Liberals are drunk on a political poison called intersectionality

[Theodarzna]

In the fierce post-election debate about how Democrats should respond to the party's astonishing electoral collapse at all levels of government, some have argued that identity politics is the problem, while many others (especially younger activists) have claimed it's the solution.

Those inclined toward the latter position would be well advised to read a recent New York Times story very closely. An account of growing rancor surrounding the planned Women's March on Washington (scheduled for the day after Donald Trump's inauguration), the piece demonstrates with admirable clarity how doubling down on identity politics — and especially the left's embrace of the trendy postmodern ideology of "intersectionality" — is likely to shatter the Democratic Party into squabbling factions even more vulnerable to a resurgent right.

It would be one thing if Democrats had reason to hope or expect that they would be saved by demographics. Ever since the "emerging Democratic majority" thesis was first floated more than a decade ago, leading liberals have been convinced that their side is bound to prevail as the country becomes less white over time and minority groups eventually combine to form a left-leaning electoral majority. In such a situation, a politics based on racial, ethnic, gender, and other forms of identity might make sense as a mobilization strategy.

But recent events and analysis have cast doubt on these hopes and expectations, raising the possibility that the electoral power of white Americans may well persist for a long time to come. In that case, the need for "normal" politics, which involves forming coalitions across racial, ethnic, and gender divides in the name of the common good, will continue indefinitely.

That's where the danger of identity politics — especially in the radical form highlighted in the Times — becomes obvious.

From the start, the Women's March was an expression of identity politics — the coming together in protest of those appalled by the president-elect's attitude and proposed policies toward the female half of the electorate. But some organizers and participants have something else — something far narrower — in mind. For them, solidarity on the basis of gender alone isn't possible because black women have sometimes been oppressed by white women. For that reason, white women must begin "listening more and talking less," and above all learn to "check their privilege."

Here we enter into the kaleidoscopically balkanizing world of intersectionality, which highlights multiple identities in an effort to single-out the nexus of ascriptive attributes that produces maximal oppression. The idea is that once these attributes have been identified, the "privilege" of those who undertake the oppression can be subverted. Yet in practice, the hierarchy of privilege isn't so much subverted as reproduced and inverted.

Consider the world as viewed through the lens of intersectionality. At the very top of the pyramid of privilege stands a straight, able-bodied, white man — whether he was born rich, attended Harvard, and works on Wall Street, or is a laid off coal miner who struggles with opioid addiction in eastern Kentucky. Below him are straight, able-bodied white women, with straight "people of color" of either gender even less privileged, followed by gay, lesbian, transgendered, and disabled variations on each identity category — with a hypothetical disabled black lesbian perhaps least privileged of all. But of course, this is a matter of controversy, since a transgendered Latina who comes from a poorer neighborhood or a more broken family than her black lesbian rival might contest and take offense at this ranking, insisting that she's actually the one who deserves to be recognized as the least privileged.

It should be obvious that this brand of politics is profoundly poisonous. Instead of seeking to level an unjust hierarchy, mitigate its worst abuses, and foster cross-group solidarity, intersectionality merely flips the hierarchy on its head, placing the least privileged in the most powerful position and requiring everyone else to clamor for relative advantage in the new upside-down ranking. Those who come out on top in the struggle win their own counter-status, earning the special privilege of getting to demand that those lower in the pecking order "check their privilege."

This is a sure-fire spur to division, dissension, and resentment.

Successful politics, especially in a nation with a winner-take-all electoral system, requires building bridges with as many people as possible to win as many votes as possible. But intersectionality moves in the diametrically opposite direction, breaking the electorate apart into ever-smaller groups and pitting them against each other in a competition to determine which of them suffers most pervasively from systemic discrimination, and so also which has the right to demand deference and expressions of repentance from everyone else.

Can you imagine a style of politics more certain to end in bitter recriminations?

(source)

The Democrats might have bought into the "Coalition of the Ascendant," narrative a bit too much. The narrative of intesectionality and building this depends on a demographic destiny that does not appear to actually be coming about, or if it is nobody who posts in this forum will live to see it.

[Dhrizzle]

I often see people freaking out about intersectionality, but they rarely explain what they think it means or why they think it's wrong.

[God Save The King]

Or we could not generalize 30% of the American population.

I'm also amazed at how many buzzwords they could cram in there and say basically nothing.

[Elegiac]

I often see people freaking out about intersectionality, but they rarely explain what they think it means or why they think it's wrong.

Largely because most of the people bitching about intersectionality are the same people who bitch about gender studies while not knowing what the discipline entails.

[starlord]

what are some examples of how "liberal identity politics" enables, to quote the article, "intersectionality merely flips the hierarchy on its head, placing the least privileged in the most powerful position and requiring everyone else to clamor for relative advantage in the new upside-down ranking." ?

last i checked the least priveleged remain, um, the least priveleged...

[KrazyK923]

I just love all the laughable conservative responses to Trump's narrow victory. They treat this like a Reagan sweep.

Its amazing that they come up with every single reason why he won except for the obvious one: Clinton was a bad candidate.

[Torto]

Good. More left wing introspection and navel gazing. The more they worry about themselves, the more that are likely to remain out of government.

[JohnBrown1917]

Good. More left wing introspection and navel gazing. The more they worry about themselves, the more that are likely to remain out of government.

>Liberals
>Left-wing

heh.



Just getting these kind of threads off to their ussual start.

[Wells]

Navel gazing OP about how dumb/bad liberals are? Yup, checks out, its a Theo thread.

[Templar 331]

Pretty good article with some very good points. If the Dems do go to far down this road it will destroy their credibility as a political party. As the article stated, intersectionality seeks to separate rather than unify. A party that seeks to separate based on gender/race/ability will find itself on the losing side of a conflict with modern society. This is why they are called the "regressive left." These people seek to hold everyone else back instead of push the ones trailing behind forward.

But like KrazyK923 said, this isn't the reason why Hillary lost. It's because she was a shit candidate.

[Elegiac]

As the article stated, intersectionality seeks to separate rather than unify.

You seem to have as solid a grasp of intersectionality as the author of the article.

That is, none at all.

[JohnBrown1917]

Pretty good article with some very good points. If the Dems do go to far down this road it will destroy their credibility as a political party.

Not like that matters, they are the only alternative to the far right in the US.

[Dhrizzle]

Pretty good article with some very good points. If the Dems do go to far down this road it will destroy their credibility as a political party. As the article stated, intersectionality seeks to separate rather than unify. A party that seeks to separate based on gender/race/ability will find itself on the losing side of a conflict with modern society. This is why they are called the "regressive left." These people seek to hold everyone else back instead of push the ones trailing behind forward.

But like KrazyK923 said, this isn't the reason why Hillary lost. It's because she was a shit candidate.

Oh, that's what people think intersectionality is. I'm pretty sure you've got it wrong, intersectionality is (as the name suggests) about where individuals and groups intersect which is pretty close to the opposite of separating. Also I think the in-vogue snarl term is "regressive left" because "cultural marxist" sounded way too stupid.

[Nadiru]

lntersectionality is the admission that self-identified identities are fundamentally incapable of describing the totality of oppression. This means that self-identified identities are Godelian sets: they are incomplete but consistent theories that can never encapsulate their own inversions.

lntersectionality only defines inversions by relation, which is to say the framework intersectionality provides to measure identity inversions can only be described by what has been previously self-identified. Thus, no inversions can even exist within intersectionality unless at least three identities have been established.

We can posit three distinct identities in this thought experiment: White, Lesbian, and Panda.

For example, the lesbian and the panda identities intersect in a place that the white identity can no longer predict or describe oppression. (Additionally, if identity 1 and 2 intersect, the non-intersecting regions are not treated as inversions of one another. They are treated as their own identity.) This is a problem for intersectionality because subjective inversions can be equally described as a union between two identity sets.

This implicit interchangeability of function means that a unioned set is both an inversion (Something non-unioned identities can never understand) and an identity at the same exact time. This means that identities and their inversions can be experienced by the same person in parallel.

Once we introduce an extraneous identity that has no intersections, we discover that the subjective inversion requirement is inaccurate. After all, the white identity can never predict or describe oppression the way this extraneous identity can, which qualifies this extraneous identity as an inversion of the white identity. This is also true for the panda and the lesbian identity. This means the extraneous identity is part of an identity (remember, inversions = identities) while being its own inversion at the same time.

[Templar 331]

You seem to have as solid a grasp of intersectionality as the author of the article.

That is, none at all.

By all means, enlighten me instead of shit posting.....

[Elegiac]

Oh, that's what people think intersectionality is. I'm pretty sure you've got it wrong, intersectionality is (as the name suggests) about where individuals and groups intersect which is pretty close to the opposite of separating. Also I think the in-vogue snarl term is "regressive left" because "cultural marxist" sounded way too stupid.

Let's call it what it is.

The only reason 'intersectionality' is popping up is because that is a word people have heard academics use, and they want to point to it as the cause of every problem from AIDS to Tsarist Russia as part of the still in-vogue trend of anti-intellectualism.

[Wells]

Intersectionality is easily one of the best ideas to emerge out of third wave feminism. It's amazing how much people complain about it. Granted, they don't understand it and no amount of effort to explain it to them will change that. They respond not so unlike creationists on evolution.

The internet has never let not believing in identity studies get in the way of having opinions on identity studies.

[sheggaro]

If the Democrats would actually start addressing the country's issues instead of dividing the population based on race, ethicity or gender they might win again. Identity politics are poison.

[Wells]

If the Democrats would actually start addressing the country's issues instead of dividing the population based on race, ethicity or gender they might win again.

This sounds an awful lot like "the issues I care about are the real ones".

Your premise is rooted in the false assumption that the Democrats have a popularity problem. They don't.

[Elegiac]

By all means, enlighten me instead of shit posting.....

Intersectionality is in its simplest terms the study of how demographics interact in contexts of oppression or social marginalization. It doesn't promote 'social division' anymore than demography does.