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Originally Posted by New Era
Completely agree, but it is very difficult when people chose to identify themselves as such. How do you break that behavior? We had this discussion on our campus last week. It is difficult to break away from identity politics when identity is all around us and forced upon us. It would be nice to say we can put an end to it, but when people are forced to put down their identify selections on almost every piece of paperwork you submit, it is hard to break away from the practice. How would you suggest we move away from identity politics when it is ingrained in our culture to expect it at every turn?
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Is putting an M or F on your driver's license really a political act? Does it shape your role in society?
We need to look at history to understand identity politics. In the early part of the 20th century, your racial and gender identity prescribed your options in society. This was institutionalised in the law. Women were not allowed by law to do many jobs. Racial minorities were barred from restaurants. The law did not treat everyone equally.
As the century progressed, a series of rights movements transformed the law. Women got the vote and were no longer barred from schools and professions. Martin Luther King gave his famous speech about children being judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. It reasonated with a liberalizing society that was moving away from traditional social models. Discrimination based on race or gender was prohibited.
Progress was made. There was broad consensus that we should treat everyone as individuals, and not make assumptions about them based on race or gender.
But there was still injustice. Still discrimination of a more subtle and intransigent kind. Still disparities in outcomes.
So in the 80s, leftist academia took the Marxist model of class struggle and applied it to race and gender politics. The goal was no longer for everyone to be treated as individuals, but for women and minorities to organize politically under the banners of their identities and tear down the existing system - a system they characterized as a patriarchal, colonialist, plutocracy.
For 20 years or so, this ideology was confined to academia and the radical left. But in the last decade or so, it seeped into mainstream culture, social media, and mainstream media to become a cornerstone of liberalism. To a progressive today, we are first and foremost our gender and racial identities. The dominant identity (white, male) is oppressive and malignant, therefore virtue is inversely proportional to oppression. And since this is a struggle of culture and narratives, the only way for the virtuous oppressed to overcome the malign oppressors is to elevate speech by some groups and suppress speech by others.
This worked for a while in the first social spheres colonized by the new left - academia, cultural industries, the media. Liberals eager to demonstrate their commitment to fairness and justice set aside traditional liberal values of individualism and free speech. Some had reservations, but bit their tongues out of solidarity against a shared opponent (the Right) or a pliant conformity.
But identity politics activists overplayed their hand. Seeing that they could easily cowe college administrators and the ideologically homegenous enclaves of social media, they employed their weapons of shame and guilt in an ever-wider arena. Compromise was unthinkable. Moderation morally repugnant. They told half the population to check their privilage - shut their mouths. The backlash was inevitable.
So now that identity politics have yielded the poisoned fruit of a Trump presidency, it's up to liberals to find a way to motivate and organize themselves that doesn't rely on an uncompromising dogma formulated in the myopic altitudes of academia. The solution can be found back in our own liberal history of 50 years ago, in the fidelity to individualism and free speech. But tribal identity has a terrible allure. People won't give it up easily.