[rubecube]

Originally Posted by sworkhard

The identity politics of the right is no better than identity politics by the left. That one uses identity to discriminate in a harmful way and the other uses it in to discriminate in a way that's benevolent to a particular group is not a useful defense of identity politics.

Identifying a group that's marginalized and trying to reduce barriers that may disproportionately affect this group is not identity politics.

Identity politics comes in when you demand that a group of people be treated differently (for better or worse) based purely on their descriptive membership of a particular group

Well technically the latter is prescribed as a solution to the former. Affirmative action was designed to counteract the centuries of ingrained systemic racism that have pretty clearly disadvantaged African-Americans in the job market, which then has a trickle-down effect on communities, health, etc., etc.

The only reason the could "force' their way through is because of liberal principles and traditions that were widely held. These movements had to take advantage of liberal principles and without them would have be snuffed out ruthlessly before they made any progress.

Maybe go back and read what I wrote because that's pretty much exactly what I said.

So then why is so much of progressive discourse dominated by some of the most dogmatic, vicious, and unproductive people around. As much as progressives tell themselves it's about not resting on your laurels, the vast majority of the time it's just empty rhetoric and a way of letting people feel good about "helping" a group without actually having to do anything. It seems to me that Progressivism has very much become just what you wish it wasn't.

Because people from every political stripe suck, and we've given the loudest and shrillest the biggest platforms.

Just because some issues affect some groups more than others doesn't mean that you have to treat the disadvantaged groups like they are toddlers incapable of helping themselves. Too many progressives think equality is good in and of itself. It's not. Fairness may indicate that equality is in fact good in a particular situation, but determining what's fair is much more difficult that determining what's equal.

Okay but do we determine what's fair without any historical or social context? That's the problem I have with the liberal approach. It claims objectivity but then abandons objective information when the info doesn't conform to its ideals.