identity politics
CONTENTS
Relevance of 'Identity Politics' in Culture
'Identity Politics' per Pluckrose & Lindsay in Cynical Theories, 2020
'Identity'
'Identity' in Margaret Mead's Male & Female, 1949, 1967
'Identity' in Delgado & Stefancic's Critical Race Theory - An Introduction, 2015
'Identity Politics'
'Identity Politics' via Barbara Smith & the Combahee River Collective, 1974
'Identity Politics' in Critical Theory - The Key Concepts, Felluga, 2015
'Identity Politics' as per Crenshaw
Contemporary Definitions of 'Identity Politics'
'Identity Politics' per Britannica
'Identity Politics' per Jonathan Ruach
'Common-Human Identity Politics' per Lukianoff & Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind, 2018
'Common-Enemy Identity Politics' per Lukianoff & Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind, 2018
Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds (2019)
Douglas Murray, The War on the West (2022)
Use of the Term 'Identity Politics' by Various Sources
Historic Overview
per Britannica
per Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
More
'Identity Politics' per Pluckrose & Lindsay in Cynical Theories, 2020
Note that by paraphrasing and quoting from sources, we are not implying that they are accurate.
Relevance of Identity Politics in Culture
As we will show in the upcoming section on cultural Marxism, post-Marxists use identity politics in the same way that Marxists have used class struggle.
For now, we can tell you that in Cynical Theories, published in 2020, authors James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose wrote (pages 14-15),
It is increasingly difficult to miss the influence of the Social Justice Movement on society - most notably in the form of "identity politics" or "political correctness." Almost every day, a story comes out about somebody who has been fired, "canceled," or subjected to a public shaming on social media, often for having said or done something interpreted as sexist, racist, or homophobic. Sometimes the accusations are warranted, and yet we can comfort ourselves that a bigot - whom we see as entirely unlike ourselves - is receiving the censure she "deserves" for her hateful views. However, increasingly often, the accusation is highly interpretive and its reasoning is torturous. It sometimes feels as though any well-intended person, even who values universal liberty and equality, could inadvertently say something that falls foul of the new speech codes, with devastating consequences for her career and reputation. This is confusion and counterintuitive to a culture accustomed to placing human dignity first and thus valuing charitable interpretations and tolerance of a wide range of views. At best, this has a chilling effect on the culture of free expression, which has served liberal democracies well for more than two centuries, as good people self-censor to avoid saying the "wrong" things. At worst, it is a malicious form of bullying and - when institutionalized - a kind of authoritarianism in our midst.
They also wrote (page 18),
We see radical relativism in the form of double standards, such as assertions that only men can be sexist and only white people can be racist, and in the wholesale rejection of consistent principles of nondiscrimination. In the face of this, it grows increasingly difficult and even dangerous to argue that people should be treated as individuals or to urge recognition of our shared humanity in the face of divisive and constraining identity politics.
As I write this in late 2024, that fervor seems to have retreated a good deal but the pendulum swings, folks, and it would be wise to prepare for the next such wave, in part by studying where we went wrong in the past.
'Identity'
Margaret Mead doesn't use the term 'identity politics'. It is, after all, an earlier work with a copywrite of 1949 and 1967 and, as we'll see, the term hadn't been coined yet. She uses the terms "identity" and "identification" and she uses them to refer to the understanding a boy has that he is a male, a young human male who will mature into a man and the understanding a girl has that she is a young human female who will mature into a woman (pages 82, 84, 88, 92, 126-127 & 136-137).
In Critical Race Theory - an Introduction (3rd edition, 2017), Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic also do not use the term 'identity politics' but they too discuss "identity" which they define (page 176) as
that by which one defines oneself, such as straight, college educated, Filipina.
They tie "identity" to "intersectionality" in their introduction where they write (pages 10-11),
Closely related to differential racialization - the idea that each race has its own origins and ever-evolving history - is the notion of intersectionality and antiessentialism. No person has a single, easily stated, unitary identity. A white feminist may also be Jewish or working class or a single mother. An African American activist may be male or female, gay or straight. A Latino may be a Democrat, a Republican, or even black - perhaps because that person's family hails from the Caribbean. An Asian may be a recently arrived Hmong of rural background and unfamiliar with mercantile life or a fourth-generation Chinese with a father who is a university professor and a mother who operates a business. Everyone has potentially conflicting, overlapping identities, loyalties and allegiances.
'Identity Politics'
It was in 1974 that the term 'identity politics' was invented and first used by
Black feminist Barbara Smith and the Combahee River Collective
according to Alicia Garza in "
Identity Politics: Friend or Foe?
" (September 24, 2019) for the Othering and Belonging Institute for the University of California, Berkeley. Yes, they really do call themselves the Othering and Belonging Institute. Don't be mad at us. We're not mocking. That's what they call themselves. Garza writes,
Identity politics originated from the need to reshape movements that had until then prioritized the monotony of sameness over the strategic value of difference.
In the "
Combahee River Collective Statement
" (1977), they write that they are,
a collective of Black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974
and that they are
actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives.
They write of "black women activists" that the combination of their "racial identity" and their "sexual identity" render the focus of their political struggles and their "whole life situation" "unique".
Identity politics, they write, as a concept, embodies their focus on their own oppression. They also write
We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.
In Critical Theory - the Key Concepts (©2015), author Dino Franco Felluga writes (page 143) of identity politics that
This is a term that has been applied to a number of movements, often placed under the umbrella of Cultural Studies. Which seek to fight for the rights of oppressed groups, including Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Feminism, Postcolonial Studies, and Marxism. Markers of identity like race, gender, sexuality, and class are analyzed to fight against oppression and stereotyping. Although these theorists often build on a deconstructionist analysis of uneven binary oppositions, they tend to reject poststructuralism’s problematizing of agency and power since the goal of these theoretical schools is to empower the traditionally excluded, marginalized, exploited, and downtrodden.
One criticism of this general approach is that it can contribute to an antagonistic understanding of the social sphere, where each group is forever in conflict with others on the political stage. Feminist theorist Judith Butler for example turns to the notion of “radical democracy” to call for a situation of “permanent political contest” (Butler 1993: 222) on behalf of exclusive groups. The logic of identity politics has also been questioned by Kimberle Crenshaw, who argues that the emphasis on particular identity markers has kept critics from thinking through how multiple identity markers are often at play in oppression. As she writes, “Although racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices” (1991: 1242). She therefore turns to the concept of intersectionality to think about the common intersection of multiple identity markers in a given individual (e.g., black woman, queer black man, etc.).
Also in Critical Theory - the Key Concepts, Felluga writes (page 155) that Kimberle Crenshaw
argues that “The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite - that is frequently conflates or ignores intergroup differences.”
Contemporary Definitions of Identity Politics
Britannica defines identity politics as
political or social activity by or on behalf of a racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, or other group, usually undertaken with the goal of rectifying injustices suffered by group members because of differences or conflicts between their particular identity (or misconceptions of their particular identity) and the dominant identity (or identities) of a larger society.
They also write,
In a broad sense of the term, identity politics also encompasses nationalist or separatist movements within particular countries and territories.
Also,
Identity politics is closely related to multiculturalism, or the general view that cultural minority groups deserve respectful acknowledgment of their distinctive belief systems, values, and ways of life.
Additionally,
Identity politics also aims, in the course of such activity, to eliminate negative misrepresentations (stereotypes) of particular groups that have served to justify their members’ exclusion, exploitation, marginalization, oppression, or assimilation to the point of erasure.
They note as well,
In the United States, groups associated with identity politics have included African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Muslims, Jews, feminists, and the LGBTQ community, among others. Identity politics is closely related to multiculturalism, or the general view that cultural minority groups deserve respectful acknowledgment of their distinctive belief systems, values, and ways of life.
In The Coddling of the American Mind - How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure (©2018), Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt write (page 59) that Brookings Institution scholar Jonathan Rauch defines 'identity politics'
as "political mobilization organized around group characteristics such as race, gender, and sexuality, as opposed to party, ideology, or pecuniary interest."
They add that Jonathan Ruach
notes that "in America, this sort of mobilization is not new, unusual, un-American, illegitimate, nefarious, or particularly leftwing."
At this point, there is placed a footnote for,
Rauch, J. (2017, November 9). Speaking as a . . . The New Yorker Review of Books. Retrieved from
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/11/09/mark-lilla-liberal-speaking
Also in The Coddling of the American Mind - How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure (©2018), Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt define and make a distinction between 2 different kinds of identity politics. They write (page 67),
Identity politics takes many forms, such as that practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Paul Murray, can be called common-humanity identity politics, because its practitioners humanize their opponents and appeal to their humanity while also applying political pressure in other ways.
Common-enemy identity politics, on the other hand, tries to unite a coalition using the psychology embedded in the Bedouin proverb "I against my brothers. I and my brothers against my cousins. I and my brothers and my cousins against the world." It is used on the far right as well as the far left.
Also, on page 77,
Common-enemy identity politics, when combined with microaggression theory, produces a call-out culture in which almost anything one says or does could result in a public shaming. This can engender a sense of "walking on eggshells," and it teaches students habits of self-censorship. Call-out cultures are detrimental to students' education and bad for their mental health. Call-out cultures and us-versus-them thinking are incompatible with the educational and research missions of universities, which require free inquiry, dissent, evidence-based argument, and intellectual honesty.
The authors continue (pages 59-60),
Politics is all about groups forming coalitions to achieve their goals. If cattle ranchers, wine enthusiasts, or libertarians banding together to promote their interests is normal politics, then women, African Americans, or gay people banding together is normal politics too.
But how identity is mobilized makes an enormous difference - for the group's odds of success, for the welfare of the people who join the movement, and for the country. Identity can be mobilized in ways that emphasize an overarching common humanity while making the case that some fellow human beings are denied dignity and rights because they belong to a particular group, or it can be mobilized in ways that amplify our ancient tribalism and bind people together in shared hatred of a group that serves as the unifying common enemy.
COMMON-HUMANITY IDENTITY POLITICS
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., epitomized by what we'll call common-humanity identity politics. He was trying to fix a gaping wound - centuries of racism that had been codified into law in southern states and into customs, habits, and institutions across the country. It wasn't enough to be patient and wait for things to change gradually. The civil rights movement was a political movement led by African Americans and joined by others. Together, they engaged in nonviolent protests and civil disobedience, boycotts, and sophisticated public relations strategies to apply political pressure on intransigent law makers while working to change minds and hearts in the country at large.
Part of Dr. King's genius was that he appealed to the shared morals and identities of Americans by using the unifying languages of religion and patriotism. He repeatedly used the metaphor of family, referring to people of all races and religions as "brothers" and "sisters." He spoke often of the need for love and forgiveness, hearkening back to the words of Jesus and echoing ancient wisdom from many cultures: "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend"
Their footnote here reads,
King (1963/1981), p. 52.
They continue,
and "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
A footnote here reads,
King (1963/1981), p. 51.
Back to the main text,
Compare these words to these from Buddha: "For hate is not conquered by hate; hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.")
Footnote,
Mascaro (1995), p. 2.
Main text,
King's most famous speech drew on the language and iconography of what sociologists call the American civil religion.
Footnote,
Bellah (1967).
Main text (pages 60-61),
Some Americans use quasi-religious language, frameworks, and narratives to speak about the country's founding documents and founding fathers, and King did, too. "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence," he proclaimed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, "they were singing a promissory note."
Footnote,
King, M. L. (1963, August 28). "I have a dream . . ." Retrieved from
https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf
Main text (page 61),
King turned the full moral force of the American civil religion towards the goals of the civil rights movement:
"Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
Footnote,
King (1963): see n. 38. You can listen to an audio recording of the speech here:
Main text,
Kings approach made it clear that his movement would not destroy America; it would repair and reunite it.
Footnote,
Most whites at the time did not see it this way. In a Harris poll a few months before he was assassinated, nearly 79% of Americans expressed disapproval of him, although he had been substantially more popular at the time of his 1963 I Have a Dream speech, and he is widely popular now, with approval levels above 90%. It took time, but the ideas in his 1963 speech changed the country. See Cobb, J. C. (2018, April 4). When Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, he was less popular than Donald Trump is today. USA Today. Retrieved from
Main text;,
This inclusive, common-humanity approach was also explicit in the words of Pauli Murray, a black and queer Episcopal priest and civil rights activist who, in 1965, at the age of fifty-five, earned a degree from Yale Law School. Today a residential college at Yale is named after her.
Footnote,
Pauli Murray College. (n.d.). About Pauli Murray. Retrieved from https//www.palimurray.yalecollege.yale.edu/subpage-2
Main text,
In 1945, she wrote:
"I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracing methods. . . . When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them. Where they speak out for the privileges of a puny group, I shall shout for the rights of all mankind."
Footnote,
Murray (1945), p. 24.
Main text (pages 61-62),
A variant of this ennobling common-humanity approach played a major role in the movement that won marriage equality for gay people in several statewide elections in 2012, paving the way for the Supreme Court to rule that gay marriage would become the law of the land. Some of the most powerful advertisements of those 2012 campaigns used King's technique of appealing to love and shared moral elevation, just go to YouTube and search for "Mainers United for Marriage." You'll find short clips showing firefighters, Republicans, and Christians, all appealing to powerful moral principles, including religion and patriotism, to eplain why htyey want their son/daughter/coworker to be able to marry the person he or she loves. Here's the transcript from one such ad, featuring an Episcopal priest and his wife.
Footnote,
MainersUnited (Producer). (2012. November 2). Yes on 1: Mainers United for Marriage - Will & Arlene Brewster [Video file]. Retrieved from
Main text (page 62),
HUSBAND: Our son Hal led a platoon in Iraq.
WIFE: When he got back he sat us down and said: "Mom, Dad, I'm gay."
HUSBAND: That took some getting used to, but we love him and we're proud of him.
WIFE: Our marriage has been the foundation of our lives for forty-six years.
HUSBAND: We used to think civil unions were enough for gay couples.
WIFE: But marriage is a commitment from the heart. A civil union is no substitute.
HUSBAND: Our son fought for our freedoms. He should have the freedom to marry.
This is the way to win hearts, minds, and votes: you must appeal to the elephant (intuitive and emotional processes) as well as the rider (reasoning)
Footnote,
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of The Righteous Mind (Haidt, 2012) provides a literature review in support of this claim.
Main text (pages 62-63),
King and Murray understood this. Instead of shaming or demonizing their opponents, they humanized them and then relentlessly appealed to their humanity.
COMMON-ENEMY IDENTITY POLITICS
The common-humanity form of identity politics can sill be found on many college campuses, but in recent years we've seen the rapid rise of a very different form that is based on an effort to unite and mobilize multiple groups to fight against a common enemy. It activates a powerful social-psychological mechanism embodied in an old Bedouin proverb: "I against my brothers. I and my brothers against my cousins. I and my brothers and my cousins against the world."
Footnote,
We have quoted the version given in Haji (2011), p. 185.
Main text (page 63),
Identifying a common enemy is an effective way to enlarge and motivate your tribe.
Because we are trying to understand what is happening on campus, in what follows in this chapter, we'll be focusing on identity politics of the campus left. We note, however, that developments on campus are often influenced by provocations from the right, which we will discuss in chapter 6. Provocations from the right mostly come from off campus (where the right is just as committed to identity politics as is the left).
There has never been a more dramatic demonstration of the horrors of common-enemy identity politics than Adolf Hitler's use of Jews to unify and expand his Third Reich. And it is among the most shocking aspects of our current age that some Americans (and Europeans), mostly young white men, have openly embraced neo-Nazi ideas and symbols. They and other white nationalist groups seem not to have played significant roles on campus politics before 2016, but by 2017 many of them had developed methods of trolling and online harassment that began to have an influence on campus events, as we'll discuss further in chapter 6.
As for identity politics originating from left-leaning on-campus sources, here's a recent example that drew a great deal of attention. In December of 2017, a Latino student at Texas State University wrote an opinion essay in his school's student-run, independent newspaper under headline YOUR DNA IS AN ABOMINATION.
Footnote,
The essay was removed, but screen shots of it can be found here; Coyne, J. (n.d.). Texas college newspaper publishes op-ed calling white DNA an "abomination" {Blog post]. Retrieved from
(The first line is actually a variant of a line from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become white, destroyer of worlds.")
Main text (pages 63-64),
The essay began like this:
"When I think of all the white people I have ever encountered - whether they've been professors, peers, lovers, friends, police officers, et cetera - there is perhaps only a dozen I would consider "decent."
The students then argued that "whiteness" is "a constant ideological struggle in which we aim to deconstruct 'whiteness' and everything attached to it, we will win." The essay ended with this:
"Ontologically speaking, white death will mean liberation for us all. . . . Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn't exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other cultures, upon meeting you, dies."
Right-wing sites interpreted the essay as a call for actual genocide against white people. The author seems, rather, to have been calling for cultural genocide: the end of white dominance and the culture "whiteness" in the United States. In any case, the backlash was swift and severe and came from both on campus and off.
Footnote,
Cohn, A. (2017, December 13). Students, faculty, and administrators launch attack on Texas State University newspaper. FIRE. Retrieved from
Main text (page 64),
From off campus, the paper received hate mail, calls for resignations, and even death threats. More than two thousand people signed a petition to defund the student paper.
Footnote,
Defund the racist University Star. (2017, November 30). Retrieved from
https://www.change.org/p/bobcat-liberty-council-defund-the-racist-star
Main text;,
(FIRE defended the newspaper's First Amendment rights.) The student editors quickly apologized,
Footnote,
Cervantes, D. (2017, November 28). Editor's note. The University Star. Retrieved from
https://www.star.txstate.edu/2017/11/28/letter-from-the-editor-3
Main text,
retracted the article, and fired the writer. The president of the university called the essay a "racist opinion column" and said she expected the student editors to "exercise good judgement in determining the content that they print."
Footnote;,
More details are found in Cohn (2017); see n. 48. See also Trauth, D. (2017, November 28). Message from the president regarding University Star Column. Texas State University-office of media relations. Retrieved from
http://www.txstate.edu/news_archive/2017/November-2017/Statement112917.html
Main text (pages 64-65),
In calling for dismantling of power structures, the author was using a set of terms and concepts that are common in some academic departments; the main line of argumentation fell squarely within the large family of Marxists approaches to social and political analysis. It's a set of approaches in which things are analyzed primarily in terms of power. Groups struggle for power. Within this paradigm, when power is perceived to be held by one group over others, there is moral polarity: the groups seen as powerful are bad, while the groups seen as oppressed are good. It's a variant of the pathological dualism that Rabbi Sacks described in the quotation at the start of this chapter.
Writing during the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution. Karl Marx focused on conflict between economic classes, such as the proletariat (the working class) and the capitalists (those who own the means of production). But a Marxist approach can be used to interpret any struggle between groups. One of the most important Marxist thinkers for understanding developments on campus today is Herbert Marcuse, a German philosopher and sociologist who fled the Nazis and became a professor at several American universities, His writings were influential in the 1960s and 1970s as the American left was transitioning away its prior focus on workers versus capital to become the "New Left," which focused on civil rights, women's rights, and other social movements promoting equality and justice. These movements often had a left-right dimension to them - progressives wanted progress and conservatives wanted to conserve the existing order. Marcuse therefore analyzed the conflict between the left and the right in Marxist terms.
In a 1965 essay titled "Repressive Tolerance," Marcuse argued that tolerance and free speech confer benefits on society only under special conditions that almost never exist: absolute equality. He believed that when power differentials between groups exist, tolerance only empowers the already powerful and makes it easier for them to dominate institutions like education, the media, and most channels of communication. Indiscriminate tolerance is "repressive," he argued; it blocks the political agenda and suppresses the voices of the less powerful.
If indiscriminate tolerance is unfair; then what is needed is a form of tolerance that discriminates. A truly "liberating tolerance," claimed Marcuse, is one that favors the weak and restrains the strong. Who are the weak and the strong? For Marcuse, writing in 1965, the weak and the strong? For Marcuse, writing in 1965, the weak as the political left and the strong was the political right. Even though the Democrats controlled Washington at that time. Marcuse associated the right with the business community, the military, and other vested interests that he saw as wielding power, hoarding wealth, and working to block social change.
Footnote,
As Marcuse explained in a postscript to the essay, added in 1968; "The Left has no equal access to the mass media and their public facilities - not because a conspiracy excludes it, but because, in good old capitalist fashion, it does not have the required purchasing power." Wolff, Moore, & Marcuse (1965/1969), p. 119.
Main text,
The left referred to student, intellectuals, and minorities of all kinds. For Marcuse, there was no moral equivalence between the two sides. In his view, the right pushed for war; the left stood for peace; the right was the party of "hate," the left the party of "humanity."
Footnote,
Marcuse referred to "official tolerance granted to the Right as well as to the Left, to movements of aggression as well as to movements of peace, to the party of hate as well as to that of humanity." Wolff, Moore, & Marcuse (1965/1969), p. 85.
Main text;
Someone who accepts this framing - that the right is powerful (and therefore oppressive) while the left is weak (and therefore oppressed) - might be receptive to the argument that indiscriminate tolerance is bad. In its place, liberating tolerance, Marcuse explained, "would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the left."
Footnote,
Wolff, Moore, & Marcuse (1965/1969), p. 109.
Main text (page 66),
Marcuse recognized that what he was advocating seemed to violate both the spirit of democracy and the liberal tradition of nondiscrimination, but he argued that when the majority of a society is being repressed, it is justifiable to use "repression and indoctrination" to allow the "subversive majority" to achieve the power that it deserves. In a chilling passage that foreshadows events on some campuses today, Marcuse argued that true democracy might require denying basic rights to people who advocate for conservative causes, or for policies he viewed as aggressive or discriminatory, and that true freedom of thought might require professors to indoctrinate their students:
"The ways should not be blocked [by] which a subversive majority could develop, and if they are blocked by organized repression and indoctrination, their reopening may require apparently undemocratic means. They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, the restoration of freedom of thought may necessitate new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational institutions which, by their very methods and concepts, serve to enclose the mind within the established universe of discourse and behavior."
Footnote,
Wolff, Moore, & Marcuse (1965/1969), pp. 100-101.
Main text,
The end goal of a Marcusean revolution is not equality but a reversal of power. Marcuse offered this vision in 1965:
"It should be evident by now that the exercise of civil rights from those who prevent their exercise, and that liberation of the Damned of the Earth presupposes suppression not only of their old but also of their new masters."
Footnote,
Wolff, Moore, & Marcuse (1965/1969), p. 110.
Main text (page 67),
The student who wrote that essay at Texas State University may not have read Marcuse directly, yet somehow he ended up with a Marcusean view of the world. Marcuse was known as the "father" of the New Left; his ideas were taken up by the generation of students in the 1960s and 1970s who are the older professors of today, so a Marcusean view is still widely available. But why does this vision continue to flourish fifty years after the publication of "Repressive Tolerance," in a country that has made enormous progress on extending civil rights to groups that did not have them in 1965, and in an educational system tat cannot be said to be controlled by the right? Even if Marcuse's arguments made sense to many people in 1965, can his ideas be justified on campus today?
In The Madness of Crowds (2019), Douglas Murray writes (page 3),
'Identity politics' . . . atomizes society into different interest groups according to sex (or gender), race, sexual preference and more. It presumes that such characteristics are the main, or only, relevant attributes of their holders and that they bring with them some added bonus. For example (as the American writer Coleman Hughes has put it), the assumption that there is 'a heightened moral knowledge' that comes with being black or female or gay.' It is the cause of the propensity of people to start questions or statements with 'Speaking as a . . .'. And it is something that people both living and dead need to be on the right side of. It is why there are calls to pull down statues of historical figures viewed as being on the wrong side and it is why the past needs to be rewritten for anyone you wish to save. It is why it has become perfectly normal for a Sinn Fein senator to claim that the IRA hunger strikes in 1981 were striking for gay rights.
Here is placed a footnote that reads,
'Hunger strikers died for gay rights, claims Sinn Fein senator Fintan Warfield', Belfast Telegraph, 15 August 2016.
Returning to the main text where we left off,
Identity politics is where minority groups are encouraged to simultaneously atomize, organize and pronounce.
The least attractive-sounding of this trinity is the concept of 'intersectionality'. This is the invitation to spend the rest of our lives attempting to work out each and every identity and vulnerability claim in ourselves and others and then organize along whichever system of justice emerges from the perpetually moving hierarchy which we uncover. It is a system that is not just unworkable but dementing, making demands that are impossible towards ends that are unachievable. But today intersectionality has broken out from the social science departments of the liberal arts colleges from which it originated. It is now taken seriously by a generation of young people and - as we shall see - has become embedded via employment law (specifically through a 'commitment to diversity') in all the major corporations and governments.
Douglas Murray writes in The War on the West (2022) (page 3) that identity politics involves
the attempt to break down Western societies along lines of sex, sexuality, and race.
He explains, (pages 3-4 in The War on the West)
After the twentieth century, national identity had become a shameful form of belonging, and all these other forms of belonging suddenly appeared in its place. Now people were being told to consider themselves as members of other specific groupings. They were gay or straight, men or women, black or white. These forms of belonging were also loaded to lean in an anti-Western direction. Gays were celebrated so long as hey were "queer" and wanted to pull down all existing institutions. Gays who just wanted to get on with life or actually liked the Western world were sidelined. Likewise, so long as feminists were attacking "male structures," Western capitalism, and much more, they were useful. Feminists who didn't toe that line or thought they were comparatively well off in the West were treated as sellouts at best, enemies at worst.
The discourse on race grew even worse. Racial minorities who had integrated well in the West, contributed to the West, and were even admiring of the West were increasingly treated as thought they were race traitors. As though an other allegiance were expected of them. Radicals who wanted to tear everything down were venerated. Black Americans and others who wanted to celebrate the West and add to it were talked to and about as though they were apostates. Increasingly, they were the ones called all the worse names. Love of the society they were in was treated as a point against them.
At the same time, it had become unacceptable to talk about any other society in a remotely similar way. In spite of all the unimaginable abuses perpetrated in our own time by the Communist Party of China, almost nobody speaks of China with an iota of the rage and disgust poured out daily against the West from inside the West.
Merriam-Webster defines identity politics as
politics in which groups of people having a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group
They give some examples of the term's use;
Although the UCLA center's standards promoted rigorous history, they set off a major culture war because of their relentless emphasis on identity politics.
—Diane Ravitch
Identity politics is contemporary shorthand for a group's assertion that it is a meaningful group; that it differs significantly from other groups; that its members share a history of injustice and grievance; and that its psychological and political mission is to explore, act out, act on and act up its group identity.
—Catharine R. Stimpson
A number of critics have viewed her work through a lens of identity politics, taking her to be some sort of oracle of Muslim womanhood.
—Lauren Collins
Merriam-Webster even offers a lesson, by way of examples, in "How to Use identity politics in a Sentence"
But then there’s still lots of railing about identity politics, and that’s just a kind of denial. — Osita Nwanevu, The New Yorker, 21 July 2019
Here Maxwell talks about her new book, the 2020 race, and the long history of identity politics. — Mattie Kahn, Glamour, 8 July 2020
It’s part of a broader national trend in which many facets of life are framed in terms of identity politics and the culture war. — Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 2 June 2022
His election may be seen as a race that rose above identity politics. — Elaine Ayala, San Antonio Express-News, 11 May 2022
This fluid sense of identity — and identity politics — is at the heart of many of the pieces in Hannaham’s book. — Mark Haskell Smith, Los Angeles Times, 23 Nov. 2021
The fundamental theme of my essay was that identity politics could be the death of art. — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 16 Oct. 2020
Richards would much rather talk about golf—or her beloved Yankees—than identity politics. — Jon Wertheim, SI.com, 28 June 2019
The answer, often, has been Vance’s own coarse brand of identity politics. — Simon Van Zuylen-Wood, Anchorage Daily News, 9 Jan. 2022
First the humanities, then the social sciences and now even the sciences have been forced to bend to identity politics. — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 14 Feb. 2020
But this new brand of identity politics has tested the power of the preacher against extremist voices in the pews. — Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 2021
The party of identity politics is never going to pick you over her. — Marc Thiessen, Washington Post, 24 July 2024
More:Meghan McCain tried to weigh in on identity politics and fumbled. — Elise Brisco, USA TODAY, 1 July 2021
What remains is a narrow tribal story, which may serve as a sharp weapon in the battles of identity politics, but which comes with a high price. — Yuval Noah Harari, Time, 12 Jan. 2023
The old Democratic machine gives way to the new Democrats, who are all about identity politics, herding votes by race and gender. — John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 4 Dec. 2020
The only person who made this about identity politics is Joe Biden. — Grayson Quay, The Week, 30 Jan. 2022
That, for most viewers, will likely supersede all the identity politics in the world. — John Anderson, WSJ, 26 Apr. 2018
So why does this letter go straight to identity politics? — Fox News, 7 July 2018
Despite reports to the contrary, identity politics isn’t dead — it’s been born again. — Khalilah L. Brown-Dean, Star Tribune, 16 Nov. 2020
The performers in Ira Sachs’s Passages try living up to the new demands of identity politics. — Armond White, National Review, 9 Aug. 2023
But something kept pulling Hamby toward battles grounded less in identity politics and more in the day to day. — Mark Olalde, ProPublica, 20 Nov. 2023
Parties of the nationalist right have learned from the left how to exploit identity politics. — The Economist, 14 June 2018
And his best bet to get that nod would come from Warren, for reasons that involve the inevitably crass calculus of identity politics. — Gilbert Garcia, ExpressNews.com, 22 June 2019
And their choices have reflected the identity politics of their era. — Richard Galant, CNN, 30 Jan. 2022
Such identity politics pander to an electorate who supports their home team, possibly at the cost of the better team. — Star Tribune, 13 Aug. 2020
Try to dwell in the wildness of possibility, and less so in identity politics. — Anna Pulley, chicagotribune.com, 5 July 2019
Cherry was a pioneer in the identity politics of sports. — Ben McGrath, The New Yorker, 12 Nov. 2019
On Thursday, Carlson blasted the claim as a tactic of identity politics used to win elections. — Anthony Leonardi, Washington Examiner, 8 Oct. 2020
Herein lies one of the problems with identity politics. — Kathleen Parker, Washington Post, 14 June 2024
Until last week, Democratic Party retained the loyalty of the working classes with the bells and whistles of identity politics. — David Medina, Hartford Courant, 18 Nov. 2024
At Yale, he was evidently steeped in the identity politics and postmodernism of the 1990s and wanted to both embrace and critique the Eurocentric art history he had been taught about. — Rachel Corbett, Vulture, 5 Nov. 2024
Historic Overview
According to Britannica,
Identity politics in the United States developed in the 1980s and ’90s as a reaction to the perceived failure of liberal civil rights legislation to eliminate identity-based inequities and injustices, such as racial and sexual discrimination. In the view of many leftist critics, liberal ideals of equality, such as equal rights, equality before the law, and equality of opportunity, were misguided and ultimately counterproductive, because their transcendent nature (their application to all persons, irrespective of identity) made it difficult in practice to justify policies designed to achieve greater social equity through direct assistance to historically oppressed and exploited groups, particularly African Americans. Indeed, during this period conservative activists and government officials frequently invoked the liberal value of “colour blindness” to resist racial affirmative action programs in education, employment, government contracting, and other areas. A related criticism was that liberalism’s emphasis on identity-independent equality rendered it capable of recognizing only the most overt and obvious identity-based injustices, not those that were relatively indirect, subtle, or systemic (see critical race theory). Defenders of liberalism and other critics argued in response that the continued pursuit of identity politics had led to a fracturing of oppressed and exploited populations into numerous inward-looking interest groups whose differing priorities obscured their common goals and challenges and prevented the kind of mass mobilization necessary to secure their basic rights.
In the "Identity Politics" section of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Cressida Heyes writes under "History and Scope",
The second half of the twentieth century saw the emergence of large-scale political movements—second wave feminism, Black Civil Rights in the U.S., gay and lesbian liberation, and the American Indian movements, for example—based in claims about the injustices done to particular social groups. These social movements are undergirded by and foster a philosophical body of literature that takes up questions about the nature, origin and futures of the identities being defended. Identity politics as a mode of organizing is intimately connected to the idea that some social groups are oppressed; that is, that one’s identity as a woman or as African American, for example, makes one peculiarly vulnerable to cultural imperialism (including stereotyping, erasure, or appropriation of one’s group identity), violence, exploitation, marginalization, or powerlessness (Young 1990). Identity politics starts from analyses of such forms of social injustice to recommend, variously, the reclaiming, redescription, or transformation of previously stigmatized accounts of group membership. Rather than accepting the negative scripts offered by a dominant culture about one’s own inferiority, one transforms one’s own sense of self and community. For example, in their germinal statement of identity politics, articulated through a Black feminist tradition, the Combahee River Collective argued that
"as children we realized that we were different from boys and that we were treated different—for example, when we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being ‘ladylike’ and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. In the process of consciousness-raising, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from the sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression. (1982, 14–15)"
The scope of political movements that may be described as identity politics is broad: the examples used in the philosophical literature are predominantly of struggles for recognition and social justice by groups of citizens within western capitalist democracies, but Indigenous rights movements worldwide, nationalist projects, or demands for regional self-determination use similar arguments. Predictably, there is no straightforward criterion that makes a political struggle into an example of “identity politics.” Rather, the term signifies a loose collection of political projects, each undertaken by representatives of a collective with a distinctively different social location that has hitherto been neglected, erased, or suppressed. It is beyond the scope of this essay to offer historical or sociological surveys of the many different social movements that might be described as identity politics, although references to this literature are provided in the bibliography; instead the focus here is to provide an overview of the philosophical issues in the expansive literature in political theory.
The phrase “identity politics” is also something of a philosophical punching-bag and increasingly a term of political abuse. Since the twentieth-century heyday of the well-known political movements that made identity politics so visible, a vast academic literature has sprung up; although “identity politics” can draw on intellectual precursors from Mary Wollstonecraft to Frantz Fanon, writing that actually uses this specific phrase, with any of its contemporary baggage, does not begin until the late 1970s. Hence the articulation of political projects that embrace a self-understanding as “identity politics” is more or less concomitant with deployments of the term that use it as a negative short-hand to gesture to an opposing position. As updated versions of this article have appeared over the last 25 years, this latter phenomenon has become both more marked and more diversified: “identity politics” (critically and sometimes scornfully inflected) can be intended to capture a form of virtue-signaling that unfairly privileges women and racialized people at the expense of white men while inhibiting freedom of expression; or, especially in extra-academic political discourse, simply a kind of unspecified defense of interest groups that undermines nation-building, cultural cohesion, or tradition. For some critics, identity politics is the enemy of liberal ideals, while for others it is liberalism’s savior. From a different political direction it can be a constellation of imperatives with valuable motives that has nonetheless been subject to “elite capture,” or a politics that ignores class formation and neglects to challenge structural inequalities emerging from neoliberalism and global capitalism. Further, the very emphasis on human selves and their assorted group affiliations that identity politics presumes is no longer clearly at the center of political philosophy. Hence while social movements that draw on traditions in anti-racism, Indigenous resurgence, feminism, queer politics, or disability activism have hardly waned, it has become much harder to find defenders of self-described “identity politics,” and hence it has also become more difficult to articulate it in contra-distinction to its detractors.
More Depth
We recommend Cressida Heyes' "Identity Politics" for a comprehensive look at identity politics.
In Cynical Theories (©2020), authors Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay write (page 55) that
another highly influential feminist, whose work began in the late 1980s and who saw the need to modify postmodern Theory, is bell hooks (the pen name of Gloria Watkins, which she intentionally writes in lower case). hooks is an African American scholar and activist who took issue with postmodernism - especially postmodern Theory and feminism - for its exclusion pf black people, women, and the working class, which she felt limited its ability to achieve social and political change. She criticized postmodernism not for its assumptions or thought, but for its association with, development by, and popularity among elite white male thinkers. hook's 1990 essay, "Postmodern Blackness," criticizes postmodernism for being dominated by white male intellectuals and academic elites, even as it usefully draws attention to difference and otherness. She was particularly critical of its dismissal of stable identity , arguing that postmodernism should apply to the politics of identity:
"The postmodern critique of "identity," through relevant for renewed black liberation struggle, is often posed in ways that are problematic. Given a pervasive politic of white supremacy which seeks to prevent the formation of radical black subjectivity, we cannot cavalierly dismiss a concern with identity politics."
At this point in the text, the authors place this footnote;
bell hooks, "Postmodern Blackness," in The Fontana Postmodernism Reader, ed. Walter Truett Anderson (London: Fontana Press, 1996).
They continue,
She asks,
"Should we not be suspicious of postmodern critiques of the "subject" when they surface at a historical moment when many subjugated people feel themselves coming to voice for the first time."
At this point, there is a footnote that reads,
Ibid., 117.
Pluckrose and Lindsay also write (page 56),
For hooks, the problem was not that postmodernism was useless; it was tailored to the experiences of white male intellectuals and did not allow for identity politics. hooks claimed that postmodern thought erred in destabilizing the concept of identity, which led it to exclude the unified voices and experiences of black Americans - particularly black women - and their aspirations to disrupt dominant narratives for the purposes of pursuing racial equality. She even suggested that postmodernism had silenced the black voices that had arisen in the 1960s, who had achieved civil rights by adopting a modernist universalizing agenda.
Here they have the following footnote,
Ibid., 115.
They continue,
To be of value, hooks argued, postmodernism needed to come out of the universities and into the world; question the perspective of the white male, who could afford to doubt the importance of identity because of his privilege; and serve everyday activism being done by the politically radical black layperson. She writes,
"Postmodern culture with its decentered subject can be the space where ties are severed or it can provide the occasion for new and varied forms of bonding. To some extent ruptures, surfaces, contextuality and a host of other happenings create gaps that make space for oppositional practices which no longer require intellectuals to be confined by narrow, separate spheres with no meaningful connection to the world of every day"
At this point the note,
Ibid., 120.
They continue,
hook's idea arose in parallel with critical race Theory, which originated with critical legal scholars, most notably Derrick Bell. One of Bell's students was a legal scholar much influenced by black feminists like hooks: Kimberle Crenshaw. Crenshaw makes a similar critique of postmodernism in her groundbreaking 1991 essay, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,"
They place the following footnote here:
Kimberle Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color," Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991).
The carry on (pages 56-57),
which developed the groundwork for the hugely influential of concept of intersectionality, which she had introduced two years earlier, in a more polemic piece (see Chapter 5).
Intersectionality accurately recognizes that it is possible to uniquely discriminate against someone who falls within an "intersection" of oppressed identities - say black and female - ant that contemporary discrimination law was insufficiently sensitive to address this. Crenshaw noticed that it would be possible, for example, to legally discriminate against black women in a workplace that hired plenty of black men and white women in a workplace that hired plenty of black men and white women, but almost no black women. She also rightly recognized that the prejudices that intersecting identity groups face can include not only the ones directed against both identity groups but also unique ones. For example, a black woman might face the usual prejudices that come with being black and with being a woman while also experiencing additional prejudices that apply specifically to black women. Crenshaw makes some important points. Simultaneously, she was generally positive about the deconstructive potential of postmodern Theory and centered it in her "intersectional" framework for addressing discrimination against women of color. She wrote, "I consider intersectionality to be a provisional concept linking contemporary politics with postmodern theory,"
Here they placed the following footnote:
Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins," 1244n9.
They go on,
and set out a more politicized form of postmodernism that would be actionable for race activists.
There is a footnote at this point in the text:
Intersectionality proved to be effective at providing a framework - which Crenshaw's contemporary, Patricia Hill Collins, dubbed the "matrix of domination" - that allowed disparate minority groups to unite under single banner. It also provided the tools for defining a hierarchal structure within this loose coalition and for bullying more recognized and effective movements, such as feminism, into taking up the changes of smaller factions under a euphemistic rubric of "allyship" and "solidarity."
Back to the main text,
Like Poovey, Butler, and hooks, Crenshaw wanted to both keep the Theoretical understanding of race and gender as social constructs and use deconstructive methods to critique them, and assert a stable truth claim: that some people were discriminated against on the grounds of their racial or sexual identities, a discrimination she planned to address legally using identity politics. She writes,
"While the descriptive project of postmodernism of questioning the ways in which meaning is socially constructed is generally sound, this critique sometimes misreads the meaning of social construction and distorts its political relevance. . . . But to say that a category such as race or gender is socially constructed is not to say that that category has no significance in our world. On the contrary, a large and continuing project for subordinated people - and indeed, one of the projects for which postmodern theories have been very helpful in thinking about - is the way power has clustered around certain categories and is exercised against others."
The following footnote has here been placed,
Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins," 1297.
The main text continues (page 57),
Crenshaw argues that (identity) categories "have meaning and consequences",
Footnote here;
Ibid., 1297.
Returning to the main text we read (page 57-58),
that is, they are objectively real. She distinguishes between a "black person" and a "person who happens to be black,"
Footnote;
Ibid., 1297.
Main text;
and sides with the former, arguing that this distinction is integral to identity politics and marks its difference from the universal liberal approaches that characterized the civil rights movements. These are common themes within the applied turn in postmodernism.
Once identity and power had been made objectively real and analyzed using postmodern methods, the concept of intersectionality very rapidly broke the bounds of legal theory and became a powerful tool for cultural criticism and social and political activism. Because applied postmodern Theory explicitly applied postmodernism to identity politics, it began to be used by scholars who were interested in myriad aspects of identity, including race, sex, gender, sexuality, class, religion, immigration status, physical or mental ability, and body size. Following Crenshaw's recommendation, these rapidly emerging fields of critical studies of culture all rely heavily on social constructivism to explain why some identities are marginalized, while arguing that those social constructions are themselves objectively real.
For example, fields like disability studies
Footnote;
See, for example, Fiona Kumari Campbell, Contours of Ableism: The Production of Disability and Abledness (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Main text;
and fat studies
Footnote;
Esther D. Rothblum and Sondra Solovay, eds., The Fat Studies Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2009).
Main text;
have recently become notable presences on Social Justice scholarship scene. While disability studies and fat feminism already existed and addressed prejudice and discrimination against the disabled and the obese, these movements have taken a radically socially constructivist approach on recent years, explicitly applying postmodern principles and themes. particularly those of queer Theory. They have become part of the intersectional framework and adopted much of the applied postmodern Theoretical approach, in which the disabled and the fat are believed to have their own embodied knowledge of disability and fatness, which is worth more than scientific knowledge. This is not simply about the obvious truth that disabled and fat people know what it is like to be disabled or fat in a way that able-bodied and slim people do not. Scholars and activists in these fields insist instead that the understanding of disability or obesity as a physical problem to be treated and corrected where possible is itself a social construct born of systemic hatred of disabled and fat people.
Probably more to come.
Offer suggestions & criticisms!
Also see our sections on. . .
critical legal studies (coming)
critical race theory (coming)
critical theory (coming)
cultural Marxism (coming)
intersectional feminism (coming)
intersectionality (coming)
Again, We recommend Cressida Heyes' "Identity Politics" for a comprehensive look at identity politics.
Cover image source: "Identity Politics: Friend or Foe?" by Alicia Garza for Othering and Belonging Institute for the University of California, Berkeley (September 24, 2019)
SOURCES
Britannica - "identity politics" - (Last Updated: November 21, 2024)
Combahee River Collective - "Combahee River Collective Statement" - (1977) (© 1978 by Zillah Eisenstein)
Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic - Critical Race Theory - an Introduction - New York University Press (3rd edition, 2017)
Felluga, Dino Franco -Critical Theory - The Key Concepts - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group (©2015)
Garza, Alicia - "Identity Politics: Friend or Foe?" - Othering and Belonging Institute for the University of California, Berkeley (September 24, 2019)
Heyes, Cressida - "Identity Politics" - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (First published Tue Jul 16, 2002; substantive revision Fri Nov 1, 2024, ©2024)
Lukianoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt - The Coddling of the American Mind - How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure - Penguin Books 2019 (©2018)
Mead, Margaret - Male and Female - Perennial, Harper Collins (©1949, 1967)
Merriam-Webster - "How to Use identity politics in a Sentence" - (Last Updated: 14 Dec 2024)
Merriam-Webster - "identity politics" - (Last Updated: 14 Dec 2024)
Murray, Douglas - The Madness of Crowds - Gender, Race and Identity - Bloomsbury, 2019, 2021 (© Douglas Murray, 2019)
Murray, Douglas - The War on the West - Broadside Books (©2022)
Pluckrose, Helen and James Lindsay - Cynical Theories - Pitchstone Publishing (©2020)