"A great deal of modern politics is about the demand of that inner self to be uncovered, publicly claimed, and recognized by the political system. A lot of these recognition struggles flow out of the social movements that began to emerge in the 1960s involving African-Americans, women, the LGBT community, Native Americans, and the disabled. These groups found a home on the left, triggering a reaction on the right. They say: What about us? Aren’t we deserving of recognition? Haven’t the elites ignored us, downplayed our struggles? That’s the basis of today’s populism.... [I]n the ’60s and ’70s... identity came to the forefront. People felt unfulfilled. They felt they had these true selves that weren’t being recognized. In the absence of a common cultural framework previously set by religion, people were at a loss.... Social media is perfectly made for identity politics. It allows you to close yourself off in an identity group, get affirmation of everything you say, and not have to argue with people who think differently...."
From "What Follows the End of History? Identity Politics," an interview with the author of "The End of History Francis Fukuyama in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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When you’re colossally wrong, double down on your next idea. It’s the only way to pull a Mr Natural recovery before a fall.
Follows? More likely, causes.
Short title: "White Guilt is Eternal!"
My inner self stonewalls.
"Social media is perfectly made for identity politics. It allows you to close yourself off in an identity group, get affirmation of everything you say, and not have to argue with people who think differently...."
Very succinct summary of diversity and identity politics.
“get affirmation of everything you say, and not have to argue with people who think differently...."
Sounds like The New Yorker.
This guy really thinks the election of Trump thing is about people crying for attention like children?
It's about free people who want to remain free. And they aren't asking.
They say: What about us? Aren’t we deserving of recognition? Haven’t the elites ignored us, downplayed our struggles?
Isn't that the basis of all politics? You vote for somebody who will advance your interests.
What a mundane insight
Can you just leave us alone? This is another reason for Trump. Also from Spengler:
"America had no military competitors of importance when George W. Bush took office in 2001, and an edge in high technology that made the American economy seem insuperable. Since then:
China has taken America’s place as the leading exporter of high-tech equipment;
America faces credible military competition from China;
Real median household income hasn’t grown since 2000;
The civilian labor force participation rate has fallen from 67% in 2000 to 63% today;
Productivity growth has languished at 1% a year since the global financial crisis;
US federal debt has between 2000 and 2018 has doubled as a share of GDP;
The American economy became “cartelized, corrupt and anti-competitive,” dominated by a handful of tech monopolies who combined to crush competition.
It seems to be 100% lies crafted to protect lies by the power seeking Kommandants of the anti-war movement who morphed into demanding silly stuff for one group after another that they demanded to lead to power.
Fukuyama isn't altogether wrong about identity politics, but he elides too quickly from people choosing to be recognized as part of a particular identity to people who insist their identified group has been denigrated, ignored and otherwise victimized. The enthronement of victimization as the ultimate achievement has poisoned the social and political environment.
It doesn't have to be this way. Black is beautiful. Gay pride. Ethnic parades. In the past people have celebrated their identity rather than using it as a pretext for discontent and anger. Identity has been weaponized.
What did they expect? Even the biggest square eventually donned a pair of bell-bottoms. And then bell-bottoms couldn’t go out of style fast enough.
"A great deal of modern politics is about the demand of that inner self to be uncovered, publicly claimed, and recognized by the political system"
It's the American Religion. Gnosticism. The original heresy. Harold Bloom got it right, though it's now metastasizing.
Anyway, we covered it on this blog, with regard to feminism: ostensibly about equal rights, in fact about claiming women are special, in a way that must be publicly recognized--e.g., to enable them to think about the morality of abortion.
Cautious man gives careful interview.
I'm kind of sympathetic. I too am cautious.
From "What Follows the End of History? Identity Politics," an interview with the author of "The End of History" Francis Fukuyama...
"Lighten up, Francis."
"Take something like Obamacare, which I think was an important policy. A lot of its opponents interpreted it as a race-specific policy: This was the black president doing something for his black constituents." I've been following the Obamacare issue since they started discussing it in earnest in 2008. I have never once heard anyone suggest that it was "the black president doing something for his black constituents." This is the first I've heard of this.
Ann,
"A lot of these recognition struggles flow out of the social movements that began to emerge in the 1960s involving African-Americans, women, the LGBT community, Native Americans, and the disabled."
Yes, but, first, black men came back from WWII and fighting for other's (mostly white folks') freedom from Hitler, only to find the same bullshit still going on at home and said "Fuck this". Today they still minimize us by always telling the story wrong. This is what reparations is supposed to fix.
"These groups found a home on the left, triggering a reaction on the right."
Not blacks. We will go to whichever party advances our interests - because we have "our interests".
"They say: What about us? Aren’t we deserving of recognition? Haven’t the elites ignored us, downplayed our struggles?"
No, others say that - they want pride - we demand justice.
"That’s the basis of today’s populism...."
No it isn't, and the end of history didn't happen, either.
"[I]n the ’60s and ’70s... identity came to the forefront. People felt unfulfilled. They felt they had these true selves that weren’t being recognized."
"Say It Loud (I'm Black And I'm Proud!)" is not about a "true self" that wasn't seen, but of a reality never imagined until JB did. He "had a dream" too. That was big stuff.
"In the absence of a common cultural framework previously set by religion, people were at a loss...."
Please. They're at a loss because they embrace religion, still, but it doesn't provide - and they can't admit it. It also prevents them from admitting they're wrong. They're not "at a loss" but were lost to begin with.
"Social media is perfectly made for identity politics."
Yeah. I get accused of it every day JUST FOR BEING BLACK. It's fucking great.
"It allows you to close yourself off in an identity group, get affirmation of everything you say, and not have to argue with people who think differently...."
Two black friends and I got into a blazing row yesterday over Trump, with me demanding they provide evidence he's a racist, which they couldn't. Between that and what happens here, I have no idea what this guy's talking about.
>This is the first I've heard of this.
Yeah, apparently the opponents who shouted "this is a complete disaster across the board for every American in every imaginable way" were at a different cocktail party.
This guy really thinks the election of Trump thing is about people crying for attention like children?
Look at the tantrum the Left is throwing almost 2 years after the election.
China has taken America’s place as the leading exporter of high-tech equipment;
Thank you former rapist in chief Bubba.
Fukuyama assumes no political purpose behind identity politics.
This is absurdly naive for a political scholar. Well, who knows if it is naivete or fear. Fukuyama is an academic and he knows on what side his bread is buttered.
Ayn Rand, always a superb analyst of her enemies, whatever her faults, would have figured it out instantly.
As she put it in "The Return of the Primitive", on environmentalism, once the socialists figured out that their argument regarding the welfare of the working class was falsifiable, and being falsified, they had to seek justifications that were not falsifiable, for which there are no simple metrics and for which even the suffering of the working class can be justified as a necessary cost in pursuit of a higher purpose.
Environmentalism was it for a while, but ran out of steam. Identity politics is its replacement. But like environmentalism it has its own weaknesses.
"Aren’t we deserving of recognition?" Yes , in fact Someone did recognize you 2000 years ago !
From the linked interview:
-----
Q. Do you see identity politics as a threat to free speech?
A. Charles Murray spoke at Stanford this winter. I was his interlocutor. We had a protest, but he got to say what he wanted to say. People listened. Charles Murray told me he’s been speaking all over the country, and that the Middlebury incident, while a bad one, wasn’t representative of the way he’s been received on campuses.
So I’m ambivalent. A lot of topics are difficult to talk about on campus, but I wouldn’t say we have a general crisis of free speech. We still can debate a lot of issues.
-----
The free-speech situation at universities:
At Stanford University, Charles Murray got to say what he wanted to say!
At universities, we still can debate a lot of issues!!
Re Murray -
The test is if people who aren't emeriti like Murray can say what they want to say.
In that case all US universities would fail.
Sounds like another straight line extrapolation. Can't blame him, it's the easy thing to do, and most extrapolations of complex systems are going to be wrong anyway.
"Argue with people who think differently"
How do I go about doing that?
Readering,
You have an opportunity right here.
Make a point.
Someone rebuts.
You respond to the rebuttal.
And it goes on.
Or vice versa, start with a rebuttal.
In any case, a dialectical argument according to the ancient rules.
More usual: make a point. Response is, "crazy lefty stinking up the joint."
The usual reason for a negative reaction is that the point isn’t.
That is, it is generally rhetorical, an emotional tactic.
The other is that the rebuttal is rarely addressed.
So, make an experiment.
Defend a policy you support with logic and fact.
Or propose something, likewise.
Read rebuttals and respond vs the arguments and facts brought up in those.
Or simply post a comment for the sake of general education.
Something from the inside of your world.
Spare the condescension. I'm another old white guy.
It never fails. Someone who considers himself among the educated elite who is a trained observer and thinker makes an extremely broad generalization about 70% of the population, concluding that if minorities have identified according to their ethnicity, then white people have done so as well. It always comes down to the same unspoken assumption. The deplorables cannot or do not think for themselves, but are only following base impulses. Heaven forbid that some white people voted for Trump because they wanted what he promised and has begun to deliver!
You want to see impulses? Count the number of comments on this site (not this post, mercifully, that say little more than "those leftist" and "the Democrat (sic) party" .
Readering,
I don't usually respond to you or a reason- you don't make arguments. Indeed, your comments in this thread are the usual I see from you. I am more likely to read Chuck's comments than yours- at least Chuck tries construct an argument one can engage with, and succeeds a lot of the time, too.
White Identity Politics is likely to become a Thing, courtesy (!!) of the Left.
I trust they'll be sorry they did that.
Blogger Rob said...
"It doesn't have to be this way. Black is beautiful. Gay pride. Ethnic parades. In the past people have celebrated their identity rather than using it as a pretext for discontent and anger. Identity has been weaponized."
Not identity. What has been weaponized is the altruism of western civilization. For reasons that may be cultural (Christian charity?) or genetic or both, we have developed societies in which we try to aid the afflicted. Identifying as a victim is an attempt to engage this reaction, and it works quite well, up to a point. See "white guilt", for example. But there is another dynamic that comes into play. When people describe themselves as "victims", I hear "losers". I may feel sorry for them, or I may think they are the cause of their own problems. But either way, I don't want them on my team. You can have them on your team.
"Spare the condescension. I'm another old white guy."
What I tell the young fellows- engineers and technicians.
If you want to be useful, take your feelings outside and shoot them.
You can't solve anything if you are simply feeling things.
Tell that to the folks on your side. They might listen to you.
"Tell that to the folks on your side. They might listen to you."
All one can do is try. I'm here for you when you want to come in from the cold.
buwaya said...
"You can't solve anything if you are simply feeling things."
Many people seem to have this idea, that emotions get in the way of clear thinking and must be put to one side if we are to solve problems. I will simply point out that evolution does not agree with this assessment. And evolution has considered a great deal of evidence.
I already listened.
Evolution only cares about sex.
"evolution does not agree with this assessment."
Evolution did not prepare humanity for a human-created technological environment.
We aren't living in a world that evolution prepared us for.
The only way to exist here is to find coping mechanisms, such as unemotional, rigorous approaches to technical problem solving.
And yes evolution only cares about successful breeding.
Or, not about sex, full stop, but its results.
Two products of evolution, explaining to me that evolution doesn't know what it's doing. OK, guys, you've convinced me. :)
basically the pathetic deplorable racist ignorant right left behind by the brain power required in the modern world are crave their own #metoo moment.
evolution does not care about anything. it's simply biologic determinism. people do like to anthropomorphize everything but people.
"explaining to me that evolution doesn't know what it's doing."
Evolution doesn't know what its doing. Its an effect of contingent circumstances.
Evolution creates lots of dead ends, often giving an organism some elaborate, expensive trait that, due to some change in environment, sometimes partly the work of the organism itself, becomes a terrible liability.
It is certainly possible, Howard, to be ignorant and racist. It is also possible to be highly intelligent, deeply knowledgeable about human genetics, and racist. What really takes an effort is to look at the abundant evidence for both physical and behavioral differences between races, and somehow contrive to believe that what scientists can easily measure does not exist. But there are people who manage it, or at least pretend to.
buwaya said...
"Evolution creates lots of dead ends, often giving an organism some elaborate, expensive trait that, due to some change in environment, sometimes partly the work of the organism itself, becomes a terrible liability."
You mean, like the ability to calmly put one's emotions aside, and set one's mind to developing atomic weapons? Hmmm...
Howard said...
"people do like to anthropomorphize everything but people."
I would put it the other way around. We stubbornly insist on regarding human beings as people, despite the abundant evidence that they are merely biological machines.
Evolution thinks of a nuclear weapon like it thinks of a super-volcano or killer asteroid: Now the definition of fittest has changed again.
Evolution is a function of piece-wise continuity. Humans are biased by higher levels of perception, and self-interest, which engenders the inference of quasi-religious/moral myths of species fitness and other abstractions.
set one's mind to developing atomic weapons
Surely, a double-edged scalpel.
"and set one's mind to developing atomic weapons? "
Perhaps! But this one has not yet been put to the test.
"Now the definition of fittest has changed again."
I wonder. The fitness test of surviving the aftermath of a nuclear war may remove some of the dysgenic corruptions of modernity.
Jupiter: I don't agree that at core the brain is a random number generator. Doesn't matter either way because it is the anthromorph used as a yardstick to turn chaos into home base
Jupiter: we are all racists, but in this world actions trump. the rampant denial of racism is, IMO, related to the stupid christian ethic that only blind belief matters, not good works.
Evolution is a function of piece-wise continuity in our frame of reference, which is strictly limited to near-space and time, and inferred from logical, physical, and political myths.
Everyone has an intrinsic color bias, but diversity (i.e. color judgments) must be nurtured.
I wouldn't say a "random number generator". My point is rather that we believe we know a great deal about the workings of our own minds, based almost entirely on introspection. And we assume that knowledge is applicable to other minds. And we are especially inclined to do this with other humans.
Identity politics was great--necessary, even--so long as it helped the Left.
Identity politics is terrible--dangerous, even--to the extent it helps the (populist) Right.
What a stunning insight from our leading intellectuals. How lucky we are to be lead by such intelligent elites!
A lot of topics are difficult to talk about on campus, but I wouldn’t say we have a general crisis of free speech. We still can debate a lot of issues.
That's downright pathetic. "There's not a crisis 'cause we can still talk about some stuff." How craven can you get??
It's expected and baked in that "a lot" of topics are difficult to talk about "on campus?!" If one only read their marketing one'd think that campus would be the exact place where all topics would be most easily/readily discussed! But here the fact that lots of topics are "difficult" to discuss on campus is not enough evidence to demonstrate a crisis of free speech.
Sad!
Jupiter said... My point is rather that we believe we know a great deal about the workings of our own minds, based almost entirely on introspection
Yeah; suck it Descartes!
No, but seriously, it's an ancient problem. I know what blue is and you say you know what blue is but how do I know that what you know as blue is, you know, blue?
Thinking deeply:
One fun consequence of this quandary is, for me, (and ought to be for everyone else) a reluctance to cede power to others. I'm in favor of small government & the most-local-possible locus of government/political power in part because I don't believe top-down Big Government can solve the knowledge problems that would have to be solve for them to actually achieve anything like the theoretically-possible efficiencies that are, to me, their only possible benefit. If I'm only dimly aware of my own actual preferences how arrogant would I have to be to imagine I could know (and design policy to act on/reflect) the preferences of millions of others--or to allow some individual to do that for me/to me?
The more skeptical one is about the perfection and/or perfectibility of our own understanding (of ourselves and of others) the more one should oppose big government schemes (communism & socialism in particular, since these rely on a false consensus of the kind we should not believe possible & use extreme force to carry out).
I am not talking about the blue-is-blue problem. More about the claim that about one person in twenty-five is a psychopath, and is indifferent to the sufferings of others. I am dubious of the precision of the number and the clarity of the dividing line. But it would certainly be unwise for me to suppose that other people have the same motivations I do, or even that I understand their motivations.
Diversity politics.
On this my inside is much the same as my outside: pro-freedom all the way. And to be pro-freedom at a time when we are so far advanced down the Road to Serfdom is pretty much to be denigrated, ignored and not listened to most of the time. (See Nock's classic essay, "The Remnant.")
Blogger Jupiter said...
I wouldn't say a "random number generator". My point is rather that we believe we know a great deal about the workings of our own minds, based almost entirely on introspection. And we assume that knowledge is applicable to other minds. And we are especially inclined to do this with other humans.
Yes, knowing human nature is the top survival tool. The human part, from an evolutionary perspective, is a thin veneer. Therefore, the animal (but not psychopathic) portion of "human nature" is more useful than humanity. Gilmore and Waters put it well in their song Dogs
You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need
You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street
You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed
And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight
You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking
And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you,
You'll get the chance to put the knife in
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