In his remarks about the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville at The American Interest, Damir Marusic notes:
The 1960s, however, saw identity politics gradually emerge as a revolutionary force on the Left. Starting with Civil Rights, through feminism, and on to LGBTQ activism today, with each successive breakthrough the logic of the movement has become embedded in the thinking of an ever-wider segment of the Left, to the extent that today it is taken for granted by many. These movements have sought justice for oppressed groups by increasingly relying on mechanisms gleaned from a radical postwar political philosophy explicitly intended to serve as a critique and rejection of the Enlightenment in the shadow of the Holocaust: postmodernism.
One can easily get lost in the minutiae of these philosophies and forget the bigger picture, which is that the politics of postmodernism are ultimately incompatible with liberal democracy. Since it got its start as a radical form of literary criticism, postmodernism is a philosophy of competing “narratives†that sees dominant ones violently suppressing weaker “others†as part of an endless zero-sum competition that leaves no room for meaningful political compromise. The struggle ends up being not between ideas, but between groups that have to varying degrees been repressed, each with its own set of contingent “truths.†To challenge any of these truths on objective grounds represents a mortal threat, an attempt by “hegemonyâ€/â€patriarchyâ€/â€capital†(take your pick) to “silence†the weak, to deprive them of their very ability to exist. Even at its least violent—when it is not calling for the overthrow of the dominant “narrative†but rather asking for the space to have a thousand (identity) flowers bloom—postmodernism doesn’t allow for any kind of positive, constructive politics. Everything boils down to an absolute struggle between oppressor and oppressed. There is no room for a common positive vision in such a Manichean world.
Violence is not speech. The proper response to speech including speech you despise is either ignoring it or persuasion. That persuasion requires knowledge, skill, and patience is no excuse for violence.
The proper response to violence is enforcement of the law. That enforcing the law is difficult and expensive and requires skill, courage, and determination is no excuse for failing to enforce the law.
Which side are you on?
How do you think that stuff like this isn’t polarizing? If you think that identity politics is destroying American democracy, fine. But it’s weird that you think that in conjunction with the idea that polarization is bad.
There are many forms of speech, turning your back and walking away has a clear meaning. White Nationalist statue rallies do not need to be given the violent attention the Left obviously enjoys. Words here are useless, each group has their talking points memorized and escalation to violence is inevitable. Ignore them.
Because I believe in liberal democracy.
Writing about patriarchal oppression is not violent. Nor is saying that blacks in America have an experience best described as colonized subjects. These are not threats to liberal democracy unless you believe free speech is a threat. Is BLM a threat? No. Are intersectional post-queer feminists of color? No. Or not unless you believe free speech is a threat. And as far as actual violence goes, there has been remarkably little organized political violence in this country from blacks, gay people, or feminists. Assata Shakur went on the run decades ago, and she’s what people go back to when they need a dangerous lefty terrorist revolutionary.
If you want liberal democracy c. 1955, when none of the above was permitted, you should just say it. Of course you can’t, because they would make you sound, well…
Marching heavily armed through the streets and calling for extermination of various groups is not speech, it’s intimidation.
I have to take issue with the identity politics thing. This is not new and it is not owned just by the left. It has always been around. A particularly bad form of identity politics existed in the South during the Jim Crow days and a bit earlier when you had the lynchings, which were incredibly brutal if you read about them. White identity politics has never left us. Somehow or another that was not identity politics according to the right. Go further back and you find it by different ethnic groups.
Steve
Why encourage it?
which is almost verbatim what the author of the article writes.
The part about violence reminded me of this headline “peace through violence”. It’s a pretty funny phrase, almost like “to save the village we had to destroy it”.
CNN later changed the article’s headline, which is oddly appropriate for the times we live in.
Sad thought is it seems like an inordinate number of people think the group they identify with is the one being intimidated.
I think the author makes a good argument. I’m not entirely convinced by his framing, but I think it’s a useful way to look at it.
I hadn’t heard that Charlotte potentially had less people that Nazi marches from 20 years ago. I did notice a complete absence of counting in the reporting which I thought was strange. Normally the press will provide official estimates from the police or local authorities or have reporters on the ground ball-park it. If Charlotte was like previous nazi rallies, then the nazis were probably outnumbered at least 3-1 by counter-protesters.
As I said in the other thread, I don’t see them as a significant threat given their inconsequential numbers and influence.
The estimates I’ve seen place the population of white nationalists at fewer than 15,000.
If you want to play the wayback machine game and selectively take examples then you can have a lot of fun: we’ve got FDR and Japanese imprisonment, founding fathers as slave masters, the Southern Strategy, the Democratic Party as the mother of all US racist movements, Hillary Clinton lionizing a Klansman, and blacks being sold into US slavery by, well, blacks.
If you want to deal in the here and now, the Democrats own identity politics and it’s not even close. In fact they don’t just own it, it appears to be all they have.
It is polarizing to ask people to choose sides, but if one is concerned about both polarity and the incompatibility of postmodernism with liberal democracy then it makes sense to at least ask people to recognize the discord. If I’m not mistaken, didn’t the intellectual founders of postmodernism explicitly reject (and seek to overthrow) the ideals of the Enlightenment? if that’s what your movement is based on then I hardly think it’s fair to call people divisive when they defend against your attack.
CStanley–
Postmodernism was actually the rejection of the radical claims that came out of the Enlightenment via psychotherapy, high modernism, Marx, and structuralism. It has nothing to do with American democracy, which was basically considered a model by people who thought the positions taken by Foucault or Baudrillard were way overblown. Ironically, they assumed that America’s pragmatic tendencies would allow it to incorporate diversity without falling apart. What this guy is complaining about is not postmodernism–it’s just diversity.
What this guy is complaining about is not postmodernism–it’s just diversity
I don’t get that at all from the piece.
It has nothing to do with American democracy, which was basically considered a model by people who thought the positions taken by Foucault or Baudrillard were way overblown.
Which people were those?
Ironically, they assumed that America’s pragmatic tendencies would allow it to incorporate diversity without falling apart.
Well it is looking more and more that either “they” were wrong or “they” were lying no in order to get moderates to buy into their radical philosophy.