― Dan I. (Dan I.), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 05:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 11:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 11:45 (nineteen years ago) link
My weasel words were: I think one perceived problem with "identity politics" is that groups divide themselves into smaller and smaller slivers of identity, ever more specific; rather than building connections that can lead to a large-scale movement. I phrased it that way precisely because, at the very least, I don't fully agree with those criticisms.
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 29 September 2004 12:17 (nineteen years ago) link
I have also see people write that most of the major successes of the progressive to left side of the political spectrum have been movements that can be labeled as "identity politics" (civil rights, women's rights, gay rights--not complete successes, but a lot has changed partly as a result), and I agree with that.
But I also think that identity politics sometimes drifts into increasing fragmentation. So I guess I am subject to your criticisms.
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 29 September 2004 12:31 (nineteen years ago) link
one thing i might say here is that the world is drifitng into increasing fragmentation, and that's just the way it is. we don't live in the steam age anymore, we don't work the land, we've got globally mobile capital and TVs everywhere. it would be surmountingly strange if our politics were monolithic in such an atmosphere.
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 12:38 (nineteen years ago) link
I'll have think about it. It's not something I have sorted out.
The point about us living in an incresingly fragmented world is of course true.
(FWIW, I am not quite willing to call myself a leftist. I'm more of a left-leaning liberal than a true leftist. But a lot of what the left says makes more sense to me that what I see from any other area of the political spectrum. Not that I am asking to be let off the hook on this issue because of that, but I'm just saying, for the purposes of this thread, I don't think I speak as an American leftist.)
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 29 September 2004 12:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 14:14 (nineteen years ago) link
This is true, historically. But seen in retrospect, they both fit in with that broad American liberal tradition I was talking about up above. Which I think is also part of the answer to this identity politics vs. ideological politics problem -- even if the specific interests of, say, reproductive rights activists, queer activists, labor organizers, environmental activists, etc. don't overlap or are even sometimes seemingly at odds, they are all still part of the general movement of democratic liberalism over the past few centuries. But somehow democratic liberalism ends up as everyone's bogeyman -- it didn't do enough, it hasn't done enough, George Washington owned slaves. I think the democratic liberal tradition -- not just political but also intellectual and artistic -- needs some serious defending right now, and it's not getting it. In the United States, at least, a profound ignorance about our own history is allowing conservatives and Christian fundamentalists to more or less rewrite the Constitution after the fact, even without amendments (since who actually reads the Constitution anyway?).
I'm not saying that whatever New Left or Neo-neo-liberalism emerges has to be some kind of back-to-Rousseau movement, but the Renaissance and Enlightenment -- for all their flaws, compromises and betrayed revolutions -- laid some important foundations that are going to start cracking if they're not tended to. I think the left made a mistake in throwing out the Dead White Males. They need to be reclaimed, alongside Ghandi and King and all the other dead men and women of all colors who collectively liberated more people over the past 300 years than any army ever. Or so it seems to me.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 19:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Thursday, 30 September 2004 13:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:40 (nineteen years ago) link
so the question is do you want to play that game? it gets very dirty very fast. strangely enough i know of a couple who's marriage is in trouble because of one them working for moveon and is getting scarier and scarier the more entrenched in politics she gets. i like to think of tracer's scenario of people just out there doing it on a personal/community level - no matter who's in power (though of course their work gets easier or harder depending on who is). maybe i'm just more focused on being a good person and doing what you can well instead of doing ugly things that might be for the 'greater good'.
you just can't call defeat because your man doesn't make office. there are a million other things that make up your day.
― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Thursday, 30 September 2004 18:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 30 September 2004 18:51 (nineteen years ago) link
This is one of the central conundrums of effective left/liberal politics in America right now. If the underlying principles of left/liberalism include humanism and broad distribution of power, then betraying those principles in order to get into office to support those principles is a morally dubious proposition. I've got this recurring metaphor of a football game, where one team wants to win but within the framework of the game -- with rules, referees, etc. -- and the other team comes out with machine guns and shoots everyone on the field and pays off the refs. If part of the argument we're having is about whether we need the rules and referees, then you can only make the case for it by playing by those rules. But how do you do that when you're playing Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, who think rules are for pussies and chumps?
I don't know. I don't think the Democrats have figured it out yet either.
― spittle (spittle), Thursday, 30 September 2004 19:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 30 September 2004 19:30 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/07/on-the-politics-of-identity.html
― j., Tuesday, 14 July 2015 01:03 (eight years ago) link
http://jezebel.com/resilience-is-futile-how-well-meaning-nonprofits-perpe-1716461384?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
― j., Tuesday, 14 July 2015 20:26 (eight years ago) link
https://facingrealitycollective.wordpress.com/towards-a-revolutionary-left/
― j., Sunday, 26 July 2015 02:47 (eight years ago) link
On November 30, 1999, activists shut down the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. The protests were a thrilling moment during bleak times for the socialist left. Now, years of resistance are finally paying off. https://t.co/38i77jMzf4 @DougHenwood— Jacobin (@jacobinmag) November 30, 2019
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 1 December 2019 02:07 (four years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/judith-butler-wants-us-to-reshape-our-rage
― j., Sunday, 9 February 2020 19:07 (four years ago) link