Why Identity Politics Destroys Communities
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
145.9431
Summary
In this episode, I discuss the political phenomenon we colloquially refer to as identity politics. Identity politics is a term coined by Kimberley Crenshaw, a critical race theorist, who attempted to understand why Marx's communist revolution failed in the West and what could be done to make it happen, not only to save Marx's theoretical framework, but also to assist in bringing about communism.
Transcript
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Everyone is by this point familiar with the political phenomenon we colloquially call
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identity politics. This is academically known as intersectionality, a term originally coined
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by Kimberley Crenshaw, a critical race theorist. Critical race theorists stand in the long tradition
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of communists struggling to understand why Marx's proletarian revolution never happened in the West
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and what could be done to make it happen, not only to save Marx's theoretical framework but
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also to assist in bringing about communism. The broad purpose of critical race theory and
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intersectionality then is to attack the mainstream liberal society by empowering its destructive
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fringe elements and facilitating their rise to power using the existing logic of the liberal society
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itself. In her 1991 essay Mapping the Margins, Crenshaw draws upon the observations of Italian
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communist Antonio Gramsci in his prison notebooks. Gramsci noticed that the revolution in Russia
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succeeded because civil society was weak and did not support the corrupt institutions of the
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state in their time of crisis. The revolution in the West failed because civil society was strong
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and the uncorrupted institutions of state were held in high regard by the flourishing free societies,
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and so they could not be overthrown in what Gramsci turned a war of manoeuvre,
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and so the communists would have to resort to a war of position instead.
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A war of position is essentially what America and Russia engaged in during the Cold War,
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a war in which no battles between the adversaries are fought, but instead they gather resources and
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strategically undermine one another until one side collapses, allowing the other to claim victory.
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Crenshaw identified that in the West, liberal human rights laws could be manipulated to do the
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opposite of what was intended – not to provide an equal playing field, but instead to consciously
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privilege minorities against the majority. By expanding the definitions of what constituted racism,
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sexism, homophobia, etc. the liberal commitment to process could be flipped into a communist commitment
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to equal outcomes. And what's worse is that liberalism seems defenceless against this.
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By identifying certain categories which were to be protected, such as woman, black, gay, etc.,
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and providing them with protection from discrimination from the majority, the framework
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had already been established by which the levelling of community hierarchies could begin,
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and the underlying philosophy of liberal human rights could be perverted. No longer was the focus
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of liberalism the protection of the individual from the state, but now the individual or group from their own
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national community, using the state as the tool of liberation.
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If this was justifiable for women, blacks, and gays, then Crenshaw noted that the logic of this could
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naturally be extended to other, more marginal groups, such as transgenders, aliens, and criminals.
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Moreover, the intersection of these groups provided extra dimensions of oppression. A criminal might suffer
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from the persecution of the lawful society, but a black criminal suffers from the persecution of a
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lawful and racist society, doubly compounding the suffering and the inevitability of his lot in
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life, marking him out as a special beneficiary of grace and resources. Intersectionality was,
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therefore, used to identify new and hitherto unseen vectors of oppression to identify further marginalised
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groups which needed the state to protect them from mainstream society. And, of course,
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this strategy gelled naturally with the existing liberal morality as set out by civil rights law.
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All the premises had been conceded by the liberals in the 1960s that it was, in fact,
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the state's job to protect individuals from the tyranny of association and opinion, and so this appeared
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from the liberal position to be the moral thing to do. A practical effect of this was to provide the
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power-seeking bad actors of a community the necessary tools to unjustly raise their status in any kind
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of liberal hierarchy. The atheist feminist woman who was propositioned by an atheist man in an elevator
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becomes the centre of a scandal as she can characterise her experience, which otherwise had no negative
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outcomes for her other than being mildly awkward at worst, as one of systemic oppression from the white
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male heteropatriarchy that targeted her as a woman. When such an accusation as this is recognised by
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community authorities, they then feel they have a duty to protect the minority from oppression,
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and thus raise the social standing of the victim, providing them with succour, materiel and status
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to combat the perceived oppression. However, this has the double effect of conferring a privileged status
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upon someone who has done nothing to merit such a position, and also stigmatising or criminalising
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someone who has done nothing to deserve it. From this position, it's easy to see why that
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in the pursuit of social justice, injustices are committed by the authorities of any given community,
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and the community's focus has been perverted by making it be governed in an immoral and unpopular way.
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The net effect of this is to sunder the relationship between the community and its own leadership,
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who sacrifice this bond of trust to satisfy the moral demands of power-seeking bad actors,
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who then sacrifice the integrity of their community for their own personal gain.
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This in turn sours the other members of the community, making the community turn on itself
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so that it eventually splinters and disintegrates. It is basically impossible for the liberal to
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prevent this process from playing out, as all it takes for the personal to become political
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is for the power-seeking bad actor to declare it as such. Any like-minded people can then coalesce
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into a political faction within that community, and split it into two parts, with the liberal authorities
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feeling obliged to side with this new minority over the majority. And this process can happen in a
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community of any size. It could be something as small as an online new atheist group, or it could
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scale up to a national political scandal in which millions of people could be encouraged to march,
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protest, and riot over the perceived mistreatment of one group by the other.
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Either way, the end result is the same. The destruction of the social bonds that bind us
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together, and the collapse of morale, esprit de corps, and any functional power the community possessed.
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The war of position is thereby won for the communists and their lumpen proletariat coalition
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of the resentful, spiteful, and criminal against the over-society of normal, well-meaning, and law-abiding
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people. Institutions crumble, and trust between people is destroyed, and the selfless work of
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years is liquidated to the temporary status games and narcissistic pleasure of the most selfish people