Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
In this extended NBC interview, Peterson handles the lazy slur that he's alt-right with the observation that the progressive left is making the mistake of assuming that everyone against their dogma must be alt-right or extreme right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROo5nCNvgk
This is another once of those tactics that makes me wonder if the people who employ it are doing it out of cynicism, or naivete? Are they knaves or fools?
Ad hominem and presenting a false dilemma are time-honoured rhetorical weapons. I'd be surprised if Peterson's opponents didn't unsheathe them. But I'm starting to think naivete is the more common explanation for the belief that criticism of identity politics can only come from the alt-right. People live in such homogenous social bubbles these days that they're often way off base with how widely held their values are.
I'd identify the core identarian belief system as:
* Our primary social and political identities are our collective identities of race, gender, and sexual orientation.
* Any disparities in the outcomes of those groups is due to systemic oppression by the dominant European hetero capitalist patriarchy.
* It's incumbent on all people who value justice to press for a world where the outcomes of those people are equal.
My sense is maybe 15-20 per cent of Canadians subscribe to that belief system. However, that 20 per cent is highly concentrated in certain demographics and social environments. So highly concentrated that most of those people genuinely believe their values are shared by fully half of Canadians. And since people drawn to these sorts of dogmas tend to have a simplistic, binary outlook, they lump everyone who opposes them into their most prominent social media enemies, the alt-right. They really do think you're either a decent person (read: identarian), or alt-right. Never mind that 80+ per cent of people are neither of those things. |
While 3 is quite widely held I think, I'm not convinced the first 2 are. I think most people that view identity politics as a good thing have more complex views on the disparities between groups.
If I had to narrow it down to 3, I'd say it's something like this.
1. The handicap that each person starts out in life with can be determined by immutable characteristics, unchosen circumstances of birth, and identity.
2. The primary reason for differences in #1 and the rates of social and economic mobility between various groups in North America is systemic oppression by the dominant European hetero capitalist patriarchy and the historic effects of European colonialism.
3. It's incumbent on all people who value justice to press for a world where the outcomes of various identity based groups are equal
The thing is, 1 and 3 are widely held for at least some identity groups across the political spectrum, and 2 is at least partly accepted by a signification portion of the population
The primary differences are about the best way to try achieve 3, how to measure 3, and which groups to apply 3 too.
Identity politics comes in when trying to to adjust 1 based on group membership rather than trying to address the unevenly distributed causes. A large portion of self identified progressives support this kind of group based discrimination to try make up for 2, while the majority of self identified centrist, libertarian, and conservative people would much prefer addressing the underlying causes in a nondiscriminatory/identity politics based manner.
So, for example, in the US, programs that help low income people build new, marketable skills without accumulating huge amounts of debt would disproportionately help black people. So would creating colleges (or programs within colleges) that educate motivated students with lower high school achievement become highly skilled in valuable professions. Conservatives (by the traditional definition) would largely accept this kinds of solutions as ways to help address 3 and they go along with the principle of benevolence that they typically hold to, but they would be opposed to affirmative action programs based on group identity/membership, while self identified progressives would support affirmative action programs.