — fdrake
There's a difference between "I advocate X because I am Y", and "I advocate X because of problems A, B, and C, that affect Ys". — StreetlightX
Now, the civil rights activist's point was quite simple: all politics has an effect on the identity of those involved, therefore, all politics is identity politics. This is, in some sense undeniable. But here's the issue: this doesn't mean that identity politics exhausts what politics can involve. All politics is identity politics, but all politics isn't just identity politics. — StreetlightX
It's all too often the case that those who complain about identity politics do so in order to disqualify any politics of race, gender or class, to which is usually opposed some mythical "good of all", or the "community" or "nation" or some such. — StreetlightX
You disagree with this? So far in this thread, you’ve debated with me against positions I’ve never expressed, and do not hold. — javra
Alot of people are under that impression. But the logic is exactly the same, and it's simply arbitrary to think identity stops at biology.
This is one of the reasons I explicitly tried to outline some other models of politics in the OP. People simply don't really have a very good grasp of what politics can involve other than claims underwritten by identity, and even those who say things like 'avoid identity politics at all costs' list nothing but identity politics as an alternative!
I think it’s arbitrary to say that all politics is identity politics — NOS4A2
Assuming there is some politics of identity to mesh with? Where roles are established and accepted, there may be no politics of identity, not because there are no identities, but because there's no conflict over it. — frank
"All politics is identity politics" is not a statement of fact, it's an interpretation and I make negative assumptions about why it exists. Mostly that it's used as a counterargument to criticism against identity politics. As if it's redundant to say identity politics is a problem because "all politics is identity politics". OP doesn't give a name for the person who said this or the context so maybe I'm wrong. — Judaka
I'd rather people are politically motivated by their beliefs on what works best or by their conscience. — Judaka
Coercive power leaches upon societal action; something that can be broadly understood as mutual activity, where we agree to something or work together. — Moliere
So you don't choose the projects. They're tailored to current research interests of the institution and society at large, and ultimately what you can generate funding for or not. — fdrake
As for the rest, I dunno, people are generally not very bright, and its nice to remind them of that every once in a while. — StreetlightX
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