Identity Politics

How has it come to pass that the world is divided these days on the issue of identity and political correctness?? Is it the insidious result of the American “culture wars” – which can be traced back  to 1968; Of an American left targeting Universities to help develop “identity politics”? Or simply the results of the polarising effect of the social media…..?

Whatever the precise origin, Brexit and the election of Trump have helped divide the world into two groups - “cosmopolitans” and “left-behinds” – with the former favouring open borders and a libertarian agenda; and the latter a more traditional one which has only recently found expression…

Except that this ignores a significant middle group which doesn’t fit such a Manichean perspective….and I readily confess to being a fully paid-up member of these “mugwumps” who don’t take up predictable positions - and are as a result considered unreliable – with “their mugs on one side of the fence and their wumps on the other”!

Take “human rights” as an example….I still remember my reaction when a young Kyrgz woman quoted some recondite UN declaration at me - viz to launch into an explanation that such rights were the results of long and bitterly-fought struggles eg for trade union let alone gender rights – and would not be enforced by simple diktat…from thousands of kilometres away. But she seemed to expect the magic waving of a wand……gain without pain…

And when feminism became active in the UK in the 1980s, I was responsible for a new “social strategy” which was trying to assert the rights of the unemployed and low-paid - and I confess that I had then little sympathy for what I felt were the interests of well-paid women pushing for an end to the “glass-ceiling”.… The issue, I felt, was simply one of priorities in what is, after all, always a crowded agenda for political attention….

With its referendum on the constitutional definition of a family, Romania provides another recent example. This grass-roots initiative would have restricted the definition of a family unit to that between a man and a woman (thereby denying that definition to single mothers!). This did not prevent three and a half million voters from voting yes but this was (at 21%) below the required 30% threshold. Many who supported the amendment argued that social values were offended by same-sex marriage and that it was unrealistic to expect villagers suddenly to accept that such behaviour was normal….     

Francis Fukuyama’s latest book - Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment - reminds us of the dual aspect of identity - individual and social….the first being our own sense of who we are ( very much to the fore in this narcissistic age), the latter being the sense of group differentiation. It is an issue which has clearly been eating away at Fukuyama for some time – evidence this powerful 2007 article Identity, immigration and liberal democracy which is very good on the contrast between US assimilation v European multiculturalism…

From the excerpts, his new book seems a good overview of how fundamentally politics has changed from being a fight between labour and capital to being a contest over identity and belonging…. 

While the economic inequalities arising from the last fifty or so years of globalization are a major factor explaining contemporary politics, economic grievances become much more acute when they are attached to feelings of indignity and disrespect. Indeed, much of what we understand to be economic motivation actually reflects not a straightforward desire for wealth and resources, but the fact that money is perceived to be a marker of status and buys respect.

Modern economic theory is built around the assumption that human beings are rational individuals who all want to maximize their “utility”—that is, their material well-being—and that politics is simply an extension of that maximizing behaviour. However, if we are ever to properly interpret the behaviour of real human beings in the contemporary world, we have to expand our understanding of human motivation beyond this simple economic model that so dominates much of our discourse.
No one contests that human beings are capable of rational behaviour, or that they are self-interested individuals who seek greater wealth and resources.

 But human psychology is much more complex than the rather simpleminded economic model suggests. Before we can understand contemporary identity politics, we need to step back and develop a deeper and richer understanding of human motivation and behaviour. We need, in other words, a better theory of the human soul.

I’m aware that this post has wandered a bit……starting with an (obvious) assertion about polarisation….with a defence of those who seek a more nuanced or “balanced” view… Some confession about past prejudices duly followed….and also a recent Romanian example ..…I then came across the Fukuyama book which clearly warranted inclusion....

Until now the conclusion read that - 

Grassroots pressure rarely leads to significant change – not at least on its own.……But neither do the imposition of national or international norms – which produces a push-back if not angry resentment  Social change generally comes from a combination of both.

A July post had explained that the pincer theory of change had been my default theory since the 1980s (although it later gave way to one called “windows of opportunity”)

In those days, it was clearly possible for some elite “insiders” to work together with activists to change things. The collapse in trust now seems to make such alliances impossible?

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst.. are full of passionate intensity”.

WB Yeats

Reading List

Identity, immigration and liberal democracy; F Fukuyama (2007) very good on the contrast between US assimilation v European multiculturalism…

New Yorker Review of Fukuyama book – Identity  

a rather fatuous review – but useful for getting you to read more..

podcast with Fukuyama

The political theory of recognition – the case of the white working class (article)
The Once and future liberal - after identity politics; Mark Lilla (2017)

The Limits of Identity – ethnicity, conflict and politics; article by Richard Jenkins (2000)

identity politics and the left Hobsbawm 1980s