Identity Politics or The Politics of Difference
So, in the US and other Western democracies, identity politics or tribalism and the power struggle for supremacy between and among these tribes is at the forefront in the struggle to maintain democratic institutions. In the US, there are, for example, the pro-Trump faction and the anti-Trump faction. One “tribe” has a certain set of values that it focuses on, and the other another set. It is often the case that the respective tribes cannot even agree on many facts. It’s as if they belong to two different universes in many respects.
Not only the tribes, but it is also a world made up of individuals, each with her own sets of beliefs and values. The politics of this is the tribes or individuals desire to have supremacy over others’ beliefs and values. This ought not be the goal, however.
This is a world where differences abound, where differences are inevitable, and where differences cannot always be resolved.
One should embrace differences that are ubiquitous and inevitable, even where they are unresolvable, lest there be a constant state of war devolving into a state of nature.
Now, we all have egos. This is just a fact of existence. We at a very primal level want at least recognition where we cannot reign supreme. Since, this IS a fact, we should not TRY to reign supreme, as this leads to oppression.
The best we can do is recognize others are different and try to learn from them. Not only does this lead to becoming better thinkers, it also leads to discovery, of ourselves and the world around us.
Not only the tribes, but it is also a world made up of individuals, each with her own sets of beliefs and values. The politics of this is the tribes or individuals desire to have supremacy over others’ beliefs and values. This ought not be the goal, however.
This is a world where differences abound, where differences are inevitable, and where differences cannot always be resolved.
One should embrace differences that are ubiquitous and inevitable, even where they are unresolvable, lest there be a constant state of war devolving into a state of nature.
Now, we all have egos. This is just a fact of existence. We at a very primal level want at least recognition where we cannot reign supreme. Since, this IS a fact, we should not TRY to reign supreme, as this leads to oppression.
The best we can do is recognize others are different and try to learn from them. Not only does this lead to becoming better thinkers, it also leads to discovery, of ourselves and the world around us.
Comments (42)
Yes, it is true we all have differences, and are kind of wedded to our many delightful uniquenesses. To the quip that "It takes all kinds of people to make a world." Winston Churchill drily remarked, "It doesn't take all kinds of people, there just are."
It is also true that human beings are fundamentally more alike than we are different. We are, after all, a specific species, and like all the other species on earth, we are identifiable by a mass of features which are common across the population. One of our common features is the capacity to come up with absurd ideas which verge on or slop over into the territory of the downright stupid.
One such absurd idea is that a man can become a woman, or a woman can become a man, and that once this has been declared, everybody should fall into line in acknowledging this miracle which occurs with singular rarity in the animal and plant kingdoms. Mammals. as it happens, can not change their sex. Period. You can slice things off and reconstruct, but sex can not be changed.
We can be grouped into pairs, families, clans, tribes, interest groups, nations, and so forth. But more than the details of clan, tribe, interest group, and so on we remain human beings, Homo sapiens, with so much more in common than that which differentiates us. We are, of course, individuals. Most animals, rats on up to the Pope, are individually unique. The identity that matters most is one's identity as a human-being-becoming-a-person. Because becoming a person is something everyone in our species tends toward.
Agreed.
Understandable. Coercion always looks attractive when the 'good guys' are doing the coercing. The problem is that coercion is always a predatory activity, which improves the situation of one party only at the expensive of another. It follows that a State, which is by its very nature an agency of coercion, can never 'represent' the people simpliciter but will always be wielded as a weapon by some against others.
Let me kindly spice this. Let´s say that I completely disagree with you, in a rational way. People get married to trees, so it kind of confuses me and my notion of person (who can be grouped?). Will my disagreement bother you in great manner? Do you think I have a point here? Or the natural rush you feel against my disagreement will impel you to illogical and nonsensical fallacies?
I know that this questions seem barely relevant, but the way mankind constructs it´s range of acceptances (and it travels real fast in our days!!) appear to me very decisively in the selectivity of futures generations of mankind.
And it also goes the other way: did you know that companies (and even states!) have quotes for hiring people according their race or creed, even if they (like you said) "group" themselves with people that are not the best fitted to perform the tasks they should? All of this in the name of "resolving and annihilating differences" - it is political correct to think so.
Imagine that we have a Savannah, and four lions. But only two gazelles. Imagine now that the lion community decides that lions with only 3 legs should also be entitled to eat a gazelle (in the name of equal opportunities and for the greater good). So, from the 4 lions, 2 lions with four legs will starve and will not have cubs, and the next generation of lions will, probably, have a higher number of lions with 3 legs. You see where it´s going. Can it happen that one day no lion can catch a gazelle? Is it extinction a possibility?
Now, think about today and how we humans are organizing our social environment, and how are we compelled to be flawless in doing the morally correct things.
Going back to the start (what a twist), you can political influence others to completely disagree with me (or because I´m wrong or because you, personally, can´t face the fact that you are less right than me), and in fernesin of constructed set of rules for good and evil (morality) set me apart and ensure that, in the long run, that my genes are not to be passed on.
I´m 40 years old (probably older than all of you), and what I perceive is that we humans, both individually and socially, are getting much more sensitivity to differences. And also overreacting to their existence.
I think this is not a such unimportant subject as you might think. And, off course, I state this with most respect and zero intention to offend.
(just the cherry: personal provocation by opposite ideas between great minds has, historically, given birth to important conclusions and added up knowledge).
Often times the synthesis or completely original idea formed after considering a battle of minds is done by a third party. Some can learn. Others are more stubborn. The current state of affairs in Western democracies and the coercion of the several autocracies is decidedly stubborn.
This is because they aren't using facts. Facts are only important in science, not in politics. While political parties may use scientific knowledge to support their views, it is often cherry-picked.
The rise of identity politics is the result of the State focusing on our differences to use them to divide us. Instead of focusing on the corruption of the elites in government positions, they have us pointing the finger at each other.
Not only that. The “State” itself is equally divided.
That is only the show that they put on for their constituents. They all work together to expand the powers of government over the governed. Behind closed doors they are all pals.
I have no doubt that they can set aside their differences at times, and that many of them are friends, but I don’t subscribe to that particular flavor of conspiracy theory.
Also interesting is that the origin of the word "GOOD". It was said of the families/tribes/groups that held more possessions/lands/animals/warriors (before money existed).
Politics started well. Then GOOD things happen to them. As it does with everything. ;)
It seems to be better in the Scandinavian countries. There the governments appear to work for the people. The institutions of my country aren’t inherently bad, but there are many bad people running them. That said, there are “good” people in my government who have “good” policy positions that would greatly benefit the people. Elizabeth Warren is one. I doubt she is all buddy buddy with Devin Nunez.
Money is power, which why money should be taken out of politics. Take out the political parties as well so that people are forced to vote for ideas, not for party, or the ones that are on tv the most because they have more money.
And power can be very strong and it can disguised itself in many ways, it has done that since there are records of human history.
But i like your ideas, you understand the system, and you feel compelled to defy it, and that is, like Trump would say it: Great!. But do you know why you think like that? -equal rights for everyone is not an allowed answer :)
Hint: Life main goal is to keep on going...
There is no cabal that is pulling the strings and pulling the wool over our eyes. There are only and have always been opportunists. Opportunists who passed on their legacies through the generations, maybe, but there is no conspiracy aimed at keeping you in the dark and powerless.
Subject specific morality? :) :)
‘Regardless of its significance to me, it matters because of its significance to you’.
I think we struggle to understand and therefore discover the world at this level, and instead feel compelled to position all interactions in relation to our perspective of value - particularly moral value. And so everything must be positioned somewhere within our own value structure, otherwise it cannot be deemed to exist.
Until very recently, and in other discussions here, I struggled with what I considered to be a dual concept of ‘meaning’: that even though I cannot decipher the meaning of something, it is still meaningful. But I think recognising that elements of the world can matter without being significant to me is the key. I don’t have to evaluate every interaction with the world from my perspective in order to understand it exists in the world, just as I don’t have to touch something or to be there myself to understand that it’s real.
Can we recognise something we deem to be insignificant or worthless as something that matters in the world without then deriving some position of value for it?
You’re right. Discuss what you like I suppose.
Again, loved your point.
This is very well said. I suppose I was looking for more responses like this... but then that would be imposing my values on the discussion instead of allowing it to grow organically. :wink:
JP, I was probably unclear in my post. The identity that most matters to individuals is their human becoming a person identity. This isn’t the identity that matters most collectively. It seems to me that some individuals are demanding collective consideration for their individual features, even those “features” conjured out of thin air, like the various freshly minted genders.
One of the little collectivities I left-out was support group which some people clearly need. They then begin to confuse their support group’s approval for broader social acceptance.
“I´m 40 years old (probably older than all of you), and what I perceive is that we humans, both individually and socially, are getting much more sensitivity to differences. And also overreacting to their existence” JP said.
Yes, that is what I was getting at — especially the over reaction.
By the way I’m 73, and not the oldest.
Have you met someone with, say, gender fluidity? There seem to be a not insignificant number of these people. If you have met some, have you tried to understand them first before passing this kind of judgment?
Edit: Gender is not the same thing as biological sex to these people. It is a social construct. You might want to argue against that if you disagree.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5097/is-gender-a-social-construct/p1
Depends, to a lot of the people you are talking about, sex is also a social construct because it is our understanding of where someone belongs in certain categories we use, rather than the presence of a biological state or body.
But that's a whole other topic you might not want to get into here. (though, it is pretty easy to relate to identity politics and it's supposed "rise"-- all politics is identity politics, it's not new. The point of a political organization is to gather around some type of representation of a social body that is unique, a sort of world presence to be recognised and handled a certain way).
So, what is your recommendation? Do we recognize and learn about and from differences? I know that sounds easy and simplistic, but the reason why @James Pullman suggested this topic to me was that we all have something to learn from one another. I took on this topic because there is an existential threat to our democracies throughout the West, and I wanted to gain insight from others as to what can be done about it.
There are two issues here as I see it. The need to be challenged by opposing views to seek out the truth as well as the need to share the world with others who aren’t like us.
It's not absurd to think that a man could become a woman, and vice versa; it happens quite often. What is absurd is to think that a male could become a female; which is not the same. I think you are conflating the two ideas.