Why are Identity politics so bad?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are Identity politics so bad?

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

As iniquitous as things already are, I don't foresee teaching white people the language of identity politics ("own your whiteness!!") is going to work out very well for anyone except white people.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 01:39

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 05:27

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

blowfish posted:

You can't dismiss an argument just because you think the person making it has the wrong ethnicity and/or sexual orientation.

I think you'll find that identity politics has reformed such prejudiced ideas like "you can tell a lot about a person by the colour of their skin", "there is such a thing as a [black/queer/whatever] way of thinking", and "different types of (the right sort of) people have special access to truth" using the magic of academic jargon.

Besides, you don't get identity politics without the postmodern rejection of objective truth, so it's internally consistent to dismiss a person's arguments based on their ethnicity and/or sexual orientation. The fact that he's the wrong type of person to be espousing those claims simply robs his words of any moral or ethical weight. Just be careful about who you exercise that with because if you apply the same standard to everyone then you are a bigot.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 17:02

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Brainiac Five posted:

Oh man, how horrible it would be to punish someone for having the wrong opinions, such as being a fascist.

I wasn't aware that collective guilt & punishment were popular ideas among antifascists.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 17:13

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Brainiac Five posted:

If you think bigotry is eternal, you've already given up. I hope you get back on your feet, but right now you're just trying to drag others down into the muck of despair.

Do you have anything to offer besides platitudes? All of human history disagrees with you.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 19:01

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Schizotek posted:

Ignoring the screaming match above, where is the idea that democrats abandoned economic leftism coming from? Have you been in some hoxhaist bunker for the past 50 years? This was probably the first election in our lives where the democratic party could be even vaguely considered a leftist party, instead of the party leftists vote for.

What an absolutely absurd claim. That's like saying Goldman Sachs can be considered leftist because it's for social justice movements (that don't directly challenge its interests).

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 23:41

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Schizotek posted:

At what point were the Democrats farther to the left economically? The nineties? the early oughts? Maybe you're old enough to remember the glorious socialist heyday of the 80's?
The democrats didn't betray the economic left because they were never economic leftists to begin with, and they were the closest they've been to being socialists this election.

e: I do like how even in a comparison of Democratic party economic platforms you can't stop loving whining about SOCIAL JUSTICE!!!!!

I'm not whining about social justice. Social justice is good. I was maligning Goldman Sachs for cherrypicking support for social justice issues to whitewash their otherwise awful nature.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 00:55

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Homeless Friend posted:

Anyway, the answer to the question of the thread is that people seem to mean a million things when they say idpol, but I'd guess that the primary beef with it is that it seems more concerned with appearances, i.e. getting across you're one of the good guys, than actual long-term material results, being the good guy. It basically rings real hollow. People can argue all they want but nobody whose come to a decision on it already is really is going to change their mind and achieve enlightenment imo.

TheImmigrant posted:

Another problem with idpol (not a bad contraction) is that rather than seek to remedy past wrongs, it seeks to avenge past wrongs by inverting the roles of the parties. It's fashionable for many of its practitioners, over-represented on D&D, to refer to people of unfashionable identity in terms straight out of Der St�rmer.

As it's currently practiced (that is, out in the real world and not in sterile academic tracts), idpol is a politics of resentment and revenge. For example, when discussing reparations, workable policy proposals are necessarily yoked with collective guilt, collective shame and collective punishment (see: Ta-Nehisi Coates). It cannot simply be about materially improving the lives of black Americans going forward; it must also be about balancing the cosmic scales of justice. It's Utopian. This essentializing and bigoted thinking is permitted within idpol because the chimeric Eternal Oppressor cannot be maligned enough.

"...the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Cis White Male."

The flip-side is that idpol will also traffic in formerly prejudiced and abhorrent ideas like "black people think differently than white people" and "there is something essential about an ~~socially constructed~~ identity", but they're transformed into powerful, liberating ideas through the right incantations ("Black America's experience of racial violence engenders a unique awareness of oppression and race that must be listened to, and believed" or somesuch). At the same time, you'll never get them to admit that there might be fundamental differences between people because that's :biotruths:

.

It's totally hypocritical. It's bigoted, prejudiced thinking by people who rail against bigotry and prejudice. But they think they have history on their side, or that they're on the side of "Good", so it's uniquely okay for them to engage in the same behaviours and thinking that they hate in the Oppressor.

unlimited shrimp fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Dec 6, 2016

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 22:55

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

paranoid randroid posted:

reparations are not revenge, you trog

Reparations as such are not revenge, no. Reparations yoked with a sense of "white people need to atone" (ie. TNC's reparations) is revenge.

paranoid randroid posted:

like just the idea that its somehow controversial that black americans might have some insight into racial oppression, or that this idea represents the politicization of resentment, is loving laughable and you should be ashamed of that post

It's hosed up to suggest that black Americans, by virtue of being black Americans, have special access to knowledge and truth.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 23:39

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

I said what I meant and I meant what I said. I'm sorry we disagree.

e.
Wow, rude.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 23:48

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

khwarezm posted:

Trump Tutelage what do you think of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Graves_Protection_and_Repatriation_Act

Repatriating concrete objects and places is a very different thing than slavery reparations, more akin to offering every black American a free plane ticket back to the west coast of Africa.

But I'm not opposed to reparations except in the sense of them being a way to make up for the past, after which everything will be settled. Affirmative action, for example, is a good thing. Increased funding for early childhood education in poorer communities is a good thing.

Anyway, let's not derail this thread with reparations chat.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 00:03

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

stone cold posted:

White identity politics just won an election friend, so...

IdPol's core message is that you have special kinship with other people who share your identity; that you (as a member of a defined identity group) share unique interests and concerns that are best addressed by organizing along identity lines. So what is identity politics's answer to The Oppressor experiencing an identitarian awakening, particularly in a democracy where The Oppressor is also the majority?

Like, what happens when white people "wake up" and "own their whiteness", only instead of being ashamed of their now-acknowledged privilege, they decide that it's valuable and worth preserving? Does it just expect The Oppressor to be superhumanly ethical and self-sacrificing?

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 01:21

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Sethex posted:

I take issue with grouping whites into a single category in the dumb narrative adopted by the American left.

"Now you know how it feels, oppressor!" hisses the unprincipled identity politician.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 01:46

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

khwarezm posted:

White people exist as a collective category in the sense that they aren't beholden to many of the limitations that racial minorities have to face in the west. 'White privilege', even if most people hate admitting it, is a real thing that exists.

Can you define a coherent category "white people" that doesn't also describe some other, non-white people?

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 01:56

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

blackguy32 posted:

Even if he can't does it mean that white people as a category doesn't exist?

I don't know. It exists as a concept, much in the way any stereotype "exists" but is hard to locate in the real world. Just about the only definition I can think of that encompasses every white person to the exclusion of every non-white person, but allows for race as a social construct and not something essential, is "someone is white if they are socialized as white," which is a tautology. Encompassed by that definition is such a diversity of being and experience that I don't see how you can talk about whiteness with any seriousness without assuming something essential about race, or without conceding to being a simple racist who judges a person first and foremost according to their race. However, I think this is probably the definition assumed when discussing things like white privilege and white supremacy. It doesn't move us any closer to defining what it is to be white in a universal sense and it doesn't help us categorize white people except in the broadest, most abstract terms. The same also seems true for any identity group that isn't voluntary, and that seems really problematic if identity politics is meant to achieve anything concrete. It's a negative philosophy.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 05:20

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Motto posted:

I'm not quite sure what a "social leftist" is if it includes people with a hardon for capital punishment.

The 20th Century is full of leftists who had a hardon for capital punishment. One of them just died in Cuba.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 19:11

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

You sound like a left wing Alex Jones.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 20:14

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

"You're either with us or you're against us" is an extremely productive mentality, especially when you're in the minority.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2016 23:24

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Sharkopath posted:

I think you might have thought of this as a sick own when it is the daily reality and something already understood.

Like what do you call somebody who is not allying with you, if not an passive accomplice to your misery at best when we are talking about the struggle to be recognized as human and deserving of compassion.

I'm having difficulty parsing your second sentence. Are you referring to Bad Allies or something else?

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 01:02

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

stone cold posted:

I forgot, Donald "Beloved by The KKK and White Nationalists" Trump pandered to.... gosh darn it who was it that wanted to kick out all the Hispanics, put Muslims in camps, and thinks we don't have enough law and order, aka killing of black youths.

Gee I wonder who is feeling economic anxiety that is like the working class but without all the minorities?

Hmm.... must be people with unknowable motives who are real lone wolves.

The Donald Trump who actually ran is not the same as the Donald Trump you've manufactured in your head: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 03:11

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 05:27

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

stone cold posted:

"Women are lying whores who lie about getting raped all the time and should never be believed because it's probably just like to kill a mockingbird. It's okay to ignore feminism because memes made me feel bad."- an unironic "leftist"

Beating up a straw man doesn't make you a tough guy.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 04:41

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why are Identity politics so bad?