Thank you for this very lucid discussion. As someone who is close to 70 years old and been in higher education since the 1980s and have been an out gay activist for all that time, I really disliked the emergence of identity politics over anything else. In my own world, my very dear friend, Gilbert Baker, who invented the now Universal rainbow flag - the gift of gay people to the world - was a symbol for everyone on earth because every stripe represented a universal human value. Then came the identitarians, and one little smarmy dick who decided that Gilbert's flag needed editing. Gilbert never copyrighted the rainbow flag, but Mr. Quasar, author of the so-called "progress flag", did exactly that! He copyrighted that very ugly piece of failed vexillography with the identititarian chevron of race and trans identity. This infuriated me. Interestingly, it's a classic case of cultural appropriation by a profiteer. It's not his art to piss on. And now that ugly flag is everywhere and Mr. Quasar makes money every time it's printed. I'm glad that Gilbert did not live to see what the postmodernists did to our social movement. More generally, I'm also an activist in the Democratic Socialist of America. I joined them because I'm a socialist. But our meetings are now heavily lathered with identarian politics- from the pronouns to the land acknowledgment, Karl Marx has gone out the window, and Judith Butler has taken his place. Identity politics has essentially killed the left in the United States, and, because United States is an all too powerful cultural entity on the planet, it has spread its little cancer all over the world.
Sir, you are 100% right. I’ve been saying precisely this in Australia for a decade and now I have simply stepped out of the gay rights movement because it’s full of identitarians (mainly disgruntled straights with purple hair) who think being homosexual is a manifestation of transphobia.
Your personal history is quite interesting. I’m an independent 54 yo physician who typically purposefully avoids politics. However it has become impossible to avoid at this point. I’d say I’m fiscally conservative but socially quite liberal, and the few times I’ve voted have always been for democrats until now. I’ve always been for equality, but the equity concept brought about by the current liberalism is against equality, and actively promotes racism and sexism. I’m extremely tolerant, so the oppressor oppressed version applied to race and sex leading to white guilt/toxic masculinity, seemed twisted but didn’t particularly bother me even though I’m the worst offender apparently as a white man. I know who I am and refuse to yield to idiotic social pressures. I was 100% for gay marriage and equality, but the delusion of gender fluidity where the fact of biological sex was denied and an infinite number of identities were possible struck me as unusual to say the least. However, I wasn’t against it because I still believe everyone has the right to live as they wish, as long as it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of others. It crossed that line when refusal to “affirm” and use their “chosen pronouns” was considered harassment, and shockingly considered a civil rights violation. It’s not a stretch to see that evolving into “hate speech” punishable by imprisonment, which I pray is avoided since the republicans won the presidency, house, and senate. The most incredulous event in this movement was when confused impressionable children were becoming indoctrinated into this, and became absolutely mortified when I learned that colleagues in my profession where medically and even surgically “transitioning” children, who clearly aren’t old enough to predict future consequences of these current decisions. I pray this ceases immediately with the new administration. I know that the personal identity politics is an extreme version of the oppressor oppressed narrative, and isn’t representative of prior liberalism, but it shows me the potential dangers to society and I find it extremely difficult to imagine that I will ever consider myself a social liberal ever again. This has literally broken down the moral fiber of our country, divided people who were previously unconcerned with sexual identity or skin color, and has even destroyed marriages and broken down the importance of the family unit and spirituality, as being religious is now seen as a moral inferiority by the far left.
Kinda, but not really. What it does is looks at outcomes and uses them as indicators for implicit bias. It’s an axiom that talent is equally distributed. Since we’re social creatures, it must also be an axiom that opportunity is not equally distributed. EO is a political way of addressing the implicit bias. I mean, it would be nice if people could just not be bigots. It would be nice if measurements could be not biased. But this is the real world, so unless you have a better idea, cram your reverse racism right up your privilege.
@@altortugas5979 So the NBA is 90% black because of implicit racial bias. Most mathematicians are men because of implicit sexism. Most nurses and teachers are women because of bias. Jazz players are disproportionately black because racism. Utter nonsense. We live in a complex society made of the most complex thing in nature - the human brain. Your reductionism dodges these complexities, and the examples prove that not all outcomes are explained by bias. One asserting a claim bears the burden of proof, and the “proof” that implicit bias is the uber factor that drives outcome is highly suspect to say the least. In fact, it’s a kind of magical thinking that pretends to be able to infer the state of mind of millions, which is absurd.
Even worse, It instantly creates division by saying "If I am (label), then you are (label) or not (label)" and this is the base of current political social polarization, down to the tribalism in our primitive brains.
@@altortugas5979 identitarians _assume_ the existence of implicit bias. But you couldn't prove to me that it actually does exist (let alone to such a pervasive degree) any more than I could prove to you there exists a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. And don't bother citing the studies which claim to show implicit bias is a thing. I've seen them. They are catastrophically flawed; useless as a real measure..
The saddest thing that happened on the left is being unable to hear and listen to criticism from already left-leaning people, or anyone for that matter.
There are the leftists who like Biden, and the rest of us who think he's been making some terrible decisions. Being so quick to generalize everyone you disagree with on certain topics is what leads to unuseful culture war fights that avoid the issues. We gotta stop doing that: if you don't think there are very bad actors/decisions on both sides, you've been fooled to be hyper focused, and to make weak arguments.
It's cult mentality. if you even slightly disagree with the cult, you're gone. It really highlights the weak arguments they're making. A simple question like "what is a women" just destroys them.
@@MikeWoot65 A woman is a person who identifies as a woman. They can probably give birth, probably are XX, (XY born women exist) and probably dress in a way their country considers feminine. - Me, a "leftist" Maybe you spreading overgeneralizations about how "destroyed" we all are, just makes you sound ignorant. Your question was very easy to answer in a way that offends no one who understands basic biology and acknowledges gender identities.
I was in a conversation with someone regarding Identity and DEI. The other person informed me that I had privilege because I was able to pay for a cruise. Then I was told I had "able" privilege because I had all of my facilities, physically and mentally while others may not. We then discussed a training video of someone attempting to correct a coworker's language as the person said "let's get to the meeting quickly as it is all hands on deck." he was then told, that you cannot say all hands on deck because not everyone has hands and it is insensitive. His initial reaction was, "Everyone in this meeting has hands". but then he said "but I will be more careful next time." while my friend agreed with the all-hands sentient, I explained the silliness in the language because it does not work in all cases. My rebuttal example was if I were to say that something is so simple it is a no-brainer, is that then insensitive to people who don't have brains. It actually becomes ridiculous at some point.
In terms of morality, it becomes increasingly difficult to have compassion for one another if we feel fundamentally different from one another. Those who perpetuate evil and injustice tend to justify their actions to themselves by pretending that other people are 'different' and thus the same set of moral precepts which would normally apply no longer apply. This is exactly what the demons and despots of the past have used as justification for their actions and if we no longer fight for equality, understanding and compassion for all, then the people of the world will always be at war with one another, never seeing the truth--namely that we all are fundamentally the same, with the same propensity to feel pain, same propensity to desire happiness in life, and same potential for intelligence, magnanimity and truth
Sounds like a cultural failure you should work on. I dont lack empathy for people because they are different to me... i humanize people in my head and that's enough for me to want them to have better living circumstances and experiences.
@@ZanaharyBunziMaat Also, the reason you still are able to humanize people is because you consider humans to be fundamentally the same despite cultural differences, but this video is about people who think humans ARE fundamentally different (they are not)
In one way it sounds like the rise of “individualism” when everyone becomes more individual, we also become more individual in the work space. We all have to sell who we are. That’s way we see each other more and more different because we have to compete against each other more and more when work also disappear’s.
@@JasonMcMullen Yeah you are. Who said that we have to be the same in order to value them morally? Not the Bible. The Catholic Church did. That's why they spread the good news by the tip of their swords during the crusades.
As a non-US viewer his points tend to showcasenvery much what I find weird about US left wing politics. So much identity so little class struggle, but hey you do you
Yeah they're all the way down the (Post-marxist which leads into the) postmodern/poststructuralist rabbit hole. That's where you get CRT and 3rd/4th wave feminism with their identity obsession. This has been promulgated by corporate america because it rather conveniently shifts the focus away from class struggle which is what would directly undermine their power (and, might I add, is by far the central issue of the day since the civil rights and women's rights movements have reached their goals decades ago). They were delighted to see that these new Marxists didn't think class struggle was the thing and and either outright reject it or remain blissfully ignorant of its existence. The capitalists have been exploiting it to the fullest. What a time to be alive eh?
Because here in the U.S. the myth of a classless society is not recognized as such. The obscenely rich and obscenely poor give lip service to the fantasies of the 18th century ruling class. "We the People" (as our constitution begins) didn't mean everyone then, and as yet still doesn't. The wealthy here understand this better than the poor, and finance the atomization of political discourse along a variety of identitarian lines. Divide and conquer - Divide and control.
That's by design and why liberals have elevated identity politics so high. It serves as something radical that doesn't threaten capital interest. That's why the bourgeois are totally on board with queer washing, such as nearly every company having rainbow colored profile pictures and so forth. It's radical without supporting a greater class consciousness and is palatable to capital interests.
They are closely tied because many harmful policies that kept people poor were(and continue to be) enacted on racial lines. This is why we see a disproportionate number of people of color being poor vs whites. Class unity certainly matters but these issues wont get fixed by taking a color blind approach because they are colored by the racism of the past and present.
@@ZanaharyBunziMaat I would love to believe this but in reality, all I've ever seen is screaming that this is a problem yet there is zero concrete discussion on specific policies and their intent and outcomes, including quantitative analysis. It's a big claim and requires evidence. Furthermore, you misunderstand the entire point. Colorblindness would quite literally solve this because your very claim is that those in power aren't. The idea is to make everyone, including and especially those in power colorblind. Yes, it will literally solve the problem. Finally, you and most nowadays treat this purely as a sociological issue. Reality is that part of the issue has already been improved enormously. Economically, the system is built to keep the poor poor and the rich richer. This is a colorblind phenomenon. If more people of a certain "identity" are still held down, people like you will mistake this for a current racial issue when it simply isn't. It's a legacy of past policy that's remained unchanged purely because of the economic system in place. THAT'S why we we disproportionate numbers. One more point: You also need to consider culture, and the culture of those poor are not conducive to success, and this is exemplified by the performance of equally poor immigrants. Besides this there's also epigenetics, which is very real. Behaviors and traumas can be carried forward genetically and can account for a hefty percentage of behavior. Most appears to still be based on environment, but when that environment is a culture that isn't conducive to success and you're inside an economic system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor, all of a sudden all of the crying about current racism falls apart. The majority of the discrepancy can be explained by much more objective means without appeal to racial ideology. So, yes, quite literally a colorblind approach to fixing the economic system would succeed in bringing significant change. Additional support to address the culture and epigenetic factors getting in the way from historical trauma can further bridge the gap. Current racism is an excuse. It's not the main cause in today's western society.
While "Identity politics" in it's extreme form is definitely problematic, I find that the seperate issue of lack of acceptance of diversity of viewpoints on the left even more disturbing. Perhaps it is the same on the right, but it seemed like the left in previous decades was very much about freedom of speech. But now speech is equated with "violence" if it happens to offend someone. The problem with this, is that there many people who could be "offended" by just about anything. I'm not talking about the obviously harmful stuff like threats, and vicious bigoted attacks that would be considered fine back in the 1800s but are no longer accepted as acceptable discourse today. I'm talking about simple opinions about what is and isn't racist, what policies are good or bad, etc. On the left it seems that politics has become so tribal that having an alternative view on anything brands you as "impure" and many people have been "kicked out of the club for this." Maybe this exists on the far right as well, I don't know, since I've always been liberal, but yeah, it's gotten to the point that I no longer want to be involved in politics, or at least not partisan politics, and consider myself an independent, even though based on many political test I take I'm much more towards the left of center on most issues.
Indeed, I agree with your take. It's what I've seen as well. Don't worry, according to a political test I am all the way on the left and in the middle of libertarian. Yet, I hate the "woke", "sjw" brand of "leftism" in America, aka modern American liberalism. Don't worry, I believe you're firmly on the left, just like I am. I think true leftists that understand and prioritize economic issues should be louder and take back the label from the crazed mob that's proliferated for the last decade. Sanity needs to be brought back, extremism needs to be toned down, and open discourse needs to once more become normalized instead of the professional victimhood that's been endlessly promoted and spread like wildfire.
Intersectionalism I think might be the answer you're looking for. Class struggle encompasses what many consider to be identity politics as you know it. That might be a leftist perspective that's not as divisive for example
@@channeldoesnotexist my main issue is that I don't think identifying as a "leftist" is helpful for us, I don't think identifying with a specific party, political orientation, social group, etc., is ultimately useful for anyone, it just creates tribes who want to assert that their tribe is the best, the truest, the only valid solution. This is part of the problem with politics, especially today, except that at least in the US it's seen as a binary choice (no pun intended), and because of this the vast middle is caught having to pick sides or just opt out entirely. Rather, I want to get beyond labels and simply push for what I think are good decisions for specific issues, but I may disagree with you one one issue and agree with you on another, and that's totally fine, I would still work with you on the one we agree with, and just try to convince you to go a different way on the one we disagreed with. But given that I agreed with you on one issue would show to me that we did share commonalities and so it would want to make me understand why you thought differently then me on an issue that we disagreed with, and who knows, you might even convince me I'm wrong! The point is, having a specific ideology/tribe/camp/etc. that holds a specific set of positions on a vast number of subjects, essentially forces us to adhere to that specific ideology and set of positions even if we differ with it on some things.
@@McDonaldsRich my experience with "intersectionalism" or "intersectionality" or however it's termed is that it's a term that is pushed by the "progressive" social justice crowd. To me it seems that while it appreciates our many different identities, which is good, it also pushes those identities and values the ones that are the most marginalized. Thus if you are a black female lesbian, you have have a bunch of intersectional bona fides, but if you are just a white male who isn't poor, not "working class," well, you have no value because, essentially, the world is set up around you, you have all the privilege by default, and thus your views have no value. In other words, we need to ONLY listen to the historically marginalized because we're listening to the privileged already all the time by default. There may even be some truth to that, but I believe then you're essentially marginalizing another group (in certain ways) by devaluing their positions. This only leads to more polarization as that new marginalized group feels left out and disrespected and ends up pissed at the new "valued" groups.
@@dvdmon Interesting take but I don't agree that merely the existence of labels necessarily leads to tribalism. I think that's the result of extremist positions, which is what we've seen proliferate in america recently. I wholeheartedly agree that different groups can and should work towards common goals at the very least. This can be achieved by abolishing *partisanship* and emphasizing openness and cooperation. I think the leftist label is useful insofar as it stands for the political and economic platform that seeks to ameliorate the objectively unequal and unfair economic system that effectively holds most of society hostage under the power of a few elite at the top. Human greed and thirst for power, as always, is driving this, and constructing a system that by design seeks to undermine and minimize this damaging, innate impulse of our species is what the program of leftism should be, and it is at least based on objective facts about our species and the societies we've built thus far.
I think a poignant phrase is “historically oppressed and marginalized people”. We should be focusing on avoiding any CURRENT oppression and marginalization, less so on the marginalization because that’s mostly got to do with the amount of people in a certain group which doesn’t necessarily imply anything wrong or unfair happening to them. We should strive towards recognizing the ways we as individuals are actively treating people unfairly and unjustly in the current moment rather than reserve moral judgment for certain groups or types of people based on history or arbitrary traits.
Great let's focus on current oppression and marginalization.... Oh! Looks like a great deal of current oppression is directed at the historically oppressed ... Weird how that works
Personally I see zero value in glorifying (or demonizing) groups of people based on arbitrary attributes. I think Martin Luther King Jr said something about that once.
I think there was a lot of context surrounding what MLK said as well. Kind of facetious to assume MLK was for color blindness without differential outcomes being rectified.
There is A LOT to hate about the Left and the Right political minds - HOWEVER I would not group the Left OR Right, with all the evils of its political alignment. There is A LOT of evil Socialist (redistribution through theft) and the is A LOT of evil hierarchical (might make right) systems; HOWEVER that information is not to be used as an excuse to be contemptible to everyone.
He talked about identity groups so he's being claimed by identitarians, but he was talking about contemporary social groupings freely chosen. He wasn't espousing assignment of permanent features to innate identities.
Will you guys please stop misquoting King. Your ancestors set up a system that would benefit them and you today in perpetuity. King was very much in favor of dismantling it, SO THEN (meaning after) we could now deal with your character. System is unchanged... And surprise, surprise... Some people are triggered by continued talks of ridding "identity" based advantages.
@@McDonaldsRich I think a difference between class and the other forms of identity mentioned here is that, like you say, the ruling class has sought to eliminate all awareness of its existence (although subtly causing the working class to feel inferior and implicitly messaging that workers deserve their lot in life), whereas other forms of oppression and hierarchy make group dominance and submission more explicit. The identity of class should be abolished like the others mentioned, but that will require the relation of class to be abolished ideologically and materially (which is true of race, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc. as well, although arguably the ideological abolition of identity can take higher importance for certain identities)
@@McDonaldsRich Looking objectively at the facts surrounding the distribution of wealth and the system driving it shows this isn't a matter of ideology. It is objective fact that the lion's share of resources and power are concentrated at the top and those at the bottom exploited. The system benefits the rich and disadvantages the poor. Class struggle is at the very least somewhat factually true, subject to specific interpretation. So no, reality shouldn't be rejected if a fairer society is desired.
Do you call yourself a male, white, conservative, middle class, educated, Christian, Republican, American? Then you're not revolutionary at all, because you have just labelled, tagged, and identified yourself. And labelled, tagged, and identified yourself with the most mainstream, powerful groups in America.
Yes, these are despicable people playing on the fears or "strangeness" of other people. So, I don't know anything about "transgender" or other ethnicities or similar fringe groups but what I am aware of are certain groups of people and low brow politicians who will exploit these differences for political or other gain. Essentially it is picking on fringe marginalized groups who make up a tiny fraction of the population. This is by design because these groups can't "fight back." So, while I don't necessarily completely understand them, I support them simply because of this systemic, targeted bullying. As a former military man, I'm not fond of bullies and will challenge them at any chance. That's just me.
An effective military man, especially a service person who has to work overseas with marginalized groups kind of needs to be "woke". Being aware of the systematic injustices that an oppressed population might be facing, helping them understand and sympathizing with their situation only increases your odds of a successful diplomatic operation. People mistake military leaders for some cold blooded, cruel thinking machine. Those kinds are abundant in corrupt, authoritarian regimes but a good leader is anything but that. No intelligent leader would ever tell you to not learn that topuc or avoid gaining an understanding about something.
That’s a good instinct, but people take advantage of the kindness of others. Basically they try to gain advantage by fraud. Demanding special treatment is what fraudsters do. So, how you gonna tell the difference?
@kamranshams754 0 seconds ago I think the point is that calling minorities “fringe groups” relegates their existence to the margins. The whole leftist critique is that minorities exist on the margins (hence marginalization), and therefore their voices are not valued, or not heard at all (which is what was meant by the reference to Spivak). In reality, minorities make up a large part of this country and every country, but the way we conceive of them as “fringe” overlooks their experiences and contributions to society. Think of the disproportionate abundance of immigrant women who are domestic workers.
A few good things here. I always say If your ideas and theories are as solid as you claim, they should stand up to scrutiny! So why is "identity" only a problem when it is viewed as an asset, but not when it is used as a weapon to deny basic human rights? Thank you for your insights! You can support the counter argument and answer your own questions by looking up and reading easily researched statistics!
For anyone interested, a great organization that promotes fighting racism without indentity politics (and calling out the identity politics that actually harm the cause of racial justice) is Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR).
I also see a lot of "appeal to identity" being done lately. Just like someone might do an appeal to authority by saying "well, I am a foremost expert who teaches at Harvard and has written 3 books about this topic" instead of actually giving you an argument that you can engage with intellectually, a lot of people lately say "I'm Black so I know more than you about racism" or "I'm gay so I would know more than you about homophobia". The issue here is the same as with an appeal to authority: Sure, one would hope that a Harvard professor who has written 3 books about a particular topic would know about said topic and be right in the conversation taking place, but just appealing to said authority doesn't make your argument right. You need to actually still prove that you are right on this one. Same goes for identity: Sure, I would hope that based on your identity you would be more familiar than others about certain topics, but you still need to make an argument rather than just repeat what your identity is and say "I don't need to explain anything to you", "It's not my job to educate you", or complain that "We always have to explain ourselves to everybody!" (hoping perhaps that people will feel ashamed that they are being asked to explain themselves "because" of their identity, when in fact they are just being asked to explain their argument so we don't blindly take their world for it based on their identity alone).
I don't quite follow your argument. Are you calling out this (and other) professors, or are you calling out people from marginalized, powerless, and societally despised minority groups who are fighting for the same rights, opportunities, equality, and the same opportunities to live as themselves as everyone else?
I'm glad I'm not the only democrat who noticed how quickly identity politics skyrocketed when Trump was elected. It took less that six hours for someone to cuss me out for being white and male, even though I voted for Clinton. It also happened after Roe v. Wade was overturned. I've been taking a good long look at my party ever since.
The Trump MAGA phenomenon exists to a large degree in extreme reaction to far left loons taking over the Democratic Party. Republicans were always conservative but the weren’t the kind of reactionary nutjobs that are ascendant now. Left wing elites have pushed narratives and policies for years that have alienated many people who were not politically active but felt they were being condescended, shamed, and ostracized. Now cultural, educational, and economic institutions are so thoroughly dominated by the hard left that the Overton Window on core cultural norms have moved dramatically left. It has precipitated a predictable backlash that has polarized the country beyond the bounds necessary to maintain good governance. What is necessary is moderation not activism. That won’t happen so long as far left elements continue to instigate fights with parts of society that don’t desire radical change. But the far left continues to provoke, and therefore holds some responsibility for reinvigorating the far right. It seems to be a self-fulfilling call to cultural revolution. This is counterproductive and is only pushing more moderate elements into the arms of the right in opposition to leftist aims.
Another aspect is identity fomo. As people become increasingly isolated and view reality they percieve their lonliness and emptiness as a lack of having an identity, or a strong sense of one. So they try different groups that accept them looking for connection. If they find it they become zealously loyal. If they don't they form an identity around their social labels hoping it will spawn a group.
Okay I was more on board with the first half of this video than the second half. "The founders of CRT explicity saw themselves as attacking the mainstream of black American thought." Not all these founders agree with each other! I studied CRT in University after the media firestorm about it, and that only lead me to learn just how horribly misrepresented it had been. It was founded on the observation that after progress was made granting equal rights under the law, black Americans and other minority groups were still struggling because of systemic unfairness that was not explicit. Some was accidental, some was very deliberate Southern Strategy-esque tactics for disenfranchisement. CRT is basically "how does this occur and how can it be helped?" Shitty claims from Derrick Bell aside, the goal shouldn't be to get rid of universal values, it is that universal values are insufficient. I agree with one premise of this video, that identity politics are often abused and misused superficially. But anyone who thinks the takeaway from that is that identity should never come up at all in discussion is over-adjusting. The anti-identity politics crowd feels absolutely no need to refer to identity when it suits their ends.
the problem with the focus on race is that it divides and is unnecessary. if the concern is why some groups of people tend to have more poverty and other problems, intergenerationally, there is zero reason to involve race, gender, or any personal traits in addressing the problem. why should we not strive for equal opportunity in life for all newborns? why is the ghetto in Baltimore any worse than the ghetto in Appalachia? why does the black from a wealthy family need help because of race above a poor white person? it’s foundational and indisputable that no person should be punished for the sins of their forbears. so giving advantages to people because of their race or gender always results in a punishment (or disadvantage) of everyone else who is not in the favored and who must pay the extra taxes or forego the same advantage or opportunity.
@@jamesstrom6991 "focus on race is unnecessary" 1. I don't have the time to explain how wrong this is... 2. Someone needs to explain this to reactionaries who feel no qualms at all about discussing race and gender!
The other thing that bugs me about postmodernist-influenced thought is its fundamental hostility towards empiricism. Postmodernists generally scorn quantitative and empirical research (on the dubious basis that it privileges elite viewpoints/is colonialist/racist...somehow). As a result, a whole swathe of 'research' is over the last few decades in the social sciences and humanities is basically just people writing obscurantist essays to each other, with 'ethnographies' (read: case studies) and cherry-picked anecdotes sprinkled here and there. No falsifiable hypotheses, no data. Nobody ever starts a 'research project' and is _surprised_ by their results, which you see in the natural sciences all the time. You can't even directly critique half of this stuff because it's just meaningless word salad. What little research you do see exists with no genuine discursive opposition, at least when it touches on anything politicised. If somebody does quantitative research on something like racially discriminatory housing policies in the US, nobody is likely to properly check the methodology, and if it is bogus, that opposition won't be publicised. I hate to be anti-intellectualist, I love science and in principle am pro-expert, but after having done two social sciences degrees myself I basically have to dismiss a whole section of academia because it's foundations are so....non-existent.
Sadly, I have to agree with you. Going against the dominant ideology is strictly taboo in Social Sciences academia these days and appears to be getting worse in this country (NZ). Feels like we are getting inducted into a cult of dominant thinking that is driven by minority viewpoints who claim authority by dint of being minority, and thereby "oppressed." Particularly prevalent in sexual identity, where any questioning is labelled "phobic" rather than debated and alternative views considered. We are all told to be "inclusive" but are excluded if we disagree about anything in the dominant (i.e. most vocal) discourse.
A lot of postmodern theories were meant to counter the identity politics that tanked the left in the 70s and 90s (infighting, extremism, backlash). The critique of essentialism, replacing the notion of identity with complex concepts of subjectivity and intersectionality (situating ourselves across various intersecting axes of difference), emphasizing historical context (not universalizing "Black experience" to all those racialized as Black, etc.), deconstructing binaries (masculine/feminine, public/private, oppressor/oppressed, etc.). The concepts have been misunderstood to the extent that their terms are applied to their opposites. What is called "intersectionality" now is the opposite: plain old identity politics. What is called "gender" now reifies sexist binaries of masculine/feminine while relocating essentialism in the mind rather than the body (supporting Cartesian dualism). It is a bastardization of PoMo driving the new left ideologies. In the early 2000s, I used to give guest lectures at universities on how PoMo feminist theories countered identity politics. Students would arrive an hour late, put their hand up in the middle of my lecture and ask me to go over what they missed. Students would walk out early saying, "This is too much thinking for me." Students now completely over-generalize and miss the point of everything they read (skim), are unable to follow simple instructions, say they need extensions on assignments because they've been really busy with friends visiting, say they missed class because they were up all night playing video games. The problem isn't PoMo: it is complete lack of work ethic, critical thinking, and intellectual rigour combined with narcissistic posturing on social media.
It is very deep and serious statement : "all people are equal" / - "should be Equal" /in political and economic... opportunities..., provided by political and social regulation, controlled by the state. ...bacaurse, from the point of biological diversity - it is very important, so all people are various - means, all people are not same... And even having equal access to political and ecomonic rights, being at a different level of intellectual capacities, Different people will perform different results... How are you going "to equalize" that?
Help me understand the gist of what he’s saying. Is it that we have to establish clear identities within our social groups but not in political discourses?
I was looking forward to listening to his argument because I have issues with identity politics myself, but he didn’t really say anything and doesn’t seem to have a very holistic understanding of why people resort to identity politics
Seems to me you're describing, through other terms (identity synthesis), a phenomenon called "political polarization" and the repercussions thereof. One of those repercussions is that hypocrisy and human nature have more recently taken the place of living up to our ideals as you mentioned near the end. All of these pendulum swings from generation to generation will continue ad nauseum through the endless cycle of history. But it is admirable to call out those fringe ideas that threaten to weaken or discredit otherwise worthwhile causes. Keep on doing your work, and go easy on Foucault--those Postmodernists get dragged on the regular in academic circles, as you likely know.
I think it would be helpful to define human nature. The term tends to be used in nonspecific ways that assume humans are one way, potentially neglecting significant historical and social differences. Plus, pendulum swings isn’t really the historically accurate way to look at it. People have been saying these things for hundreds of years. It’s just that now it’s finally made its way to the mainstream. A sign of just how much work it takes to actually change the status quo.
@@kamran-r6d Because it takes so much effort to actually change the status quo is evidence of tidal forces that pull in opposing directions, so to speak, with regard to the ideals of the mainstream. This stretches at least as far back as Plato, and was again taken up by Hegel. So there again, a back-and-forth metaphor much like a pendulum is completely appropriate to describe this phenomenon, even in the abstract.
@@facelessman7733 That’s a fair point. I would qualify though that the two opposing forces-assuming a Hegelian dialectical model-are not of equal weight. Hence the term hegemony. In the abstract, sure, the forces are equal as they are opposing poles (thesis and antithesis). But in what we might call empirical reality, the “thesis” - i.e. status quo - has much more geosociopolitcal influence and power. Revisionary intellectual histories would further challenge the pendulum model in favor of a nuanced, gradual change through performativity and iterability (repetition with a critical difference).
@@kamran-r6d I agree that a hegemony exists in the world now favoring the status quo. The agents of change--iterability and performativity--are a fine lens through which to examine events of the past. This thematic understanding can create a continuity between past and present--often referred to as "the arc of history." However, the issue is that revisionism tends to challenge the orthodoxy of the status quo in favor of reinterpretations. Reinterpretations come with both potential risks as well as rewards, and are occasionally controversial. When done correctly, this is the essence of historiography. When done improperly, revisionism can lead to conspiratorial thinking, negationism, nationalistic fantasies, and pseudo-narratives that do not align with the evidence or established historical record. For many notable events, nuanced and gradual would not be an apt descriptor for what happened. That being said, a pendulum model would support the idea that we, in our modern society, are only one nuclear exchange away from living once more in the ancient past. As historian Sam Wineburg once said, "history is messy, complicated, and difficult, and thus must be practiced with extreme caution and modesty." I would challenge myself in this case to not rely too heavily on reductive models, whether it be in the form of revisionism or that of a pendulum.
@@facelessman7733 I don't the revisionism's challenge to the status quo is an "issue"--that is the point of revisionism. Controversy is in many ways also the point of revisionism. This goes along with the status quo maintaining a disproportionate, formidable influence on our perceptions of history. And of course, any kind of thinking done improperly leads to those negative consequences. The status quo, or the dominant narrative, is no less immune to those fallacies. In fact, many critical historiographers would argue that the dominant narrative is the actual engine of negationism, nationalism, and pseudo-narratives that do not align with evidence/record. Thinking otherwise once again privileges the status quo as more credible by nature of its saliency. I mean, just take Trump as an example--the guy knows nothing about anything yet remains a figure of utmost cultural authority. I'm also unsure of how the past and present are not connected in some critical way. I think what constitutes a "notable event" would be the subject of revisionist scrutiny. To use your example, sure, the actual nuclear exchange itself would have sudden and drastic consequences. But when historians look back on the hypothetical exchange, if they want to learn why and how it occurred, they would look at the change in global politics since the end of WWII. They would look at how societies became more unequal, how nationalism was fueled by contemporary autocrats, etc. If we look at how a situation came to be, the actual event itself becomes much less important. In that sense, gradual and nuanced is perhaps the only accurate way to look at things. When things seem sudden (like a school shooter), it's usually because people were not paying attention to the signs it was coming. Then we look at the writings of these shooters, their mental health, their social isolation, and it's like "oh yeah, of course this was going to happen." Experts can usually see big events coming from years or decades away. WWII is not very surprising if you look at the conditions that led to it (severe inequality, growing sense of national impotence, etc). And as a side note, funny you mention Wineburg. I actually met him in college. He gave a talk at my university and I talked to him afterward. Did you study with him at Stanford?
This was a seriously comforting video because it's one of the few times I've seen someone explain my beliefs in such a critical way. I'm glad to see that there are people in academia that recognize the problems with the left. I've not seen the problem laid out any clearer than the anti-Israel protestors. The attempts to create intersectional struggles create an ideological purity that no one will be able to stand up to.
Can a man speak about feminism? According to some, he should be unauthorized to do so because of his "man-fragility". This reasoning could be applied to all identities and it's a big mistake not to accept the views of an outsider
Yes, what a lovely sentiment. Men are created equal. Let’s live up to that. When men and women are no longer seen as different, but instead as human beings, I’ll be happy. In the meantime, the reality is very different.
i would love to live in the lalaland world you live in where i as a black woman am not seen as and treated differently than a white man. Thats unfortunately not the reality i live in.
If men and women are the same and equal, then why don’t they both fight in the boxing ring. Look at what happened at the olympics boxing a few days ago.
I personally think identity politics is a propagandistic product of democracy. When we only speak for our own small groups based on whatever arbitrary and isolated characteristics, the society itself is divided and weakened, but whatever political parties who push for these agendas benefit greatly. Is this truly what democracy stands for?
There are good, kind, caring people, and there are @ssholes, and both can be found in every race, gender, sex, color, religion, etc etc, all over the world. It's not about how we label ourselves it's about how we treat others. Plain and simple!
It’s extremely narrow minded to believe this is something new. Humans are tribal, for many the politics of the day is a way to express this natural tendency.
Identity politics hits a brick wall as soon as it is performative in the slightest. Performative wokeness just leads to a further narrowing of identities. In theory, yes, it SHOULD work. But to say that identity politics were not necessary is to simply ignore that there were ideas written into law that explicitly and subtly were purposed with ostracizing people because of parts of their identity.
You realize that in and of itself is *also* identity politics for legalizing discrimination? The entire point is that you don't fix this by doubling down on the same problem from another angle. Throw away identity politics and emphasize oneness while tackling the real issues of economic inequality, exploitation, and class divides enforced by those at the top to maintain power and control.
Wait a minute - did anybody here have classrooms sorted by race? 4:40 Or is this sensationalized from this guy reading a couple of headlines of edge cases from his feed?
this is a common practice, yes. the practice isn't to permanently segregate the classroom, it is an exercise that is done in order to highlight privilege, differences, oppression, etc.... i don't know when exactly it started, but i've heard of it happening from the source (the kids that have done it), and heard others speak of it as a valid exercise to do in order to supposedly make various points.
I’m a teacher and I have kids. We live in a very progressive area and go to an especially progressive school. That has never happened in our school and I’ve never heard of it happening. My son just finished reading Ibram X. Kendi’s book “Stamp” for his book club in 7th grade. So our school very much is wrestling with these ideas at school, but there was no problem with kids actually pushing back on the ideas. We are white and it can be uncomfortable to challenge ideas of identity politics as a white boy because he doesn’t want to come off racist, but he brought up the problem extreme identity politics pushing white people to embrace Trump. I think it’s much more healthy for the kids to be able to openly talk about these issues together. I can only imagine that if they separate the kids at any school to talk about race then they do it for a short time and then bring them back together. But still I think it would be an extremely bad idea and I’ve never heard of any school doing it.
@@ResurgentVoice since school policies are largely locally determined, there isn't going to be a universally applicable answer. some do it, some don't. idk how common the practice is, but i have heard of it happening enough that i'd call it common. a vague term i know, just mean it isn't like some one off event somewhere once upon a time. as i said, it is done merely as an exercise, it is a brief thing, not an extended thing. it is done to provide stark visual and experiential materials for the students (multi-pronged learning methods) to accompany whatever the lecture or written material points are being covered.
@@eliashe1797 Like @ResurgentVoice, I live in a very liberal area. Exercises like that never happened at my kids' schools. If it's not happening here, I have a hard time believing that it's common. It sounds more like something you'd hear on Fox News to enrage the wingnuts. If it DID happen at my kids' school, I would have raised holy hell. I think separating kids by race, creating in-groups vs "others", is an absolutely *horrible* idea.
Psychedelics definitely have potential to deal with mental health symptoms like anxiety and depression, I would like to try them again but it's just so hard to source out here
I’ve been researching on psychedelics and it’s benefits to individuals dealing with Anxiety, Depression, ADHD and from my findings, they really work and I’ve been eager to get some for a while but its been difficult to get my hands on them.
The Trips I've been having really helped me a lot. I’m now able to meditate and I finally feel in control of my emotions and my future and things that used to be mundane to me now seem incredible and full of nuance on top of that I'm way less driven by my ego and I have alot more empathy as well
@@CarmenOrtiz440I feel the same way too. I put too much on my plate and it definitely affects my stress and anxiety levels. I am also glad to be a part of this community.
In what way are all men created equal? This is a fundamental mistake on the part of the founding fathers, and should have been “all men are equally created”
Really? I would have never have guessed that..... not like this channel has been platforming the proponents of this extreme ideology or anything and giving it credibility it never earned. Oh wait yeah that's exactly what Big Think has been doing for several years now. I'm still BIg Mad with Big Think for playing it's role in all of this but credit where it is due having this chap on Is a step in the correct direction.
The only issue with his examples is towards the end. Capitalism is in fact based on classism and racism. The whole premise of capitalism is exponential growth and the strongest cost in capitalist is labor. The chattel slavery issue was used to incur cheap labor. The domestication and limited rights of women historically is used to save on childcare and childrearing for men. I do understand the polarized witch hunting he is trying to lay out as people attack the person and not the argument (a professor habitually said this) but his content was a poor execution.
If your "identity" has never been illegal, never been outlawed, never been demonized... don't tell those who have this experience they should not organize around it's defense, and proper valuation.
As always happens, some of the worst ideas originate in academia. Lacking real-life experiences (such as manual labor or business for example), academics often think of themselves as morally and intellectually superior to those outside their academic safe space. Consequently, they believe they can represent groups of people instead of allowing individuals to represent themselves
Anyone who wants to emphasize our differences instead of our commonalities should be summarily dismissed. It appears that the diversity apostles are mostly about abrogation of power.
The critique is that neglecting differences overlooks specific ways in which minorities experience life differently. It homogenizes people in a way that can make us immune to the harsh realities many people face. Always good to balance between what makes us similar and what makes us different.
@@kamran-r6d every person’s experience us unique. i dont wnna hear that shit. white male = privelege? wht about the white male who grew up poor with a single mother? The human condition is independent of stupid shit like skin color, which has no bearing on one’s brain
@@kamran-r6d i’m don’t disagree. we each have our own life experience and all are inherently different in significant ways. i take exception with focusing on differences that we have no control over and are mostly irrelevant. if you tell me someone is black, or white, it tells me zero about who they are or what their experiences have been. its non-information. tell me someone’s environment growing up, their nutrition, whether they felt loved and safe, the teachers they had, was their parenting healthy, did they experience nature, did they have opportunity to play sports or exercise, were they beaten or sexually abused. these things are race neutral. sorry, but i truly believe that people who focus on race are simply lazy thinkers … people looking for easy answers to complex problems that affect all americans regardless of what they happen to look like.
@@jamesstrom6991 I take your point. Where I would disagree is that most differences are out of our control anyway-especially your examples. Someone’s childhood environment, nutrition, family and school life, etc, are mostly out of the control of the individual. Where the race enters the discussion-and gender, class, sexuality, disability and the other “identity politics” categories-is that these markers are predictors (very key word) of the sorts of life experiences you describe. If I tell you about my gay black male friend who grew up in inner city Philly, you can get a pretty good idea of their environment, social experience, nutrition, family life, education, and so on. That of course doesn’t tell you everything about that person-and it might, in some circumstances, tell you almost nothing. But there is no one single factor that can explain a person. Identity markers are about statistical likelihoods and generalized patterns of experience-race is an important one among many other important ones. It’s lazy thinking to both disregard it and over depend on it. Empirically speaking, race and class are empirical predictors of life outcomes. For example, diabetes and obesity are disproportionately problems in lower income communities and communities of color. So simply being black and/or poor is a risk factor of obesity and diabetes-combine black and poor and you have yourself a very troubling empirical situation-on the level of aggregates.
@@jamesstrom6991 "if you tell me someone is black, or white, it tells me zero about who they are or what their experiences have been. its non-information." . there's a thing called "statistics", check the data on murders, rapes, incarceration, deaths by police shooting, separated by race and gender. it's a bunch of quantitative, real information...
"There hasnt been much attempt to explain where these ideas come from". This guys spent basically zero time online for the past decade I see. Well done on catching up to 2015.
What there really are is a series of overlapping ideas. And one thread of ideas that's very important, that I think gets left out because it might be a little frightening to talk about, is the direct line of ideas that goes from Lenin's 'Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism' to Mao's 'Little Red Book' to J. Sakai's 'Settlers: The Myth of The White Proletariat' (from whence we get terminology like "Settler Colonialism"). Lenin's basic thesis is in the title really, where Mao (and others like Ho Chi Minh) took that idea was into the context of nations fighting against capitalist imperialism in Asia. Now, as much as I admire The Black Panthers, I'm not going to pretend Bobby Seale wasn't bulk importing Mao's Little Red Book.. because he absolutely was. Mao's ideas appealed to people influenced by black nationalism. Now what J Sakai (a self described Maoist) did was take those simultaneously nationalist and anti-colonialist ideas and port them onto the context of communities of colour (particularly black and indigenous people) in predominently white countries, positioning marginalized groups as nations being colonized by the white supremacist system and "whiteness" in a broader sense. Under this view, all white people become "colonizers" and all people of colour become "marginalized communities" fighting against encroachment from things like "Cultural Appropriation", "gentrification" and later concepts like "Micro Aggressions". This is part of why you get groups like The Movement for Black Lives literally talking about separate black political power in the wake of the George Floyd riots. Obviously these ideas are incredibly reductive and potentially very divisive. Nonetheless, they are considered de rigueur amongst the various groups that get referred to as Antifa, for example.
@@TheParadox_ NOW the colonizer wants to make sure you forget how THEY identified you after their own identity of us has set us back a few generations. NOW we're all on the same playing field.
@@TheParadox_ Now that I choose to be proud of the very parts of me that made me less than a human, a slave, and the reason I was to be separate from you, you want to shoot me down again. How I feel about myself shouldn't be your business at this point. If I choose to see my identity as a reason to be respected and valued, but you don't, we may as well be in Jim Crow era. Right?
The problem with identity politics is the hypocrisy of having identity. A truly unracist society would have no identity, we would simply look at one another as humans. Even then, injustice would still be a problem.
We are very far from abolishing the concept of race if it is even possible. Having identities is not the problem and abolishing most of them is just sci fi at this point anyways. The problem is people being weird about identities.
This is why I believe people should prioritize fighting injustice, the core of the issues, rather than proxy problems that end up being the causes of wars when there was basically nothing wrong happening in the first place. Morality doesn’t apply differently to any one person based on their demographic and humans tend to have far more understandable and practical reasons for doing things than people can be willing to give them credit for
@@alexisvulfiaawenfern8112 Quite frankly I don't remember a single person in my life from 15 years ago talking about race. After movements such as Feminism, BLM, LGBTQ(+?) and other identitarian movements people on both sides are more discriminatory than they ever were here in the Netherlands when I was a kid. Sure we had our bad apples, but it was the exception not the rule.
@@hungrymusicwolf This could just be observation bias. Also one doesn't need to mention race to act in a racist way. The general trend throughout the world is that things are getting better.
@@alexisvulfiaawenfern8112 That same applies to the observation that there was much racism. So that argument doesn't hold any ground either way. Especially considering the research done on political beliefs in the social sciences, which is and was something like 80 - 95% left wing. Making any studies done there highly suspect.
Someone better tell the BBC and Disney. Whenever I hear the phrase "made for a modern audience" or "strong female character" I just switch off and avoid the show. Rey from Star Wars was a perfect example. Good at everything with no training. How did she know how to sail a boat in Episode 9 when she grew up on a desert planet?
idk how people can think identity is that important. I'm always changing constantly. one minute I'm a nascar driver on I-95 and the next I'm a guitarist in a band playing for an audience all alone in my room, but never will I ever need validation for what's in my head externally cause I know we all daydream together. we all love pretending to be someone else so it's stupid to base your life on identity. thank you for coming to my ted talk
I'm on the internet a lot, and it's very easy to get kicked out of a leftist server if you have a different opinion. Their views are also VERY difficult to understand. I didn't want to put up with the drama and mental gymnastics, so I went right, and I'll probably stay there until the left becomes sensible again. Personally, I want to be able to make money because it can lead to upward social mobility, so I do not consider capitalism evil, and I think identity politics is dividing people and that should be blatantly obvious. I can understand why parents are removing their children from public school and encouraging them not to go to college. The professors and teachers have gone crazy, if I'm to believe all of the online videos. Plus, most of the people I see championing leftism are like really rich people. Yeah, maybe you don't know the value of money if you've always had it, so maybe a cashless society sounds awesome, and maybe you don't know how hard it is to make and keep friends if you've always had something they want, so identity politics never made your friends shun and distrust you, but to the rest of us, this is insufferable.
When we’re talking about groups wtf does it even mean- all racist jokes / comments and jokes about the speaker being racist aside - what does it even look like? I think it’s different when you’re talking to or connecting w an individual person to person on a human level ie I have a friend from x group they’re one of the good ones. This is aside from the fact that sometimes stereotypes come from somewhere (as a meatball Italian-American from NY). I think there is a difference between having an out group and true dehumanization & crimes against humanity based on it.
there's just something about trying to paint everything (or everyone) as either black or white that comes off as, at best, disingenuous. there are spectrums all over the place so why wouldn't racism also be one..?
The irony of those who promote diversity is that diversity is inheritly unequal. For diversity to exist, there must be differences or more precisely, variation. Diversity is variation. Variation means not the same, not the same means not equal, not equal means inequality. The state of the human species is diversity aka inequality hence why not all humans, within a racial group and between groupe are the same not only in genetic inheritance but genetic expression. Not all people are talk dark and handsome, some are small, dark and handsome, some are small, light and handsome ad homen. I agree diverisity of thought and opinion should be welcome just like diversity of shape and colour makes a painting beautiful. Beauty is the unification, not uniformity, of diversity. There is beauty in diversity, but also beauty in the same, although limiting. Difference, or rather, variation isn't necesarily a bad or good thing. The proponents of diversity don't fully understand what they are actually mean by diveristy. They want a specific type of definition that is not true. A loud few of them don't even care about diversity and just want to so what they want without no consequence. They want uniformity, echo chambers and bubbles of sameness because it means safety, comfort, security, certainty and CONTROL. Reactionary, hyper sensitive due to trauma and essentially mental instability. They want to be heard but shout and scream after years of being shamed and guilt into shutting up. And the culture is to partly blame. The culture pushes short term symptom relief resulting in vices and addiction. Rather than tackle the cause/the system which means long term investment and work, you give out pills and apps to profit from to essentially dissmiss and avoid the problem. Consumerism, the commodification of society is killing us slowly and a few are profiting from this who live comfortable lives to the point of far removed lives. They cause their own echo chambers. True captilism is meant to empower the individual. To offer the individual means to thrive. Instead it's been perverted by short-terminism. Growing too fast and quick. Thats exactly what cancer does. It has no breaks, a mutation in the gene dysfunctioning. Modern society is dying from comsumerism, a form of capitalism that has no breaks (morals amd ethics) and grows and grows in a short time disregarding, neglecting, dissmissing and avoiding the long-term. Old folks who grew up in a different era who won't be here deciding for a younger generation who will have to deal with the consequences of short term thinking by them. Humans are natural born gamblers, we want maxium gain/reward for minimal investment/work. Consumerism does this but only for a few. Captilism, true captialism, would do this for most people with patience, tolerance and care. We have not actually seen true capitalism yet. In the future I hope to see this. Productivity was a necessity during the war effort during war that span across the world. Desperate times require desperate measures. We are not at war anymore, but we market/work/live like we are? Scarcity mindset pushing productivity like we're in war. So much negativity, get and take more because its "limited and there won't be anymore later" mentality. Such madness! Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and wondering where did it go wrong, then do it again only to repeat things again. We do this is relationships, politics and in life. Diversity is good, but rarely understand what it means. It means inherit inequality. Some things are better than other things only when compared. What it means is that there is no absolute superiority, only relative superiority. 100 years ago productivity was a matter of literal life or death. In war, those with the bigger amount of force wins. We are not in a global war anymore, but we are being pushed like we are? Everything is forced, including diversity. Only big cities in London know and live with diversity, the rest of the 80% of UK only see diversity through second hand experience like the tv, radio and maybe when they go visit. Nobody wants to be pushed and shoved. Time is our friend, its not our enemy yet we are rushing as if a bomb is going to blow us all up. History is important yes, and I understand that we, as a species, old and young have never been in this position before so we have no clue when what will happen in the future but if we look at the past, we don't want that. But we know what has happened in the past, and because we know this, the past is more certain than the future so might as well look to the past for guidance which is virtually suicidal. The past is full of death, but also much of life. If we take anything from the past it is life remained, we adapted and survived. But we want to thrive. Let go of older ways, not evrything in the past is good. Not everything new is good. The present is build on the past, but the future is built on the present, lets not try to live the present like we're in the past. We don't have to live like before, live in the present, with patience. Pushing leads to shoving, shoving leads to stampedes, stampedes lead to trampling and trampling leads to death. Only those who are the quickest survive to only realise they are virtually alone. Nobody wants to be alone, becauase isolation means death. A great man once said, and I paraphrase, "What good is it if man gains the world, but looses his soul." If you were to own the whole world, be the last one standing after fighting and defeating everyone and there was nobody on your side, you will be the loneliest man. The soul is within community, connection, family and if your "enemies" were still around, and you left them blind and wounded. You will be lonely, outnumbered, lost, have no connection or loyalty, you'll be souless.
Definitions of equity and equality are relative. Meanings are contextual, that is the beauty of words, they "diversify" depending on the context you put them in. There is a difference yes, but defining them logically without any reason is where we are at - focusing on abstract intellectualisiations of words and ignoring, dissmissing, avoiding and rejecting the tangible things those meanings are being attached to. We all want rights but none of the responsibility so we make up stories to justify our lack of confidence and competence. "Victimhood" mentality where an injustice apparently has been done only when judging by present standards disregarding that such an injustice has morphed into something different but not as worse. That's how equality works, little by little we start diminishing inequality we can control. Not by trying to reduce the inequality we can't control. The past we can't control, only the present. The future we can't control, but we can affect by the present. We talk about equality without realising for equality to exist we first must acknowledge not everyone is equal, that the supposed problem we have is inequality and that exists at the begininng of the "argument." I can provide you with different meanings of equity and equality, they can be qualified by adding and taking way words to modify their meanings to confirm my bias and prove me right or even wrong. The point is, fairness which is the essence of equality is a philosophical (moral and ethical) child of society. The "fact" is that equality and equity, don't exist in the natural world. These are noble human values that only exist with the confines of human circumstances and phenomenon like society. In the wild, there is no society like ours. Society is a human construct based on imherited animal instincts. Herd mentality isn't the same as human society where civilisation and culture thrive. Animals no nothing about equality or equity. they do not debate or argue and leave comments on UA-cam for us to discuss, debate, like or dislike and confirm our bias. Equity and equality only exist in human society. And human society is largely based on much of our inherited animal instincts which can not be denied. The moment we deny it, the moment we fall into confusion. But that's part of the process of learning, trial and error the essential basis of evolution. What we know to be equal now, is different 100 years ago, even 1000 years ago. There is no absolute definition of these words, only relative definitions dependant on their context/circumstances/experience/environment. To look back on the past with our new morals like they didn't know anything, or knew less is arrogant and ignorant. For the past to look at us and say we lost our way, is also ignorant and arrogant because they are living in the present where life is. Life happens in the present, not the past or future. And we use our old definitions as guides in the present to trial and error and create "new" definitions for the future. Not everything old is valuable, much of it that is stays in the present, not much that is new is valuable, anything that is guides the present to better ways.
This is a wonderful rendition of "image driven, academic neo-pretentious pontificating". This performance would be a perfect comedy act and I would love to be your manager.
I'm not americana*zi, so it's always crazy to me to hear americana*zi describe literal f-ism, "treating groups of people based on which group they belong to" as "left wing" and then by extension they often attribute that to "communism" - what? no, communism is about class, class is 99% vs 1%, it's not identity as you can't become rich as identifying as rich. and then they call people who speak against vvar, against animal cruelty, and pro doing evidence based science, they call them "right wing" - again, no, people with such takes are the closest thing in lamerica to left wing. they don't have left wing as such in lamerica, cause no politician would give you basic human rights that rest of the world enjoys, and working class people fight amongst themselves about which billionaire is the best, those who self identify as "right" but are more left in reality, they prefer musk, and those f-ists, who self identify as left wing (just offensive) they prefer dr mengele aka gates - us actual communists would strip both of them of their rights, and wealth, and redistribute it to the population. their money, if any, would go into rebuilding the collapsing infrastructure, paving roads, fixing and building bridges, electrical grid, drinking water to every house, and so on, the lands of gates would probably be turned into state owned (therefore you owned cause communist state is the opposite of cra*pitalist state) where food would be produced for entire nation, with least amounts of pesticides, antibiotics, gmos and so on, or, it would be redistributed directly into the hands of young couples, willing to start their married life "in the village". if either of them has any tech worth salvaging - probably not, it would be provided to use and develop for free, tho most of it would probably just be binned, like, who the hell needs spyware?
I was similarly confused by the labels and terminology. I recommend reading the wiki articles on politics, philosophy and sociology. The rabbit hole you want to go down to understand this is basically: Marxism leads to post-Marxism, in which postmodernists in France apply the same methods to "identities" and from there feminism was further developed (in its current tocksick form) along with "gender theory" and CRT. Over time this was incorporated into the American "left" and is now known as modern American liberalism. Note that these people pretty much reject class struggle altogether. This is why you hear people saying this stuff is Marxist even though it has absolutely nothing to do with economics or class struggle. This is the "new left" in America. The traditional left, which we are a part of, focuses on economic issues, not the identity politics rotting today's society. You're welcome.
I'm not a US citizen but I observe with growing fear what is happenenig on the other side of the Atlantic. And I don't mean the rise of vocal and organized identity-based groups - I rather envy that. I mean the course the critical rhetoric around these groups is taking. In this video I hear a lot of big scary words like "ideology", "destruction", "politically pure" but I don't hear why these words have been used by a scolar to describe a socio-political situation. There are, however, some parts of the political agenda of "the left" like eradication of any form of racism or social injustice. If more institutions are being accused of racism, it does not necessarily mean that the word loses its meaning but rather that people started to take this meaning seriously. Some people for sure are overreacting but statistically it must be a small minority since all the discriminated groups (except women) are social minorities. But in this clever rhetoric these separate and scarce groups seem to form an invasive horde capable of abolishing constitution. The thing is: even if they do, they're not a horde, they are citizens, and that' how democratic politics work - people think, want a change, organize, and try to implement the change.
Thank you for your comment. THe scholar in question seems uninterested in delving into the generational aspects of violence-induced trauma experienced by racial minorities even as he examines racially segregated spaces in the classroom. It sometimes takes an external voice like yours to pick on those nuances. It must be much harder to see the forest for the trees when you are being told explicity or otherwise that your country is the best in the world (US) or that you are the nicest, most polite people(Canada.) I think the sediment of the violence we exerted on populations that preceded us or that we forced into our country has not dissolved into nothingness, but it's easier to perceive that it has when we don't experience the violence the groups the scholar alludes to do.
You should talk to your brother. The right is correct about certain things but for the wrong reasons. It's possible to still be economically left but be objective and empirical and disclaim association with the modern american liberal "left". In america we tend to call ourselves independent, but people like me are true left, as in traditional left. Not this new left brain rot nonsense.
Wokeness, the toxic ideas of Di Angelo and Kendi, have supercharged the far right. The left has been my political home all my life, but they have really gotten things wrong on race and identity. They harm the very people they think they're helping, and are tearing our country apart.
@@monopolybillionaire5027 don't listen to people like this. They're precisely the ones with the gigantic brain being described in the video. Talk to your brother. The true, old left, doesn't have anything to do with sjw nonsense. Unless he's religious and wants all that stuff pushed on society, traditional left has a place for him if he understands the reforms necessary in our economy and why capitalism and business as usual isn't cutting it.
You are not a person but a group and you have no internal locus of control, take no personal responsibility, blame “oppression” (society) for all your problems and you are therefore miserable…if you buy into identity politics.
I would agree with some of the psychological aspects, but being antiracist means AT THE MINIMUM the ability to identify it. Nobody is perfect. One MUST indeed be antirascist or defaults in complicity. I liked this theory, but some of it is giving red flags. Am I now just woke privilaged?
Maybe your'e overestimating most people's ability to identify racism? Confirmation bias and preconceptions are a thing. Listen more and judge less. In China's cultural revolution people were judged as traitors for abstract or personal art and literature that had nothing to do with whether they were guilty of anything or even aware that it had some kind of implication according to the communist party. Because the party decided what the implications where. Not them. This logic is bad.
@adrianaslund8605 My point was about actively striving to be antiracist, which involves ongoing learning and self-awareness. It's not about judgment but rather about acknowledging our role in combating systemic racism. Would you agree that being antiracist requires continuous effort and reflection?
I just can't imagine living my whole live as a victim. I can't imagine multiple generations of my family living as victims. The idea of victimhood is so ridiculous because it tells people that nothing is their fault and that it is always someone else's fault. The fact that rampant anti white racism exists and is accepted is very damaging. White millennials raised the least racist white children in history but modern people completely messed that up by telling them they are racist anyway. And now there is no turning back. You can see that in the political divide between the genders in Gen Z and Alpha. White women embraced the fact they were evil colonizers. Young white men did not and now we have the most political separation between the genders in history.
You mean calling everyone a bigot dilutes what it means to be a bigot and means claims of bigotry won't be taken seriously? No no, that's Nazi talk. NAZZZZZZZZIIIIIIII, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. ...I'm taking the piss y'all, relax.
Some people are in a permanent underclass because of their "identity". He didn't delve into who created the American and global notion of race, who weaponized it, and who benefits in this culture from it. In a world where basic civil rights protections are being rolled back, we simultaneously have intellectuals advocating for the "content of my character" approach to addressing unfairness designed and baked into all of our national systems. People are intensely devoted to maintaining a racial hierarchy (and class inequity based on racism) by deliberately discouraging people from talking honestly about this system set up to benefit white, cis, men. Let's make the structure more equitable all identities then we'll not have a need for this concept of "identity politics".
A foundation of a country is a foundation you cannot remove by simple majorities. You need super majorities because people usually d*ie for those base-line conditions (i.1. Constitutional Rights for free speech) Now if there is actually a bias systems in place such as "qualified Immunity," get rid of those. Let us prosecute for discrimination when things have damages such as cost and. If you don't want to hire LGBTQ+ peoples that should be made CLEAR before one would even consider dealing in business. Take women's sports for example: Sorry but it is BIOLOGY 🚻and if it is otherwise than make that distinction. 🤔 You mention "make the structure more equitable" is totally up to the peoples of a society. If Schools want to use diversity quotas in such pursuits -- it should be noted that: 'IT IS DISCRIMINATION' ... however that should be made clear to students applying that their color of skin will effect application results by X Y Z % Factors.
Asians and Indians do better than white people. Women are graduating university at higher rates than men are. No one even knows other peoples' sexualities unless they bring them up. Class in America isn't about race, sex, sexuality or anything of the like it's about the elite v.s. the average, and so long as the average people continue to divide themselves based on those other, stupid things then the elites will always win.
When anyone starts inferring characteristics indirectly there's something dishonest going on. Rather than looking at what is right there we filter it through some circuitous route, specifically because that's an opportunity to introduce distortion. Perhaps the urge to distort is justified, but that doesn't change what it is or that it is the wrong approach. People are not their ancestors and you don't know about them by inferring generalities from unrelated characteristics. Even if someone who shares unrelated characteristics with them has inferred generalities. "People like you did this" is routing circuitously through history and inferring knowledge based on unrelated characteristics.
@@robertsouth6971 When it comes to the ancient term "bastard" it was such an old long-used term because it had direct correlation to crime. Again it still must be said: Correlation does not equal causation.
Think of the symbol for justice as embodied in statues at courthouses: A blindfold representing impartiality. A very high scientific ideal, we fall horribly short on due to partiality. The core/essence thorn OF politics and political discourse IS bias/impartiality. If we could merely allow the facts to speak for themselves, we would not be seeking power, but truth, and “politics” would be no more. We would still disagree, but it would be from a lack of solid information, or a lack of rational capacity. We would respect tenure, expertise, experience, training. We would have no “parties”, or sides, because we would all be working together towards a common goal: truth. But we’re not. We’re interested in power, which is winning for ourselves and our sides. Our identities. Politics IS, always has been, always will be, at its core, about our identity and the groups represented. Politics is the struggle for power. There are those looking to win, aka for a group and its identity which grants privilege, and those looking for justice and a redress of true grievances. It’s absurdly clear just who’s involved in identity politics. There is the oppressor and the oppressed and the historical record is replete with examples, IF you’re not hell bent on dismissing and ignoring them. On the one hand, I’m deeply dismayed we haven’t grasped these fundamentals of reality, and betray them so consistently. If we’re going to bring our collective heads out of the chaos/mayhem, we’re going to have to slow down and think very hard about these fundamentals. And be better human beings-the real problem, one that religion has been tasked to solve. “Identity Politics” as a term, is a redundancy, and therefore absurd. Politics IS about identity, and true to form, the rights war on truth and devolvement into chaos, has taken their own grand strategy and flipped the script. Like so much else invented on the right fashioned to confuse. “Fake news” is propaganda, and wasn’t an invention of the left, but has been part of the rights well funded culture war for over 70 years. “Cancel culture” was created when WASP, White, Anglo Saxon Protestants, MADE any other culture as fringe/foreign. “Political Correctness” is nothing more than cultures and norms evolving and changing as they always have and always will. Every cultural norm we have is a consequence of our discourse. A discourse that becomes contentious, NATURALLY. NOT some insidious, misguided, “leftist” plot. These terms are codes by the right. A new language that creates our fundamental divide. Non scientific and illogical, as I hope you can see. Welcome to reality. Some of us have been studying it long before 2016, Rush Limbaugh and Barry Goldwater. Please, for everyone’s sake, TRULY think yourself, TRULY be independent before all words and the most critical components to our language is destroyed-and the soul/spirit of anything sacred is wiped from our collective memory. Liberty is based on the rule of law, and its fundamental task is the protection of ALL citizens from unnecessary limitations so that we may ALL have a reasonably equal chance of living a good life. Basic, basic stuff, warped by the right in a war, with literal casualties/fatalities. For those who have slept through the last 70 years, PLEASE try to educate yourselves and stop outsourcing your mind to others and just parroting their lines-no one wants to be a useful idiot, but sadly, were awash. Liberty is NOT doing whatever we choose to do, but whatever is true and correct, given the entire body of citizens AND the historical record of unnecessary advantages and disadvantages. Liberty/freedom has limitations because “no man is an island” unto themselves. Biblically speaking, transgressions. Freedom comes with limits, we call laws that must be honored. Rules, edges, boundaries. In the same way we cannot abuse our biological limits, we cannot abuse the social limitations that we’re all, ultimately, deeply dependent on. The only way we can ever be truly free is to think for ourselves and to submit to the needs of the greater good. Those OUTSIDE our tribe/click/culture. To share. We are an experiment, it is true, but that’s something religion has recognized now for millennia. The true test is in the quality of the soul/spirit, it’s reverence for the sacred, and the resistance to its corruption
utter nonsense. there s a range of commonality. at one end, we are each unique. at the other end we are all the same. our brains are built to generalize and categorize. its efficient. its entirely possible (and there is ample precedent) to have a society where one’s personal traits are irrelevant in social and political spheres. people who focus on differences are lazy thinkers. whatever problems we have, the solutions must be universally applicable and neutral with respect to personal traits. it is the only way for linguistics term peaceful coexistence and progress.
You started out really strong man but you veered off the rails quite a bit. At the start until "...Our identities." You were spot on. However, religion is just another way that people employ tribalism to gain power and prioritize their group. Religion is emphatically not about the greater good, and if you think it is, you might be a tad misinformed; naive, perhaps. I take the start of your comment and propose we move to a post political society where we look only at objective facts and dispense with seeking power and benefitting only a certain group. Indeed politics is all about identity, on the right especially, and in america the last 50 years the left has veered all the way into la la land in this regard. There's gotta be a better way than being drunk on ideology, in whatever form.
Honestly fuck politics. I respect the hell out of celebrities who stay away from this shit. The more you understand it, the more you realize politics is just people masquerading their own vision of the world without respect for people who are different. It is always someone from party X saying "Party Y is responsible for all this division!" and not doing anything to solve the problem. It's not even worth correcting people. Just yellow rock them, "yeah, oh wow that's crazy".
I think hes wrong and its bigger issue than this good but narrow analysis Identity politics comes from someones brand of injustice becoming more important than class struggle . The criticism of capitalism and the fight for socialism or communism has ended . I think its a place were political parties standing in elections have all become right wing capitalist supporting parties and will only reform it and the more right wing want to take us back to 1920s lassez-faire capitalism. Basically its arguing over economic nuances and concentrating on social problems . This is the lazy period before empires collapse when you revere entertainers instead of warriors or good thinkers/ideas and new ways. The usa is an empire and the head of capitalism (seen as a empire and system).
Thank you for this very lucid discussion. As someone who is close to 70 years old and been in higher education since the 1980s and have been an out gay activist for all that time, I really disliked the emergence of identity politics over anything else. In my own world, my very dear friend, Gilbert Baker, who invented the now Universal rainbow flag - the gift of gay people to the world - was a symbol for everyone on earth because every stripe represented a universal human value.
Then came the identitarians, and one little smarmy dick who decided that Gilbert's flag needed editing. Gilbert never copyrighted the rainbow flag, but Mr. Quasar, author of the so-called "progress flag", did exactly that! He copyrighted that very ugly piece of failed vexillography with the identititarian chevron of race and trans identity. This infuriated me. Interestingly, it's a classic case of cultural appropriation by a profiteer. It's not his art to piss on. And now that ugly flag is everywhere and Mr. Quasar makes money every time it's printed. I'm glad that Gilbert did not live to see what the postmodernists did to our social movement.
More generally, I'm also an activist in the Democratic Socialist of America. I joined them because I'm a socialist. But our meetings are now heavily lathered with identarian politics- from the pronouns to the land acknowledgment, Karl Marx has gone out the window, and Judith Butler has taken his place. Identity politics has essentially killed the left in the United States, and, because United States is an all too powerful cultural entity on the planet, it has spread its little cancer all over the world.
Sir, you are 100% right. I’ve been saying precisely this in Australia for a decade and now I have simply stepped out of the gay rights movement because it’s full of identitarians (mainly disgruntled straights with purple hair) who think being homosexual is a manifestation of transphobia.
Your personal history is quite interesting. I’m an independent 54 yo physician who typically purposefully avoids politics. However it has become impossible to avoid at this point. I’d say I’m fiscally conservative but socially quite liberal, and the few times I’ve voted have always been for democrats until now. I’ve always been for equality, but the equity concept brought about by the current liberalism is against equality, and actively promotes racism and sexism. I’m extremely tolerant, so the oppressor oppressed version applied to race and sex leading to white guilt/toxic masculinity, seemed twisted but didn’t particularly bother me even though I’m the worst offender apparently as a white man. I know who I am and refuse to yield to idiotic social pressures. I was 100% for gay marriage and equality, but the delusion of gender fluidity where the fact of biological sex was denied and an infinite number of identities were possible struck me as unusual to say the least. However, I wasn’t against it because I still believe everyone has the right to live as they wish, as long as it doesn’t infringe upon the rights of others. It crossed that line when refusal to “affirm” and use their “chosen pronouns” was considered harassment, and shockingly considered a civil rights violation. It’s not a stretch to see that evolving into “hate speech” punishable by imprisonment, which I pray is avoided since the republicans won the presidency, house, and senate. The most incredulous event in this movement was when confused impressionable children were becoming indoctrinated into this, and became absolutely mortified when I learned that colleagues in my profession where medically and even surgically “transitioning” children, who clearly aren’t old enough to predict future consequences of these current decisions. I pray this ceases immediately with the new administration. I know that the personal identity politics is an extreme version of the oppressor oppressed narrative, and isn’t representative of prior liberalism, but it shows me the potential dangers to society and I find it extremely difficult to imagine that I will ever consider myself a social liberal ever again. This has literally broken down the moral fiber of our country, divided people who were previously unconcerned with sexual identity or skin color, and has even destroyed marriages and broken down the importance of the family unit and spirituality, as being religious is now seen as a moral inferiority by the far left.
"The fixation with your identity limits your identity." ~ Ayishat Akanbi
excellent!
There's like 16 personalities and we're all a mixture of them. Obviously 16 is just an assumption. We're super complex
Exactly! Every person is many things all at once.
Who created the concept of race?
Fixation on identity minimizes the individual, it puts everyone in a group and takes away their voice. This is how Democrats operate
The problem with identitarianism is that it dehumanizes by treating people as categories instead of individuals. It’s a form of bigotry.
Well fking said
Kinda, but not really. What it does is looks at outcomes and uses them as indicators for implicit bias. It’s an axiom that talent is equally distributed. Since we’re social creatures, it must also be an axiom that opportunity is not equally distributed. EO is a political way of addressing the implicit bias. I mean, it would be nice if people could just not be bigots. It would be nice if measurements could be not biased. But this is the real world, so unless you have a better idea, cram your reverse racism right up your privilege.
@@altortugas5979 So the NBA is 90% black because of implicit racial bias. Most mathematicians are men because of implicit sexism. Most nurses and teachers are women because of bias. Jazz players are disproportionately black because racism. Utter nonsense. We live in a complex society made of the most complex thing in nature - the human brain. Your reductionism dodges these complexities, and the examples prove that not all outcomes are explained by bias. One asserting a claim bears the burden of proof, and the “proof” that implicit bias is the uber factor that drives outcome is highly suspect to say the least. In fact, it’s a kind of magical thinking that pretends to be able to infer the state of mind of millions, which is absurd.
Even worse, It instantly creates division by saying "If I am (label), then you are (label) or not (label)" and this is the base of current political social polarization, down to the tribalism in our primitive brains.
@@altortugas5979 identitarians _assume_ the existence of implicit bias. But you couldn't prove to me that it actually does exist (let alone to such a pervasive degree) any more than I could prove to you there exists a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
And don't bother citing the studies which claim to show implicit bias is a thing. I've seen them. They are catastrophically flawed; useless as a real measure..
The saddest thing that happened on the left is being unable to hear and listen to criticism from already left-leaning people, or anyone for that matter.
you mean “unable”?
@@jamesstrom6991 yes, thank you for the correction!
There are the leftists who like Biden, and the rest of us who think he's been making some terrible decisions.
Being so quick to generalize everyone you disagree with on certain topics is what leads to unuseful culture war fights that avoid the issues. We gotta stop doing that: if you don't think there are very bad actors/decisions on both sides, you've been fooled to be hyper focused, and to make weak arguments.
It's cult mentality. if you even slightly disagree with the cult, you're gone. It really highlights the weak arguments they're making. A simple question like "what is a women" just destroys them.
@@MikeWoot65 A woman is a person who identifies as a woman. They can probably give birth, probably are XX, (XY born women exist) and probably dress in a way their country considers feminine. - Me, a "leftist"
Maybe you spreading overgeneralizations about how "destroyed" we all are, just makes you sound ignorant. Your question was very easy to answer in a way that offends no one who understands basic biology and acknowledges gender identities.
I was in a conversation with someone regarding Identity and DEI. The other person informed me that I had privilege because I was able to pay for a cruise. Then I was told I had "able" privilege because I had all of my facilities, physically and mentally while others may not. We then discussed a training video of someone attempting to correct a coworker's language as the person said "let's get to the meeting quickly as it is all hands on deck." he was then told, that you cannot say all hands on deck because not everyone has hands and it is insensitive. His initial reaction was, "Everyone in this meeting has hands". but then he said "but I will be more careful next time." while my friend agreed with the all-hands sentient, I explained the silliness in the language because it does not work in all cases. My rebuttal example was if I were to say that something is so simple it is a no-brainer, is that then insensitive to people who don't have brains. It actually becomes ridiculous at some point.
I wouldn't hold my breath for things to change. But then, that would be offensive to people without lungs.
In terms of morality, it becomes increasingly difficult to have compassion for one another if we feel fundamentally different from one another. Those who perpetuate evil and injustice tend to justify their actions to themselves by pretending that other people are 'different' and thus the same set of moral precepts which would normally apply no longer apply. This is exactly what the demons and despots of the past have used as justification for their actions and if we no longer fight for equality, understanding and compassion for all, then the people of the world will always be at war with one another, never seeing the truth--namely that we all are fundamentally the same, with the same propensity to feel pain, same propensity to desire happiness in life, and same potential for intelligence, magnanimity and truth
Sounds like a cultural failure you should work on. I dont lack empathy for people because they are different to me... i humanize people in my head and that's enough for me to want them to have better living circumstances and experiences.
@@ZanaharyBunziMaat I'm not talking about myself
@@ZanaharyBunziMaat Also, the reason you still are able to humanize people is because you consider humans to be fundamentally the same despite cultural differences, but this video is about people who think humans ARE fundamentally different (they are not)
In one way it sounds like the rise of “individualism” when everyone becomes more individual, we also become more individual in the work space. We all have to sell who we are. That’s way we see each other more and more different because we have to compete against each other more and more when work also disappear’s.
@@JasonMcMullen Yeah you are. Who said that we have to be the same in order to value them morally? Not the Bible. The Catholic Church did. That's why they spread the good news by the tip of their swords during the crusades.
As a non-US viewer his points tend to showcasenvery much what I find weird about US left wing politics.
So much identity so little class struggle, but hey you do you
Yeah they're all the way down the (Post-marxist which leads into the) postmodern/poststructuralist rabbit hole. That's where you get CRT and 3rd/4th wave feminism with their identity obsession. This has been promulgated by corporate america because it rather conveniently shifts the focus away from class struggle which is what would directly undermine their power (and, might I add, is by far the central issue of the day since the civil rights and women's rights movements have reached their goals decades ago). They were delighted to see that these new Marxists didn't think class struggle was the thing and and either outright reject it or remain blissfully ignorant of its existence. The capitalists have been exploiting it to the fullest. What a time to be alive eh?
Because here in the U.S. the myth of a classless society is not recognized as such. The obscenely rich and obscenely poor give lip service to the fantasies of the 18th century ruling class. "We the People" (as our constitution begins) didn't mean everyone then, and as yet still doesn't. The wealthy here understand this better than the poor, and finance the atomization of political discourse along a variety of identitarian lines. Divide and conquer - Divide and control.
That's by design and why liberals have elevated identity politics so high. It serves as something radical that doesn't threaten capital interest. That's why the bourgeois are totally on board with queer washing, such as nearly every company having rainbow colored profile pictures and so forth. It's radical without supporting a greater class consciousness and is palatable to capital interests.
They are closely tied because many harmful policies that kept people poor were(and continue to be) enacted on racial lines. This is why we see a disproportionate number of people of color being poor vs whites.
Class unity certainly matters but these issues wont get fixed by taking a color blind approach because they are colored by the racism of the past and present.
@@ZanaharyBunziMaat I would love to believe this but in reality, all I've ever seen is screaming that this is a problem yet there is zero concrete discussion on specific policies and their intent and outcomes, including quantitative analysis. It's a big claim and requires evidence.
Furthermore, you misunderstand the entire point. Colorblindness would quite literally solve this because your very claim is that those in power aren't. The idea is to make everyone, including and especially those in power colorblind. Yes, it will literally solve the problem.
Finally, you and most nowadays treat this purely as a sociological issue. Reality is that part of the issue has already been improved enormously. Economically, the system is built to keep the poor poor and the rich richer. This is a colorblind phenomenon. If more people of a certain "identity" are still held down, people like you will mistake this for a current racial issue when it simply isn't. It's a legacy of past policy that's remained unchanged purely because of the economic system in place. THAT'S why we we disproportionate numbers.
One more point: You also need to consider culture, and the culture of those poor are not conducive to success, and this is exemplified by the performance of equally poor immigrants. Besides this there's also epigenetics, which is very real. Behaviors and traumas can be carried forward genetically and can account for a hefty percentage of behavior. Most appears to still be based on environment, but when that environment is a culture that isn't conducive to success and you're inside an economic system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor, all of a sudden all of the crying about current racism falls apart. The majority of the discrepancy can be explained by much more objective means without appeal to racial ideology.
So, yes, quite literally a colorblind approach to fixing the economic system would succeed in bringing significant change. Additional support to address the culture and epigenetic factors getting in the way from historical trauma can further bridge the gap. Current racism is an excuse. It's not the main cause in today's western society.
While "Identity politics" in it's extreme form is definitely problematic, I find that the seperate issue of lack of acceptance of diversity of viewpoints on the left even more disturbing. Perhaps it is the same on the right, but it seemed like the left in previous decades was very much about freedom of speech. But now speech is equated with "violence" if it happens to offend someone. The problem with this, is that there many people who could be "offended" by just about anything. I'm not talking about the obviously harmful stuff like threats, and vicious bigoted attacks that would be considered fine back in the 1800s but are no longer accepted as acceptable discourse today. I'm talking about simple opinions about what is and isn't racist, what policies are good or bad, etc. On the left it seems that politics has become so tribal that having an alternative view on anything brands you as "impure" and many people have been "kicked out of the club for this." Maybe this exists on the far right as well, I don't know, since I've always been liberal, but yeah, it's gotten to the point that I no longer want to be involved in politics, or at least not partisan politics, and consider myself an independent, even though based on many political test I take I'm much more towards the left of center on most issues.
Indeed, I agree with your take. It's what I've seen as well. Don't worry, according to a political test I am all the way on the left and in the middle of libertarian. Yet, I hate the "woke", "sjw" brand of "leftism" in America, aka modern American liberalism. Don't worry, I believe you're firmly on the left, just like I am. I think true leftists that understand and prioritize economic issues should be louder and take back the label from the crazed mob that's proliferated for the last decade. Sanity needs to be brought back, extremism needs to be toned down, and open discourse needs to once more become normalized instead of the professional victimhood that's been endlessly promoted and spread like wildfire.
Intersectionalism I think might be the answer you're looking for. Class struggle encompasses what many consider to be identity politics as you know it. That might be a leftist perspective that's not as divisive for example
@@channeldoesnotexist my main issue is that I don't think identifying as a "leftist" is helpful for us, I don't think identifying with a specific party, political orientation, social group, etc., is ultimately useful for anyone, it just creates tribes who want to assert that their tribe is the best, the truest, the only valid solution. This is part of the problem with politics, especially today, except that at least in the US it's seen as a binary choice (no pun intended), and because of this the vast middle is caught having to pick sides or just opt out entirely. Rather, I want to get beyond labels and simply push for what I think are good decisions for specific issues, but I may disagree with you one one issue and agree with you on another, and that's totally fine, I would still work with you on the one we agree with, and just try to convince you to go a different way on the one we disagreed with. But given that I agreed with you on one issue would show to me that we did share commonalities and so it would want to make me understand why you thought differently then me on an issue that we disagreed with, and who knows, you might even convince me I'm wrong! The point is, having a specific ideology/tribe/camp/etc. that holds a specific set of positions on a vast number of subjects, essentially forces us to adhere to that specific ideology and set of positions even if we differ with it on some things.
@@McDonaldsRich my experience with "intersectionalism" or "intersectionality" or however it's termed is that it's a term that is pushed by the "progressive" social justice crowd. To me it seems that while it appreciates our many different identities, which is good, it also pushes those identities and values the ones that are the most marginalized. Thus if you are a black female lesbian, you have have a bunch of intersectional bona fides, but if you are just a white male who isn't poor, not "working class," well, you have no value because, essentially, the world is set up around you, you have all the privilege by default, and thus your views have no value. In other words, we need to ONLY listen to the historically marginalized because we're listening to the privileged already all the time by default. There may even be some truth to that, but I believe then you're essentially marginalizing another group (in certain ways) by devaluing their positions. This only leads to more polarization as that new marginalized group feels left out and disrespected and ends up pissed at the new "valued" groups.
@@dvdmon Interesting take but I don't agree that merely the existence of labels necessarily leads to tribalism. I think that's the result of extremist positions, which is what we've seen proliferate in america recently. I wholeheartedly agree that different groups can and should work towards common goals at the very least. This can be achieved by abolishing *partisanship* and emphasizing openness and cooperation. I think the leftist label is useful insofar as it stands for the political and economic platform that seeks to ameliorate the objectively unequal and unfair economic system that effectively holds most of society hostage under the power of a few elite at the top. Human greed and thirst for power, as always, is driving this, and constructing a system that by design seeks to undermine and minimize this damaging, innate impulse of our species is what the program of leftism should be, and it is at least based on objective facts about our species and the societies we've built thus far.
Identity Politics can be tricky. The more you dig deep into it, the more you kinda realize everyone takes every situation by face-value.
my ethnicity and gender group doesn't represent who I am, but identity politics forces me to choose sides.
Bingo. Especially if one side tells you that you are toxic and privileged and oppressing.
Seeing this after the election. This dude was spot on! 💯
He's going to have a successful speaking tour now 💰
I think a poignant phrase is “historically oppressed and marginalized people”. We should be focusing on avoiding any CURRENT oppression and marginalization, less so on the marginalization because that’s mostly got to do with the amount of people in a certain group which doesn’t necessarily imply anything wrong or unfair happening to them. We should strive towards recognizing the ways we as individuals are actively treating people unfairly and unjustly in the current moment rather than reserve moral judgment for certain groups or types of people based on history or arbitrary traits.
But then how are they suppose to court votes if they don't divide and concur lol
Beautiful 👍
@@MikeWoot65 Or sell us things.
So well-said, so true!!
Great let's focus on current oppression and marginalization.... Oh! Looks like a great deal of current oppression is directed at the historically oppressed ... Weird how that works
Personally I see zero value in glorifying (or demonizing) groups of people based on arbitrary attributes.
I think Martin Luther King Jr said something about that once.
I think there was a lot of context surrounding what MLK said as well. Kind of facetious to assume MLK was for color blindness without differential outcomes being rectified.
There is A LOT to hate about the Left and the Right political minds - HOWEVER I would not group the Left OR Right, with all the evils of its political alignment.
There is A LOT of evil Socialist (redistribution through theft) and the is A LOT of evil hierarchical (might make right) systems; HOWEVER that information is not to be used as an excuse to be contemptible to everyone.
The content of character is the only important thing.
He talked about identity groups so he's being claimed by identitarians, but he was talking about contemporary social groupings freely chosen. He wasn't espousing assignment of permanent features to innate identities.
Will you guys please stop misquoting King. Your ancestors set up a system that would benefit them and you today in perpetuity. King was very much in favor of dismantling it, SO THEN (meaning after) we could now deal with your character. System is unchanged... And surprise, surprise... Some people are triggered by continued talks of ridding "identity" based advantages.
Who would have thought that the most revolutionary thing in this time and age would be reject any label, tag, or identity.
What about class consciousness? Is that an identity worth rejecting? The rich certainly have it.
@@McDonaldsRich I think a difference between class and the other forms of identity mentioned here is that, like you say, the ruling class has sought to eliminate all awareness of its existence (although subtly causing the working class to feel inferior and implicitly messaging that workers deserve their lot in life), whereas other forms of oppression and hierarchy make group dominance and submission more explicit. The identity of class should be abolished like the others mentioned, but that will require the relation of class to be abolished ideologically and materially (which is true of race, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc. as well, although arguably the ideological abolition of identity can take higher importance for certain identities)
@@McDonaldsRich Looking objectively at the facts surrounding the distribution of wealth and the system driving it shows this isn't a matter of ideology. It is objective fact that the lion's share of resources and power are concentrated at the top and those at the bottom exploited. The system benefits the rich and disadvantages the poor. Class struggle is at the very least somewhat factually true, subject to specific interpretation.
So no, reality shouldn't be rejected if a fairer society is desired.
Do you call yourself a male, white, conservative, middle class, educated, Christian, Republican, American? Then you're not revolutionary at all, because you have just labelled, tagged, and identified yourself. And labelled, tagged, and identified yourself with the most mainstream, powerful groups in America.
I'm glad he sheds light on DiAngelo's and Kendi's stances.
Yes, these are despicable people playing on the fears or "strangeness" of other people. So, I don't know anything about "transgender" or other ethnicities or similar fringe groups but what I am aware of are certain groups of people and low brow politicians who will exploit these differences for political or other gain. Essentially it is picking on fringe marginalized groups who make up a tiny fraction of the population. This is by design because these groups can't "fight back." So, while I don't necessarily completely understand them, I support them simply because of this systemic, targeted bullying. As a former military man, I'm not fond of bullies and will challenge them at any chance. That's just me.
Based response.
An effective military man, especially a service person who has to work overseas with marginalized groups kind of needs to be "woke".
Being aware of the systematic injustices that an oppressed population might be facing, helping them understand and sympathizing with their situation only increases your odds of a successful diplomatic operation.
People mistake military leaders for some cold blooded, cruel thinking machine. Those kinds are abundant in corrupt, authoritarian regimes but a good leader is anything but that.
No intelligent leader would ever tell you to not learn that topuc or avoid gaining an understanding about something.
That’s a good instinct, but people take advantage of the kindness of others. Basically they try to gain advantage by fraud. Demanding special treatment is what fraudsters do. So, how you gonna tell the difference?
@kamranshams754
0 seconds ago
I think the point is that calling minorities “fringe groups” relegates their existence to the margins. The whole leftist critique is that minorities exist on the margins (hence marginalization), and therefore their voices are not valued, or not heard at all (which is what was meant by the reference to Spivak). In reality, minorities make up a large part of this country and every country, but the way we conceive of them as “fringe” overlooks their experiences and contributions to society. Think of the disproportionate abundance of immigrant women who are domestic workers.
A few good things here. I always say If your ideas and theories are as solid as you claim, they should stand up to scrutiny! So why is "identity" only a problem when it is viewed as an asset, but not when it is used as a weapon to deny basic human rights? Thank you for your insights! You can support the counter argument and answer your own questions by looking up and reading easily researched statistics!
For anyone interested, a great organization that promotes fighting racism without indentity politics (and calling out the identity politics that actually harm the cause of racial justice) is Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR).
'It's not who you are inside. It's what you do that defines you.' - Some movie
I also see a lot of "appeal to identity" being done lately. Just like someone might do an appeal to authority by saying "well, I am a foremost expert who teaches at Harvard and has written 3 books about this topic" instead of actually giving you an argument that you can engage with intellectually, a lot of people lately say "I'm Black so I know more than you about racism" or "I'm gay so I would know more than you about homophobia". The issue here is the same as with an appeal to authority: Sure, one would hope that a Harvard professor who has written 3 books about a particular topic would know about said topic and be right in the conversation taking place, but just appealing to said authority doesn't make your argument right. You need to actually still prove that you are right on this one. Same goes for identity: Sure, I would hope that based on your identity you would be more familiar than others about certain topics, but you still need to make an argument rather than just repeat what your identity is and say "I don't need to explain anything to you", "It's not my job to educate you", or complain that "We always have to explain ourselves to everybody!" (hoping perhaps that people will feel ashamed that they are being asked to explain themselves "because" of their identity, when in fact they are just being asked to explain their argument so we don't blindly take their world for it based on their identity alone).
I don't quite follow your argument. Are you calling out this (and other) professors, or are you calling out people from marginalized, powerless, and societally despised minority groups who are fighting for the same rights, opportunities, equality, and the same opportunities to live as themselves as everyone else?
I'm glad I'm not the only democrat who noticed how quickly identity politics skyrocketed when Trump was elected. It took less that six hours for someone to cuss me out for being white and male, even though I voted for Clinton. It also happened after Roe v. Wade was overturned. I've been taking a good long look at my party ever since.
The amount of open/unabashed racism towards white ppl is shocking
I'll take "Things that didn't happen" for 400, Ken.
@@jeebusmcelroy123 Clearly you've never consoled a friend when they're upset.
The Trump MAGA phenomenon exists to a large degree in extreme reaction to far left loons taking over the Democratic Party. Republicans were always conservative but the weren’t the kind of reactionary nutjobs that are ascendant now. Left wing elites have pushed narratives and policies for years that have alienated many people who were not politically active but felt they were being condescended, shamed, and ostracized. Now cultural, educational, and economic institutions are so thoroughly dominated by the hard left that the Overton Window on core cultural norms have moved dramatically left. It has precipitated a predictable backlash that has polarized the country beyond the bounds necessary to maintain good governance. What is necessary is moderation not activism. That won’t happen so long as far left elements continue to instigate fights with parts of society that don’t desire radical change. But the far left continues to provoke, and therefore holds some responsibility for reinvigorating the far right. It seems to be a self-fulfilling call to cultural revolution. This is counterproductive and is only pushing more moderate elements into the arms of the right in opposition to leftist aims.
The party has been usurped..
Another aspect is identity fomo.
As people become increasingly isolated and view reality they percieve their lonliness and emptiness as a lack of having an identity, or a strong sense of one.
So they try different groups that accept them looking for connection. If they find it they become zealously loyal. If they don't they form an identity around their social labels hoping it will spawn a group.
The accompanying music to this interview slaps
Okay I was more on board with the first half of this video than the second half.
"The founders of CRT explicity saw themselves as attacking the mainstream of black American thought."
Not all these founders agree with each other! I studied CRT in University after the media firestorm about it, and that only lead me to learn just how horribly misrepresented it had been. It was founded on the observation that after progress was made granting equal rights under the law, black Americans and other minority groups were still struggling because of systemic unfairness that was not explicit. Some was accidental, some was very deliberate Southern Strategy-esque tactics for disenfranchisement. CRT is basically "how does this occur and how can it be helped?"
Shitty claims from Derrick Bell aside, the goal shouldn't be to get rid of universal values, it is that universal values are insufficient.
I agree with one premise of this video, that identity politics are often abused and misused superficially. But anyone who thinks the takeaway from that is that identity should never come up at all in discussion is over-adjusting. The anti-identity politics crowd feels absolutely no need to refer to identity when it suits their ends.
the problem with the focus on race is that it divides and is unnecessary. if the concern is why some groups of people tend to have more poverty and other problems, intergenerationally, there is zero reason to involve race, gender, or any personal traits in addressing the problem. why should we not strive for equal opportunity in life for all newborns? why is the ghetto in Baltimore any worse than the ghetto in Appalachia? why does the black from a wealthy family need help because of race above a poor white person? it’s foundational and indisputable that no person should be punished for the sins of their forbears. so giving advantages to people because of their race or gender always results in a punishment (or disadvantage) of everyone else who is not in the favored and who must pay the extra taxes or forego the same advantage or opportunity.
@@jamesstrom6991 "focus on race is unnecessary"
1. I don't have the time to explain how wrong this is...
2. Someone needs to explain this to reactionaries who feel no qualms at all about discussing race and gender!
@@Blairington you have said nothing of substance. why even bother
Yes thanks!
@@jamesstrom6991 It seems to me you are ignoring massive chunks of American history which are based on race.
very well articulated and eye-opening. one of the best videos i’ve seen from bt 👏🏻
A great history lesson and compelling story. The causes you assume and conclusions you make, absolutely absurd.
The other thing that bugs me about postmodernist-influenced thought is its fundamental hostility towards empiricism. Postmodernists generally scorn quantitative and empirical research (on the dubious basis that it privileges elite viewpoints/is colonialist/racist...somehow). As a result, a whole swathe of 'research' is over the last few decades in the social sciences and humanities is basically just people writing obscurantist essays to each other, with 'ethnographies' (read: case studies) and cherry-picked anecdotes sprinkled here and there. No falsifiable hypotheses, no data. Nobody ever starts a 'research project' and is _surprised_ by their results, which you see in the natural sciences all the time. You can't even directly critique half of this stuff because it's just meaningless word salad.
What little research you do see exists with no genuine discursive opposition, at least when it touches on anything politicised. If somebody does quantitative research on something like racially discriminatory housing policies in the US, nobody is likely to properly check the methodology, and if it is bogus, that opposition won't be publicised.
I hate to be anti-intellectualist, I love science and in principle am pro-expert, but after having done two social sciences degrees myself I basically have to dismiss a whole section of academia because it's foundations are so....non-existent.
Sadly, I have to agree with you. Going against the dominant ideology is strictly taboo in Social Sciences academia these days and appears to be getting worse in this country (NZ). Feels like we are getting inducted into a cult of dominant thinking that is driven by minority viewpoints who claim authority by dint of being minority, and thereby "oppressed." Particularly prevalent in sexual identity, where any questioning is labelled "phobic" rather than debated and alternative views considered. We are all told to be "inclusive" but are excluded if we disagree about anything in the dominant (i.e. most vocal) discourse.
You give me hope for my alma mater, JHU.
Awesome, thank you!
A lot of postmodern theories were meant to counter the identity politics that tanked the left in the 70s and 90s (infighting, extremism, backlash). The critique of essentialism, replacing the notion of identity with complex concepts of subjectivity and intersectionality (situating ourselves across various intersecting axes of difference), emphasizing historical context (not universalizing "Black experience" to all those racialized as Black, etc.), deconstructing binaries (masculine/feminine, public/private, oppressor/oppressed, etc.). The concepts have been misunderstood to the extent that their terms are applied to their opposites. What is called "intersectionality" now is the opposite: plain old identity politics. What is called "gender" now reifies sexist binaries of masculine/feminine while relocating essentialism in the mind rather than the body (supporting Cartesian dualism). It is a bastardization of PoMo driving the new left ideologies.
In the early 2000s, I used to give guest lectures at universities on how PoMo feminist theories countered identity politics. Students would arrive an hour late, put their hand up in the middle of my lecture and ask me to go over what they missed. Students would walk out early saying, "This is too much thinking for me." Students now completely over-generalize and miss the point of everything they read (skim), are unable to follow simple instructions, say they need extensions on assignments because they've been really busy with friends visiting, say they missed class because they were up all night playing video games. The problem isn't PoMo: it is complete lack of work ethic, critical thinking, and intellectual rigour combined with narcissistic posturing on social media.
It is very deep and serious statement : "all people are equal" /
- "should be Equal" /in political and economic... opportunities...,
provided by political and social regulation, controlled by the state.
...bacaurse, from the point of biological diversity - it is very important,
so all people are various - means, all people are not same...
And even having equal access to political and ecomonic rights,
being at a different level of intellectual capacities,
Different people will perform different results...
How are you going "to equalize" that?
Help me understand the gist of what he’s saying. Is it that we have to establish clear identities within our social groups but not in political discourses?
Brilliant insights
This is the first time hearing identity politics and have no idea what it means especially in voting.
I was looking forward to listening to his argument because I have issues with identity politics myself, but he didn’t really say anything and doesn’t seem to have a very holistic understanding of why people resort to identity politics
Rewatch the video. He says a whole lot. You probably are the problem and don't want to admit to it.
Seems to me you're describing, through other terms (identity synthesis), a phenomenon called "political polarization" and the repercussions thereof.
One of those repercussions is that hypocrisy and human nature have more recently taken the place of living up to our ideals as you mentioned near the end.
All of these pendulum swings from generation to generation will continue ad nauseum through the endless cycle of history.
But it is admirable to call out those fringe ideas that threaten to weaken or discredit otherwise worthwhile causes. Keep on doing your work, and go easy on Foucault--those Postmodernists get dragged on the regular in academic circles, as you likely know.
I think it would be helpful to define human nature. The term tends to be used in nonspecific ways that assume humans are one way, potentially neglecting significant historical and social differences. Plus, pendulum swings isn’t really the historically accurate way to look at it. People have been saying these things for hundreds of years. It’s just that now it’s finally made its way to the mainstream. A sign of just how much work it takes to actually change the status quo.
@@kamran-r6d Because it takes so much effort to actually change the status quo is evidence of tidal forces that pull in opposing directions, so to speak, with regard to the ideals of the mainstream. This stretches at least as far back as Plato, and was again taken up by Hegel. So there again, a back-and-forth metaphor much like a pendulum is completely appropriate to describe this phenomenon, even in the abstract.
@@facelessman7733 That’s a fair point. I would qualify though that the two opposing forces-assuming a Hegelian dialectical model-are not of equal weight. Hence the term hegemony. In the abstract, sure, the forces are equal as they are opposing poles (thesis and antithesis). But in what we might call empirical reality, the “thesis” - i.e. status quo - has much more geosociopolitcal influence and power. Revisionary intellectual histories would further challenge the pendulum model in favor of a nuanced, gradual change through performativity and iterability (repetition with a critical difference).
@@kamran-r6d I agree that a hegemony exists in the world now favoring the status quo. The agents of change--iterability and performativity--are a fine lens through which to examine events of the past. This thematic understanding can create a continuity between past and present--often referred to as "the arc of history."
However, the issue is that revisionism tends to challenge the orthodoxy of the status quo in favor of reinterpretations. Reinterpretations come with both potential risks as well as rewards, and are occasionally controversial. When done correctly, this is the essence of historiography. When done improperly, revisionism can lead to conspiratorial thinking, negationism, nationalistic fantasies, and pseudo-narratives that do not align with the evidence or established historical record.
For many notable events, nuanced and gradual would not be an apt descriptor for what happened. That being said, a pendulum model would support the idea that we, in our modern society, are only one nuclear exchange away from living once more in the ancient past. As historian Sam Wineburg once said, "history is messy, complicated, and difficult, and thus must be practiced with extreme caution and modesty."
I would challenge myself in this case to not rely too heavily on reductive models, whether it be in the form of revisionism or that of a pendulum.
@@facelessman7733 I don't the revisionism's challenge to the status quo is an "issue"--that is the point of revisionism. Controversy is in many ways also the point of revisionism. This goes along with the status quo maintaining a disproportionate, formidable influence on our perceptions of history. And of course, any kind of thinking done improperly leads to those negative consequences. The status quo, or the dominant narrative, is no less immune to those fallacies. In fact, many critical historiographers would argue that the dominant narrative is the actual engine of negationism, nationalism, and pseudo-narratives that do not align with evidence/record. Thinking otherwise once again privileges the status quo as more credible by nature of its saliency. I mean, just take Trump as an example--the guy knows nothing about anything yet remains a figure of utmost cultural authority.
I'm also unsure of how the past and present are not connected in some critical way.
I think what constitutes a "notable event" would be the subject of revisionist scrutiny. To use your example, sure, the actual nuclear exchange itself would have sudden and drastic consequences. But when historians look back on the hypothetical exchange, if they want to learn why and how it occurred, they would look at the change in global politics since the end of WWII. They would look at how societies became more unequal, how nationalism was fueled by contemporary autocrats, etc. If we look at how a situation came to be, the actual event itself becomes much less important. In that sense, gradual and nuanced is perhaps the only accurate way to look at things. When things seem sudden (like a school shooter), it's usually because people were not paying attention to the signs it was coming. Then we look at the writings of these shooters, their mental health, their social isolation, and it's like "oh yeah, of course this was going to happen." Experts can usually see big events coming from years or decades away. WWII is not very surprising if you look at the conditions that led to it (severe inequality, growing sense of national impotence, etc).
And as a side note, funny you mention Wineburg. I actually met him in college. He gave a talk at my university and I talked to him afterward. Did you study with him at Stanford?
Clearly expressed. I only wish the editors would leave out the musical score. It provides emotional manipulation where rational thought ought to be.
This was a seriously comforting video because it's one of the few times I've seen someone explain my beliefs in such a critical way. I'm glad to see that there are people in academia that recognize the problems with the left. I've not seen the problem laid out any clearer than the anti-Israel protestors. The attempts to create intersectional struggles create an ideological purity that no one will be able to stand up to.
"All people are created equal" sounds better, it's more inclusive AND, it almost rhymes
Nailed it.
Can a man speak about feminism? According to some, he should be unauthorized to do so because of his "man-fragility". This reasoning could be applied to all identities and it's a big mistake not to accept the views of an outsider
It’s very easy to debate this
Yes, what a lovely sentiment. Men are created equal. Let’s live up to that. When men and women are no longer seen as different, but instead as human beings, I’ll be happy. In the meantime, the reality is very different.
i would love to live in the lalaland world you live in where i as a black woman am not seen as and treated differently than a white man. Thats unfortunately not the reality i live in.
If men and women are the same and equal, then why don’t they both fight in the boxing ring. Look at what happened at the olympics boxing a few days ago.
I personally think identity politics is a propagandistic product of democracy. When we only speak for our own small groups based on whatever arbitrary and isolated characteristics, the society itself is divided and weakened, but whatever political parties who push for these agendas benefit greatly. Is this truly what democracy stands for?
No, it's not. Identity politics is a game played by those who are explicitly anti-liberal, and have no real interest in democracy..
All men are born equal in rights and obligations.
There are good, kind, caring people, and there are @ssholes, and both can be found in every race, gender, sex, color, religion, etc etc, all over the world. It's not about how we label ourselves it's about how we treat others. Plain and simple!
And this is why I don’t fuck with politics anymore. It’s either that or being in the center
It’s extremely narrow minded to believe this is something new.
Humans are tribal, for many the politics of the day is a way to express this natural tendency.
Identity politics hits a brick wall as soon as it is performative in the slightest. Performative wokeness just leads to a further narrowing of identities. In theory, yes, it SHOULD work. But to say that identity politics were not necessary is to simply ignore that there were ideas written into law that explicitly and subtly were purposed with ostracizing people because of parts of their identity.
You realize that in and of itself is *also* identity politics for legalizing discrimination? The entire point is that you don't fix this by doubling down on the same problem from another angle. Throw away identity politics and emphasize oneness while tackling the real issues of economic inequality, exploitation, and class divides enforced by those at the top to maintain power and control.
Wait a minute - did anybody here have classrooms sorted by race? 4:40 Or is this sensationalized from this guy reading a couple of headlines of edge cases from his feed?
this is a common practice, yes. the practice isn't to permanently segregate the classroom, it is an exercise that is done in order to highlight privilege, differences, oppression, etc.... i don't know when exactly it started, but i've heard of it happening from the source (the kids that have done it), and heard others speak of it as a valid exercise to do in order to supposedly make various points.
I’m a teacher and I have kids. We live in a very progressive area and go to an especially progressive school. That has never happened in our school and I’ve never heard of it happening. My son just finished reading Ibram X. Kendi’s book “Stamp” for his book club in 7th grade. So our school very much is wrestling with these ideas at school, but there was no problem with kids actually pushing back on the ideas. We are white and it can be uncomfortable to challenge ideas of identity politics as a white boy because he doesn’t want to come off racist, but he brought up the problem extreme identity politics pushing white people to embrace Trump. I think it’s much more healthy for the kids to be able to openly talk about these issues together. I can only imagine that if they separate the kids at any school to talk about race then they do it for a short time and then bring them back together. But still I think it would be an extremely bad idea and I’ve never heard of any school doing it.
@@ResurgentVoice since school policies are largely locally determined, there isn't going to be a universally applicable answer. some do it, some don't. idk how common the practice is, but i have heard of it happening enough that i'd call it common. a vague term i know, just mean it isn't like some one off event somewhere once upon a time.
as i said, it is done merely as an exercise, it is a brief thing, not an extended thing. it is done to provide stark visual and experiential materials for the students (multi-pronged learning methods) to accompany whatever the lecture or written material points are being covered.
@@eliashe1797 Like @ResurgentVoice, I live in a very liberal area. Exercises like that never happened at my kids' schools. If it's not happening here, I have a hard time believing that it's common. It sounds more like something you'd hear on Fox News to enrage the wingnuts. If it DID happen at my kids' school, I would have raised holy hell. I think separating kids by race, creating in-groups vs "others", is an absolutely *horrible* idea.
@@incognitotorpedo42 yep, everyone is lying to you lol
8:07 I love your channel and your audience, I'm gonna comment on ALL your videos for years until I reach your level of subscribers.
Psychedelics definitely have potential to deal with mental health symptoms like anxiety and depression, I would like to try them again but it's just so hard to source out here
I’ve been researching on psychedelics and it’s benefits to individuals dealing with Anxiety, Depression, ADHD and from my findings, they really work and I’ve been eager to get some for a while but its been difficult to get my hands on them.
The Trips I've been having really helped me a lot. I’m now able to meditate and I finally feel in control of my emotions and my future and things that used to be mundane to me now seem incredible and full of nuance on top of that I'm way less driven by my ego and I have alot more empathy as well
I was having this constant, unbearable anxiety due to work stress. Not until I came across a very intelligent mycologist. He saved my life honestly
@@CarmenOrtiz440I feel the same way too. I put too much on my plate and it definitely affects my stress and anxiety levels. I am also glad to be a part of this community.
@@RicardoSilva12299Does he deliver to various locations?
In what way are all men created equal? This is a fundamental mistake on the part of the founding fathers, and should have been “all men are equally created”
I'm independent
A powerful and well communicated analysis.
Really? I would have never have guessed that..... not like this channel has been platforming the proponents of this extreme ideology or anything and giving it credibility it never earned. Oh wait yeah that's exactly what Big Think has been doing for several years now. I'm still BIg Mad with Big Think for playing it's role in all of this but credit where it is due having this chap on Is a step in the correct direction.
Don't fence me in...as the old song goes.🎵🎵
The only issue with his examples is towards the end. Capitalism is in fact based on classism and racism. The whole premise of capitalism is exponential growth and the strongest cost in capitalist is labor. The chattel slavery issue was used to incur cheap labor. The domestication and limited rights of women historically is used to save on childcare and childrearing for men.
I do understand the polarized witch hunting he is trying to lay out as people attack the person and not the argument (a professor habitually said this) but his content was a poor execution.
If your "identity" has never been illegal, never been outlawed, never been demonized... don't tell those who have this experience they should not organize around it's defense, and proper valuation.
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡Feelings hurt and can't use your head 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Also *its
As always happens, some of the worst ideas originate in academia. Lacking real-life experiences (such as manual labor or business for example), academics often think of themselves as morally and intellectually superior to those outside their academic safe space. Consequently, they believe they can represent groups of people instead of allowing individuals to represent themselves
*"for example YOU in the crowd there! You're getting screwed over by The Man. Well I'm here to change that!"* yeaaaaah, sure you are mister..
The Divide and Conquer tactic is as old as time. And there's a reason it's so effective. We are so drawn to tribalism. Prob our biggest flaw
This is important.
Is it a flaw? I'm not so sure it is.
@@snowflakemelter7171 That's what a tribalist would say... (name checks out, btw)
@@incognitotorpedo42 Yeah. The truth hurts huh.
Anyone who wants to emphasize our differences instead of our commonalities should be summarily dismissed. It appears that the diversity apostles are mostly about abrogation of power.
The critique is that neglecting differences overlooks specific ways in which minorities experience life differently. It homogenizes people in a way that can make us immune to the harsh realities many people face. Always good to balance between what makes us similar and what makes us different.
@@kamran-r6d every person’s experience us unique. i dont wnna hear that shit. white male = privelege? wht about the white male who grew up poor with a single mother? The human condition is independent of stupid shit like skin color, which has no bearing on one’s brain
@@kamran-r6d i’m don’t disagree. we each have our own life experience and all are inherently different in significant ways. i take exception with focusing on differences that we have no control over and are mostly irrelevant. if you tell me someone is black, or white, it tells me zero about who they are or what their experiences have been. its non-information. tell me someone’s environment growing up, their nutrition, whether they felt loved and safe, the teachers they had, was their parenting healthy, did they experience nature, did they have opportunity to play sports or exercise, were they beaten or sexually abused. these things are race neutral. sorry, but i truly believe that people who focus on race are simply lazy thinkers … people looking for easy answers to complex problems that affect all americans regardless of what they happen to look like.
@@jamesstrom6991 I take your point. Where I would disagree is that most differences are out of our control anyway-especially your examples. Someone’s childhood environment, nutrition, family and school life, etc, are mostly out of the control of the individual. Where the race enters the discussion-and gender, class, sexuality, disability and the other “identity politics” categories-is that these markers are predictors (very key word) of the sorts of life experiences you describe. If I tell you about my gay black male friend who grew up in inner city Philly, you can get a pretty good idea of their environment, social experience, nutrition, family life, education, and so on. That of course doesn’t tell you everything about that person-and it might, in some circumstances, tell you almost nothing. But there is no one single factor that can explain a person. Identity markers are about statistical likelihoods and generalized patterns of experience-race is an important one among many other important ones. It’s lazy thinking to both disregard it and over depend on it.
Empirically speaking, race and class are empirical predictors of life outcomes. For example, diabetes and obesity are disproportionately problems in lower income communities and communities of color. So simply being black and/or poor is a risk factor of obesity and diabetes-combine black and poor and you have yourself a very troubling empirical situation-on the level of aggregates.
@@jamesstrom6991 "if you tell me someone is black, or white, it tells me zero about who they are or what their experiences have been. its non-information."
.
there's a thing called "statistics", check the data on murders, rapes, incarceration, deaths by police shooting, separated by race and gender. it's a bunch of quantitative, real information...
Beautiful word soup
"There hasnt been much attempt to explain where these ideas come from".
This guys spent basically zero time online for the past decade I see. Well done on catching up to 2015.
What there really are is a series of overlapping ideas. And one thread of ideas that's very important, that I think gets left out because it might be a little frightening to talk about, is the direct line of ideas that goes from Lenin's 'Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism' to Mao's 'Little Red Book' to J. Sakai's 'Settlers: The Myth of The White Proletariat' (from whence we get terminology like "Settler Colonialism"). Lenin's basic thesis is in the title really, where Mao (and others like Ho Chi Minh) took that idea was into the context of nations fighting against capitalist imperialism in Asia. Now, as much as I admire The Black Panthers, I'm not going to pretend Bobby Seale wasn't bulk importing Mao's Little Red Book.. because he absolutely was. Mao's ideas appealed to people influenced by black nationalism. Now what J Sakai (a self described Maoist) did was take those simultaneously nationalist and anti-colonialist ideas and port them onto the context of communities of colour (particularly black and indigenous people) in predominently white countries, positioning marginalized groups as nations being colonized by the white supremacist system and "whiteness" in a broader sense. Under this view, all white people become "colonizers" and all people of colour become "marginalized communities" fighting against encroachment from things like "Cultural Appropriation", "gentrification" and later concepts like "Micro Aggressions". This is part of why you get groups like The Movement for Black Lives literally talking about separate black political power in the wake of the George Floyd riots.
Obviously these ideas are incredibly reductive and potentially very divisive. Nonetheless, they are considered de rigueur amongst the various groups that get referred to as Antifa, for example.
You say 'keep fighting' but you didn't know what you're fighting. It seems he didn't go back far enough to get the perspective he needed.
How far back should he have gone?
@@TheParadox_ Far back enough to know that the identity of the colonizer has been solidified and is the standard.
@@TheParadox_ NOW the colonizer wants to make sure you forget how THEY identified you after their own identity of us has set us back a few generations. NOW we're all on the same playing field.
@@TheParadox_ Now that I choose to be proud of the very parts of me that made me less than a human, a slave, and the reason I was to be separate from you, you want to shoot me down again. How I feel about myself shouldn't be your business at this point. If I choose to see my identity as a reason to be respected and valued, but you don't, we may as well be in Jim Crow era. Right?
The problem with identity politics is the hypocrisy of having identity. A truly unracist society would have no identity, we would simply look at one another as humans. Even then, injustice would still be a problem.
We are very far from abolishing the concept of race if it is even possible. Having identities is not the problem and abolishing most of them is just sci fi at this point anyways. The problem is people being weird about identities.
This is why I believe people should prioritize fighting injustice, the core of the issues, rather than proxy problems that end up being the causes of wars when there was basically nothing wrong happening in the first place. Morality doesn’t apply differently to any one person based on their demographic and humans tend to have far more understandable and practical reasons for doing things than people can be willing to give them credit for
@@alexisvulfiaawenfern8112 Quite frankly I don't remember a single person in my life from 15 years ago talking about race. After movements such as Feminism, BLM, LGBTQ(+?) and other identitarian movements people on both sides are more discriminatory than they ever were here in the Netherlands when I was a kid. Sure we had our bad apples, but it was the exception not the rule.
@@hungrymusicwolf This could just be observation bias. Also one doesn't need to mention race to act in a racist way.
The general trend throughout the world is that things are getting better.
@@alexisvulfiaawenfern8112 That same applies to the observation that there was much racism. So that argument doesn't hold any ground either way.
Especially considering the research done on political beliefs in the social sciences, which is and was something like 80 - 95% left wing. Making any studies done there highly suspect.
Someone better tell the BBC and Disney. Whenever I hear the phrase "made for a modern audience" or "strong female character" I just switch off and avoid the show. Rey from Star Wars was a perfect example. Good at everything with no training. How did she know how to sail a boat in Episode 9 when she grew up on a desert planet?
If I wanted the opinion of a ten year old, I'd ask you but no one asked you.
idk how people can think identity is that important. I'm always changing constantly. one minute I'm a nascar driver on I-95 and the next I'm a guitarist in a band playing for an audience all alone in my room, but never will I ever need validation for what's in my head externally cause I know we all daydream together. we all love pretending to be someone else so it's stupid to base your life on identity.
thank you for coming to my ted talk
11:04 is a pretty slick morph cut or a weird glitch. I wonder if the editor of these videos reads the comments
I'm on the internet a lot, and it's very easy to get kicked out of a leftist server if you have a different opinion. Their views are also VERY difficult to understand. I didn't want to put up with the drama and mental gymnastics, so I went right, and I'll probably stay there until the left becomes sensible again. Personally, I want to be able to make money because it can lead to upward social mobility, so I do not consider capitalism evil, and I think identity politics is dividing people and that should be blatantly obvious. I can understand why parents are removing their children from public school and encouraging them not to go to college. The professors and teachers have gone crazy, if I'm to believe all of the online videos.
Plus, most of the people I see championing leftism are like really rich people. Yeah, maybe you don't know the value of money if you've always had it, so maybe a cashless society sounds awesome, and maybe you don't know how hard it is to make and keep friends if you've always had something they want, so identity politics never made your friends shun and distrust you, but to the rest of us, this is insufferable.
All identities should be questioned except one identity that we are not allowed to question.
It’s class warfare not identity warfare.
This
When we’re talking about groups wtf does it even mean- all racist jokes / comments and jokes about the speaker being racist aside - what does it even look like? I think it’s different when you’re talking to or connecting w an individual person to person on a human level ie I have a friend from x group they’re one of the good ones. This is aside from the fact that sometimes stereotypes come from somewhere (as a meatball Italian-American from NY). I think there is a difference between having an out group and true dehumanization & crimes against humanity based on it.
there's just something about trying to paint everything (or everyone) as either black or white that comes off as, at best, disingenuous. there are spectrums all over the place so why wouldn't racism also be one..?
The rich and wealthy have no identity.
The irony of those who promote diversity is that diversity is inheritly unequal.
For diversity to exist, there must be differences or more precisely, variation. Diversity is variation. Variation means not the same, not the same means not equal, not equal means inequality.
The state of the human species is diversity aka inequality hence why not all humans, within a racial group and between groupe are the same not only in genetic inheritance but genetic expression.
Not all people are talk dark and handsome, some are small, dark and handsome, some are small, light and handsome ad homen.
I agree diverisity of thought and opinion should be welcome just like diversity of shape and colour makes a painting beautiful. Beauty is the unification, not uniformity, of diversity.
There is beauty in diversity, but also beauty in the same, although limiting. Difference, or rather, variation isn't necesarily a bad or good thing.
The proponents of diversity don't fully understand what they are actually mean by diveristy. They want a specific type of definition that is not true. A loud few of them don't even care about diversity and just want to so what they want without no consequence. They want uniformity, echo chambers and bubbles of sameness because it means safety, comfort, security, certainty and CONTROL.
Reactionary, hyper sensitive due to trauma and essentially mental instability. They want to be heard but shout and scream after years of being shamed and guilt into shutting up. And the culture is to partly blame.
The culture pushes short term symptom relief resulting in vices and addiction. Rather than tackle the cause/the system which means long term investment and work, you give out pills and apps to profit from to essentially dissmiss and avoid the problem.
Consumerism, the commodification of society is killing us slowly and a few are profiting from this who live comfortable lives to the point of far removed lives. They cause their own echo chambers.
True captilism is meant to empower the individual. To offer the individual means to thrive. Instead it's been perverted by short-terminism. Growing too fast and quick. Thats exactly what cancer does. It has no breaks, a mutation in the gene dysfunctioning.
Modern society is dying from comsumerism, a form of capitalism that has no breaks (morals amd ethics) and grows and grows in a short time disregarding, neglecting, dissmissing and avoiding the long-term.
Old folks who grew up in a different era who won't be here deciding for a younger generation who will have to deal with the consequences of short term thinking by them.
Humans are natural born gamblers, we want maxium gain/reward for minimal investment/work. Consumerism does this but only for a few. Captilism, true captialism, would do this for most people with patience, tolerance and care.
We have not actually seen true capitalism yet. In the future I hope to see this. Productivity was a necessity during the war effort during war that span across the world. Desperate times require desperate measures.
We are not at war anymore, but we market/work/live like we are? Scarcity mindset pushing productivity like we're in war. So much negativity, get and take more because its "limited and there won't be anymore later" mentality.
Such madness! Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and wondering where did it go wrong, then do it again only to repeat things again.
We do this is relationships, politics and in life. Diversity is good, but rarely understand what it means. It means inherit inequality. Some things are better than other things only when compared. What it means is that there is no absolute superiority, only relative superiority.
100 years ago productivity was a matter of literal life or death. In war, those with the bigger amount of force wins. We are not in a global war anymore, but we are being pushed like we are? Everything is forced, including diversity.
Only big cities in London know and live with diversity, the rest of the 80% of UK only see diversity through second hand experience like the tv, radio and maybe when they go visit.
Nobody wants to be pushed and shoved. Time is our friend, its not our enemy yet we are rushing as if a bomb is going to blow us all up. History is important yes, and I understand that we, as a species, old and young have never been in this position before so we have no clue when what will happen in the future but if we look at the past, we don't want that. But we know what has happened in the past, and because we know this, the past is more certain than the future so might as well look to the past for guidance which is virtually suicidal.
The past is full of death, but also much of life. If we take anything from the past it is life remained, we adapted and survived. But we want to thrive. Let go of older ways, not evrything in the past is good. Not everything new is good.
The present is build on the past, but the future is built on the present, lets not try to live the present like we're in the past. We don't have to live like before, live in the present, with patience. Pushing leads to shoving, shoving leads to stampedes, stampedes lead to trampling and trampling leads to death. Only those who are the quickest survive to only realise they are virtually alone. Nobody wants to be alone, becauase isolation means death. A great man once said, and I paraphrase, "What good is it if man gains the world, but looses his soul."
If you were to own the whole world, be the last one standing after fighting and defeating everyone and there was nobody on your side, you will be the loneliest man. The soul is within community, connection, family and if your "enemies" were still around, and you left them blind and wounded. You will be lonely, outnumbered, lost, have no connection or loyalty, you'll be souless.
You need to understand the difference between equity and equality.
Definitions of equity and equality are relative. Meanings are contextual, that is the beauty of words, they "diversify" depending on the context you put them in.
There is a difference yes, but defining them logically without any reason is where we are at - focusing on abstract intellectualisiations of words and ignoring, dissmissing, avoiding and rejecting the tangible things those meanings are being attached to.
We all want rights but none of the responsibility so we make up stories to justify our lack of confidence and competence. "Victimhood" mentality where an injustice apparently has been done only when judging by present standards disregarding that such an injustice has morphed into something different but not as worse. That's how equality works, little by little we start diminishing inequality we can control. Not by trying to reduce the inequality we can't control. The past we can't control, only the present. The future we can't control, but we can affect by the present.
We talk about equality without realising for equality to exist we first must acknowledge not everyone is equal, that the supposed problem we have is inequality and that exists at the begininng of the "argument."
I can provide you with different meanings of equity and equality, they can be qualified by adding and taking way words to modify their meanings to confirm my bias and prove me right or even wrong.
The point is, fairness which is the essence of equality is a philosophical (moral and ethical) child of society. The "fact" is that equality and equity, don't exist in the natural world. These are noble human values that only exist with the confines of human circumstances and phenomenon like society.
In the wild, there is no society like ours. Society is a human construct based on imherited animal instincts. Herd mentality isn't the same as human society where civilisation and culture thrive.
Animals no nothing about equality or equity. they do not debate or argue and leave comments on UA-cam for us to discuss, debate, like or dislike and confirm our bias.
Equity and equality only exist in human society. And human society is largely based on much of our inherited animal instincts which can not be denied. The moment we deny it, the moment we fall into confusion. But that's part of the process of learning, trial and error the essential basis of evolution. What we know to be equal now, is different 100 years ago, even 1000 years ago. There is no absolute definition of these words, only relative definitions dependant on their context/circumstances/experience/environment.
To look back on the past with our new morals like they didn't know anything, or knew less is arrogant and ignorant. For the past to look at us and say we lost our way, is also ignorant and arrogant because they are living in the present where life is.
Life happens in the present, not the past or future. And we use our old definitions as guides in the present to trial and error and create "new" definitions for the future.
Not everything old is valuable, much of it that is stays in the present, not much that is new is valuable, anything that is guides the present to better ways.
So glad to see I'm not the only typing long messages, I think I have found my twin.
Acceptance of diversity is what is meant by the shorthand of “diversity” and acceptance in not “inherently unequal” at all.
@@oldmanlearningguitar446 Explain acceptance of diversity, I don't understand what you mean.
This is a wonderful rendition of "image driven, academic neo-pretentious pontificating". This performance would be a perfect comedy act and I would love to be your manager.
this is a classic ad hominem attack, which almost always is an implicit admission that a substantive rebuttal can’t be made
Is Big Think coming around to the side of sanity?
Doubtful, but we'll see...
I hope so, but reading some of the comments here makes me think we're a long way from sanity yet.
Divide and conquer. That's it. 😅
does national identity also fall into this politicised identity category?
Thank you for sharing this
All politics = identity politics.
I'm not americana*zi, so it's always crazy to me to hear americana*zi describe literal f-ism, "treating groups of people based on which group they belong to" as "left wing" and then by extension they often attribute that to "communism" - what? no, communism is about class, class is 99% vs 1%, it's not identity as you can't become rich as identifying as rich. and then they call people who speak against vvar, against animal cruelty, and pro doing evidence based science, they call them "right wing" - again, no, people with such takes are the closest thing in lamerica to left wing. they don't have left wing as such in lamerica, cause no politician would give you basic human rights that rest of the world enjoys, and working class people fight amongst themselves about which billionaire is the best, those who self identify as "right" but are more left in reality, they prefer musk, and those f-ists, who self identify as left wing (just offensive) they prefer dr mengele aka gates - us actual communists would strip both of them of their rights, and wealth, and redistribute it to the population. their money, if any, would go into rebuilding the collapsing infrastructure, paving roads, fixing and building bridges, electrical grid, drinking water to every house, and so on, the lands of gates would probably be turned into state owned (therefore you owned cause communist state is the opposite of cra*pitalist state) where food would be produced for entire nation, with least amounts of pesticides, antibiotics, gmos and so on, or, it would be redistributed directly into the hands of young couples, willing to start their married life "in the village". if either of them has any tech worth salvaging - probably not, it would be provided to use and develop for free, tho most of it would probably just be binned, like, who the hell needs spyware?
I was similarly confused by the labels and terminology. I recommend reading the wiki articles on politics, philosophy and sociology.
The rabbit hole you want to go down to understand this is basically: Marxism leads to post-Marxism, in which postmodernists in France apply the same methods to "identities" and from there feminism was further developed (in its current tocksick form) along with "gender theory" and CRT. Over time this was incorporated into the American "left" and is now known as modern American liberalism. Note that these people pretty much reject class struggle altogether. This is why you hear people saying this stuff is Marxist even though it has absolutely nothing to do with economics or class struggle. This is the "new left" in America. The traditional left, which we are a part of, focuses on economic issues, not the identity politics rotting today's society.
You're welcome.
No wonder after WPATH censoring yall
I'm not a US citizen but I observe with growing fear what is happenenig on the other side of the Atlantic. And I don't mean the rise of vocal and organized identity-based groups - I rather envy that. I mean the course the critical rhetoric around these groups is taking. In this video I hear a lot of big scary words like "ideology", "destruction", "politically pure" but I don't hear why these words have been used by a scolar to describe a socio-political situation. There are, however, some parts of the political agenda of "the left" like eradication of any form of racism or social injustice. If more institutions are being accused of racism, it does not necessarily mean that the word loses its meaning but rather that people started to take this meaning seriously. Some people for sure are overreacting but statistically it must be a small minority since all the discriminated groups (except women) are social minorities. But in this clever rhetoric these separate and scarce groups seem to form an invasive horde capable of abolishing constitution. The thing is: even if they do, they're not a horde, they are citizens, and that' how democratic politics work - people think, want a change, organize, and try to implement the change.
Thank you for your comment. THe scholar in question seems uninterested in delving into the generational aspects of violence-induced trauma experienced by racial minorities even as he examines racially segregated spaces in the classroom.
It sometimes takes an external voice like yours to pick on those nuances. It must be much harder to see the forest for the trees when you are being told explicity or otherwise that your country is the best in the world (US) or that you are the nicest, most polite people(Canada.) I think the sediment of the violence we exerted on populations that preceded us or that we forced into our country has not dissolved into nothingness, but it's easier to perceive that it has when we don't experience the violence the groups the scholar alludes to do.
This woke stuff has done nothing but turn my brother into a hard-core right-winger. Thanks for destroying the little respect we had from people.
You should talk to your brother. The right is correct about certain things but for the wrong reasons. It's possible to still be economically left but be objective and empirical and disclaim association with the modern american liberal "left". In america we tend to call ourselves independent, but people like me are true left, as in traditional left. Not this new left brain rot nonsense.
Wokeness, the toxic ideas of Di Angelo and Kendi, have supercharged the far right. The left has been my political home all my life, but they have really gotten things wrong on race and identity. They harm the very people they think they're helping, and are tearing our country apart.
he never mentioned woke you did you american right winger
@@malcolmfreeman7802 I'm someone people would consider "woke" because I do care. I just think it's made everything worse. From UK btw
@@monopolybillionaire5027 don't listen to people like this. They're precisely the ones with the gigantic brain being described in the video. Talk to your brother. The true, old left, doesn't have anything to do with sjw nonsense. Unless he's religious and wants all that stuff pushed on society, traditional left has a place for him if he understands the reforms necessary in our economy and why capitalism and business as usual isn't cutting it.
I want to be treated as a voter, that's it
You are not a person but a group and you have no internal locus of control, take no personal responsibility, blame “oppression” (society) for all your problems and you are therefore miserable…if you buy into identity politics.
seems to hit all the notes cons like. Hard pass. Just a polite version of Charlie Kirk going after DEI. This guy is not on the left.
I would agree with some of the psychological aspects, but being antiracist means AT THE MINIMUM the ability to identify it. Nobody is perfect. One MUST indeed be antirascist or defaults in complicity.
I liked this theory, but some of it is giving red flags. Am I now just woke privilaged?
Maybe your'e overestimating most people's ability to identify racism? Confirmation bias and preconceptions are a thing. Listen more and judge less. In China's cultural revolution people were judged as traitors for abstract or personal art and literature that had nothing to do with whether they were guilty of anything or even aware that it had some kind of implication according to the communist party. Because the party decided what the implications where. Not them. This logic is bad.
@adrianaslund8605 My point was about actively striving to be antiracist, which involves ongoing learning and self-awareness. It's not about judgment but rather about acknowledging our role in combating systemic racism. Would you agree that being antiracist requires continuous effort and reflection?
I just can't imagine living my whole live as a victim. I can't imagine multiple generations of my family living as victims. The idea of victimhood is so ridiculous because it tells people that nothing is their fault and that it is always someone else's fault. The fact that rampant anti white racism exists and is accepted is very damaging. White millennials raised the least racist white children in history but modern people completely messed that up by telling them they are racist anyway. And now there is no turning back. You can see that in the political divide between the genders in Gen Z and Alpha. White women embraced the fact they were evil colonizers. Young white men did not and now we have the most political separation between the genders in history.
You mean calling everyone a bigot dilutes what it means to be a bigot and means claims of bigotry won't be taken seriously?
No no, that's Nazi talk. NAZZZZZZZZIIIIIIII, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
...I'm taking the piss y'all, relax.
Appreciate you ❤
Some people are in a permanent underclass because of their "identity". He didn't delve into who created the American and global notion of race, who weaponized it, and who benefits in this culture from it. In a world where basic civil rights protections are being rolled back, we simultaneously have intellectuals advocating for the "content of my character" approach to addressing unfairness designed and baked into all of our national systems. People are intensely devoted to maintaining a racial hierarchy (and class inequity based on racism) by deliberately discouraging people from talking honestly about this system set up to benefit white, cis, men. Let's make the structure more equitable all identities then we'll not have a need for this concept of "identity politics".
A foundation of a country is a foundation you cannot remove by simple majorities. You need super majorities because people usually d*ie for those base-line conditions (i.1. Constitutional Rights for free speech)
Now if there is actually a bias systems in place such as "qualified Immunity," get rid of those. Let us prosecute for discrimination when things have damages such as cost and. If you don't want to hire LGBTQ+ peoples that should be made CLEAR before one would even consider dealing in business. Take women's sports for example: Sorry but it is BIOLOGY 🚻and if it is otherwise than make that distinction.
🤔
You mention "make the structure more equitable" is totally up to the peoples of a society. If Schools want to use diversity quotas in such pursuits -- it should be noted that: 'IT IS DISCRIMINATION' ... however that should be made clear to students applying that their color of skin will effect application results by X Y Z % Factors.
Asians and Indians do better than white people. Women are graduating university at higher rates than men are. No one even knows other peoples' sexualities unless they bring them up.
Class in America isn't about race, sex, sexuality or anything of the like it's about the elite v.s. the average, and so long as the average people continue to divide themselves based on those other, stupid things then the elites will always win.
When anyone starts inferring characteristics indirectly there's something dishonest going on. Rather than looking at what is right there we filter it through some circuitous route, specifically because that's an opportunity to introduce distortion. Perhaps the urge to distort is justified, but that doesn't change what it is or that it is the wrong approach. People are not their ancestors and you don't know about them by inferring generalities from unrelated characteristics. Even if someone who shares unrelated characteristics with them has inferred generalities. "People like you did this" is routing circuitously through history and inferring knowledge based on unrelated characteristics.
@@robertsouth6971 When it comes to the ancient term "bastard" it was such an old long-used term because it had direct correlation to crime.
Again it still must be said: Correlation does not equal causation.
Think of the symbol for justice as embodied in statues at courthouses: A blindfold representing impartiality. A very high scientific ideal, we fall horribly short on due to partiality.
The core/essence thorn OF politics and political discourse IS bias/impartiality. If we could merely allow the facts to speak for themselves, we would not be seeking power, but truth, and “politics” would be no more. We would still disagree, but it would be from a lack of solid information, or a lack of rational capacity. We would respect tenure, expertise, experience, training. We would have no “parties”, or sides, because we would all be working together towards a common goal: truth. But we’re not. We’re interested in power, which is winning for ourselves and our sides. Our identities.
Politics IS, always has been, always will be, at its core, about our identity and the groups represented. Politics is the struggle for power. There are those looking to win, aka for a group and its identity which grants privilege, and those looking for justice and a redress of true grievances. It’s absurdly clear just who’s involved in identity politics. There is the oppressor and the oppressed and the historical record is replete with examples, IF you’re not hell bent on dismissing and ignoring them.
On the one hand, I’m deeply dismayed we haven’t grasped these fundamentals of reality, and betray them so consistently. If we’re going to bring our collective heads out of the chaos/mayhem, we’re going to have to slow down and think very hard about these fundamentals. And be better human beings-the real problem, one that religion has been tasked to solve.
“Identity Politics” as a term, is a redundancy, and therefore absurd. Politics IS about identity, and true to form, the rights war on truth and devolvement into chaos, has taken their own grand strategy and flipped the script. Like so much else invented on the right fashioned to confuse. “Fake news” is propaganda, and wasn’t an invention of the left, but has been part of the rights well funded culture war for over 70 years. “Cancel culture” was created when WASP, White, Anglo Saxon Protestants, MADE any other culture as fringe/foreign. “Political Correctness” is nothing more than cultures and norms evolving and changing as they always have and always will. Every cultural norm we have is a consequence of our discourse. A discourse that becomes contentious, NATURALLY. NOT some insidious, misguided, “leftist” plot.
These terms are codes by the right. A new language that creates our fundamental divide. Non scientific and illogical, as I hope you can see.
Welcome to reality. Some of us have been studying it long before 2016, Rush Limbaugh and Barry Goldwater.
Please, for everyone’s sake, TRULY think yourself, TRULY be independent before all words and the most critical components to our language is destroyed-and the soul/spirit of anything sacred is wiped from our collective memory.
Liberty is based on the rule of law, and its fundamental task is the protection of ALL citizens from unnecessary limitations so that we may ALL have a reasonably equal chance of living a good life. Basic, basic stuff, warped by the right in a war, with literal casualties/fatalities.
For those who have slept through the last 70 years, PLEASE try to educate yourselves and stop outsourcing your mind to others and just parroting their lines-no one wants to be a useful idiot, but sadly, were awash. Liberty is NOT doing whatever we choose to do, but whatever is true and correct, given the entire body of citizens AND the historical record of unnecessary advantages and disadvantages. Liberty/freedom has limitations because “no man is an island” unto themselves. Biblically speaking, transgressions. Freedom comes with limits, we call laws that must be honored. Rules, edges, boundaries. In the same way we cannot abuse our biological limits, we cannot abuse the social limitations that we’re all, ultimately, deeply dependent on.
The only way we can ever be truly free is to think for ourselves and to submit to the needs of the greater good. Those OUTSIDE our tribe/click/culture. To share.
We are an experiment, it is true, but that’s something religion has recognized now for millennia. The true test is in the quality of the soul/spirit, it’s reverence for the sacred, and the resistance to its corruption
utter nonsense. there s a range of commonality. at one end, we are each unique. at the other end we are all the same. our brains are built to generalize and categorize. its efficient. its entirely possible (and there is ample precedent) to have a society where one’s personal traits are irrelevant in social and political spheres. people who focus on differences are lazy thinkers. whatever problems we have, the solutions must be universally applicable and neutral with respect to personal traits. it is the only way for linguistics term peaceful coexistence and progress.
You started out really strong man but you veered off the rails quite a bit. At the start until "...Our identities." You were spot on. However, religion is just another way that people employ tribalism to gain power and prioritize their group. Religion is emphatically not about the greater good, and if you think it is, you might be a tad misinformed; naive, perhaps. I take the start of your comment and propose we move to a post political society where we look only at objective facts and dispense with seeking power and benefitting only a certain group. Indeed politics is all about identity, on the right especially, and in america the last 50 years the left has veered all the way into la la land in this regard. There's gotta be a better way than being drunk on ideology, in whatever form.
Honestly fuck politics. I respect the hell out of celebrities who stay away from this shit. The more you understand it, the more you realize politics is just people masquerading their own vision of the world without respect for people who are different. It is always someone from party X saying "Party Y is responsible for all this division!" and not doing anything to solve the problem. It's not even worth correcting people. Just yellow rock them, "yeah, oh wow that's crazy".
I think hes wrong and its bigger issue than this good but narrow analysis
Identity politics comes from someones brand of injustice becoming more important than class struggle . The criticism of capitalism and the fight for socialism or communism has ended . I think its a place were political parties standing in elections have all become right wing capitalist supporting parties and will only reform it and the more right wing want to take us back to 1920s lassez-faire capitalism. Basically its arguing over economic nuances and concentrating on social problems . This is the lazy period before empires collapse when you revere entertainers instead of warriors or good thinkers/ideas and new ways. The usa is an empire and the head of capitalism (seen as a empire and system).
All bald males are equal 👨🏻🦲
The follically-challenged make up a substantial fraction of the world’s power structure. Baldly go where no one has gone before.