4 ms·

The End of Identity Liberalism

4 points by nafizh 10y ago

angersock 10y ago
I consider myself fairly progressive in my politics, and am quite annoyed that Trump got elected. I'd like to think that folks like me are on the right side of history. That said, one of the biggest missteps in progressive popular rhetoric that we've made in the last five years has got to be the increasing reliance on identity politics when engaging the opposition. Concepts like intersectionality, privilege, erasure, and so forth can be quite useful in an academic setting. They can shed a lot of light on how to view issues of diversity and give some insights in to how we can evaluate different social and cultural structures. They can enable somebody performing analyses to help acknowledge and account for their own biases, producing higher-quality work. In an informal or public setting however those same ideas tend to be distorted and misused by people, being used to do such things as assign guilt and blame and to erect unimpeachable rhetorical positions that prevent good-faith discussion. In trying to acknowledge minorities and their plights the untrained or the emotional will often throw back in somebody's face supposed privilege, and dismiss any statement as being valueless because of who it comes from. The untrained will sideline themselves with intersectionality arguments that require that everyone must be recognized and have a seat at the table before anybody individually does, and in so doing deadlock efforts to make progress lest some tiny splinter be left behind. Folks will make arguments about being erased and having violence committed against them for such minor things as their opponents being bad with pronouns or pointing out factual inaccuracies. This strategy many of our side have adopted, and it's a strategy that others people we should be trying to reach. It antagonizes those who might otherwise be our allies, because it denies their shared humanity with us because they don't have the correct skin color or bank balance or upbringing or culture. And perhaps worst of all, it inflames the passions and biases the vocabulary such that, when a real threat does come along, we are unable to speak out and be taken seriously. We have to leave the lens of identity and related tools back in the contexts where they help, not hurt, understanding.
- internaut 10y ago
  I think you are mistaken in thinking this is a temporary reset. I believe that there exist giant but difficult to see cycles in our social world which occur on the order of every 50 or 100 years. Around 1973 wage growth halted for 60-80% of workers in the West. As you can imagine, economic cycles and social cycles are linked, even if they are not the same and one lags the other. The next generation after the millennials is not progressive, it is much further to the right than the right of the present. To cut a long story short I believe that the phenomenon we see in Israel with the young people there is going to spread to Europe and America. My tentative guess is that this left/right divide we talk of, is actually tens of thousands of years old and is buried into our source code, our DNA. It would make sense, would it not, since 'being wrong' politically usually meant death for whoever didn't turn out to be our ancestors. It follows that 'changing our perspective' or 'education' is not going to work, that is thinking on the software level when the bug/feature is coming out of the hardware. To give you a quick run down of what I think is on the cards. - Root and branch purge (ex-STEM) of the universities for monetary and ideological reasons (looks like starting in Japan). - Gen Z becomes the most right wing in living memory. - Social programs go bankrupt. No Pensions. End of social democracy. - Transnational nationalism becomes a thing. - The middle class lose their jobs thanks to sustained cuts (dying tax base) and technology. Silicon Valley gets flak. - Interest rates rocket upwards. Student loan debt and mortgage debt becomes unsustainable. - Conflict breaks out in Europe. - Surveillance and robotics technology bring us all kinds of new goodies. The good news, as I see it, is similar to the 20th century. Depending on where you lived it was either a utopia or a dystopia. It was either the best of, or the worst of worlds depending on place and time. France on the eve of the Revolution, Germany before the crash, these were the most advanced societies of the time. I suspect this all looks strongly like a step backwards but a glance at history suggests this is preferable to the alternative of a long slow stagnation. I suspect retrenchment is a necessary feature of our system.
  - consz 10y ago
    Do you have a blog? I like reading your thoughts (though I'm unclear on how much of it I believe). Your previous posts have convinced me to read The Book of the New Sun. I'm optimistically hoping it is as good as you believe it is.

4 points by nafizh 10y ago

I consider myself fairly progressive in my politics, and am quite annoyed that Trump got elected. I'd like to think that folks like me are on the right side of history. That said, one of the biggest missteps in progressive popular rhetoric that we've made in the last five years has got to be the increasing reliance on identity politics when engaging the opposition. Concepts like intersectionality, privilege, erasure, and so forth can be quite useful in an academic setting. They can shed a lot of light on how to view issues of diversity and give some insights in to how we can evaluate different social and cultural structures. They can enable somebody performing analyses to help acknowledge and account for their own biases, producing higher-quality work. In an informal or public setting however those same ideas tend to be distorted and misused by people, being used to do such things as assign guilt and blame and to erect unimpeachable rhetorical positions that prevent good-faith discussion. In trying to acknowledge minorities and their plights the untrained or the emotional will often throw back in somebody's face supposed privilege, and dismiss any statement as being valueless because of who it comes from. The untrained will sideline themselves with intersectionality arguments that require that everyone must be recognized and have a seat at the table before anybody individually does, and in so doing deadlock efforts to make progress lest some tiny splinter be left behind. Folks will make arguments about being erased and having violence committed against them for such minor things as their opponents being bad with pronouns or pointing out factual inaccuracies. This strategy many of our side have adopted, and it's a strategy that others people we should be trying to reach. It antagonizes those who might otherwise be our allies, because it denies their shared humanity with us because they don't have the correct skin color or bank balance or upbringing or culture. And perhaps worst of all, it inflames the passions and biases the vocabulary such that, when a real threat does come along, we are unable to speak out and be taken seriously. We have to leave the lens of identity and related tools back in the contexts where they help, not hurt, understanding.

internaut 10y ago
I think you are mistaken in thinking this is a temporary reset. I believe that there exist giant but difficult to see cycles in our social world which occur on the order of every 50 or 100 years. Around 1973 wage growth halted for 60-80% of workers in the West. As you can imagine, economic cycles and social cycles are linked, even if they are not the same and one lags the other. The next generation after the millennials is not progressive, it is much further to the right than the right of the present. To cut a long story short I believe that the phenomenon we see in Israel with the young people there is going to spread to Europe and America. My tentative guess is that this left/right divide we talk of, is actually tens of thousands of years old and is buried into our source code, our DNA. It would make sense, would it not, since 'being wrong' politically usually meant death for whoever didn't turn out to be our ancestors. It follows that 'changing our perspective' or 'education' is not going to work, that is thinking on the software level when the bug/feature is coming out of the hardware. To give you a quick run down of what I think is on the cards. - Root and branch purge (ex-STEM) of the universities for monetary and ideological reasons (looks like starting in Japan). - Gen Z becomes the most right wing in living memory. - Social programs go bankrupt. No Pensions. End of social democracy. - Transnational nationalism becomes a thing. - The middle class lose their jobs thanks to sustained cuts (dying tax base) and technology. Silicon Valley gets flak. - Interest rates rocket upwards. Student loan debt and mortgage debt becomes unsustainable. - Conflict breaks out in Europe. - Surveillance and robotics technology bring us all kinds of new goodies. The good news, as I see it, is similar to the 20th century. Depending on where you lived it was either a utopia or a dystopia. It was either the best of, or the worst of worlds depending on place and time. France on the eve of the Revolution, Germany before the crash, these were the most advanced societies of the time. I suspect this all looks strongly like a step backwards but a glance at history suggests this is preferable to the alternative of a long slow stagnation. I suspect retrenchment is a necessary feature of our system.
- consz 10y ago
  Do you have a blog? I like reading your thoughts (though I'm unclear on how much of it I believe). Your previous posts have convinced me to read The Book of the New Sun. I'm optimistically hoping it is as good as you believe it is.