So we're just not talking about the same thing. What is the goal of the kind of identity politics you're talking about? The goal is to just be separate? Could you give an example of that? — frank
politics is a path to a united voice. If you want to be separate, you don't engage in politics, you move to Liberia. — frank
Unity is anti-poltical. — StreetlightX
I don't really understand the definition of identity politics — frank
Neither do I.As it stands, I don't really understand the definition of identity politics used in this thread. — frank
How about looking up "identity politics" in the dictionary?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. It's like how all humans have noses, but that doesn't mean that humanity is defined by their noses. So again, how do we cash this out? If not identity politics, then what? — StreetlightX
politics in which groups of people having a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group — Merriam-Webster.com
(or offended in unenlightened's case) — frank
Identity Politics per Merriam Webster:
politics in which groups of people having a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group — Merriam-Webster.com — Harry Hindu
It's the other way around. Your definition is not good at all. Your definition is way to general. If identity politics is just politics, then what use is the word, "identity politics"?This is not at all a good definition of identity politics. — StreetlightX
It's not about recognition of their identity as a woman, black or lesbian. It is about the recognition of equal rights. Their identity is what is recognized and the reason they are being denied equal rights, so their identities are recognized, but not their equal rights. It shouldn't be about one's identity. That is divisive. It should be about equality under the law, despite one's identity. You shouldn't get special treatment because of your identity either. We see it all the time when the wealthy and elites get a pass instead of doing the time for their crimes.What makes identity politics a significant departure from earlier, pre-identarian forms of the politics of recognition is its demand for recognition on the basis of the very grounds on which recognition has previously been denied: it is qua women, qua blacks, qua lesbians that groups demand recognition. The demand is not for inclusion within the fold of “universal humankind” on the basis of shared human attributes; nor is it for respect “in spite of” one's differences. Rather, what is demanded is respect for oneself as different" (Sonia Kruks, Retrieving Experience). — StreetlightX
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! — StreetlightX
If identity politics is just politics, then what use is the word, "identity politics"? — Harry Hindu
Identity politics isn't just politics, that's the point. — StreetlightX
She says, "But those who want to single out 'identity politics' soon run into a problem: all politics is grounded in identity. All politics requires that we build coalitions around a shared picture of reality, a shared image of the future, deeply rooted in our image of ourselves, and what justice or progress might look like."
I remember very well the first time I heard the saying “The Personal Is Political.” It began as a sort of reaction to the defeats and downturns that followed 1968: a consolation prize, as you might say, for people who had missed that year. I knew in my bones that a truly Bad Idea had entered the discourse. Nor was I wrong. People began to stand up at meetings and orate about how they felt, not about what or how they thought, and about who they were rather than what (if anything) they had done or stood for. It became the replication in even less interesting form of the narcissism of the small difference, because each identity group begat its subgroups and “specificities.” This tendency has often been satirised—the overweight caucus of the Cherokee trans-gender disabled lesbian faction demands a hearing on its needs—but never satirised enough. You have to have seen it really happen. From a way of being radical it very swiftly became a way of being reactionary; the Clarence Thomas hearings demonstrated this to all but the most dense and boring and selfish, but then, it was the dense and boring and selfish who had always seen identity politics as their big chance.
Just one political scientist. They don't all agree. If you're only interested in the idea of one political scientist and not the rest of us "internet randos" then why did you even bother posting this thread?You'll excuse me if I take the word of a political scientist over some internet rando. — StreetlightX
No one is able to see themselves as a political actor. — StreetlightX
I remember Christopher Hitchens always railing on identity politics. I had to include this biting quote of his from Letters to a Young Contrarian. — NOS4A2
Unfortunately, political agency has been increasingly reduced to action via consumerism. Take for example the very first question regarding climate change in last night's presidential debate. The moderator asked Cory Booker, a vegan, if people should follow his diet. Rather than tackle corporate-based structural issues that are the predominate source of the problem, the solution is formulated, exclusively more or less, as a burden on the individual consumer. — Maw
It may not be what you're talking about -- but doesn't that make sense of why someone might say "All politics are identity politics"? — Moliere
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