Climate, technology and chaos Blog

There is a lot of bad press being given to left wing identity politics at the moment, but strangely right wing identity politics seems to be ignored, or people pretend it does not exist, even while it is particularly virulent. Perhaps the right wing media use this identity politics in an attempt to get people on side with right wing policies which are not popular….

Now as far as I understand it, left wing identity politics is people saying something like “I’m gay, black, working class and redneck and I demand respect on all counts, stop disrespecting me, or excluding me for being any of these things.” Sometimes it sounds a bit incoherent, but if you accept the idea that we are all equal in principle, then its pretty straightforward: “Yep that’s ok. I’ll do my best.” This is not to say people on the left are universally tolerant (who is?) but that the movement of Left identity politics is expansive and aims at recognizing people who are usually ignored or actively repressed as worthwhile human beings.

Right wing identity politics, on the other hand seems to go something like “everyone who is not like me is inferior, and they should shut up and listen to my wisdom and worship”. In general it seems the hard right will not tolerate any difference from their own position, which ever one it is they have chosen at this time. If anyone is different, or says anything different, then they must be expelled, or silenced as they are overtly inferior and corrupt.

Despite commentator Jordan Peterson’s optimistic proposition that the Right excludes racists, being the same ‘race’ as them is often important – although they may say that ‘whites’ are discriminated against, presumably for not being approved of for slurring blacks or Muslims or whatever… (Muslim is not a race, they say, so if they insist all Muslims are evil, its not racist). Sometimes it seems that right wing Christians claim they are discriminated against because they can’t burn people at the stake any more, and expect applause for that act.

This kind of identity politics almost automatically appears to makes most of the right inclined parties seem more and more deeply intolerant and self-involved, especially when they have the support of right wing media. This media also tolerates no difference and tells them how those on the Right are oppressed by, say, leftwing gay people wanting equal rights to marry or to hold hands in public. It was interesting that during the anti-gay marriage campaign, the right often argued that marriage was about children and therefor no marriage which could not have children was legitimate – thus narrowing the number of people (even heterosexuals) who should marry even further. The Right appears to believe that those who are not joined to them are sinful and should not be heard.

In Australia, this kind of identity politics is why the Australian Liberal party (Liberal in the sense of pro-capitalist Victorian liberalism) is moving away from being what it used to claim was a ‘broad church’. The hard right appears to be trying to get rid of anyone who does not believe in exactly the same set of policies they believe in, even when both sides are happily ‘neoliberal’ in terms of the economy. Neoliberalism, involves nannying and protecting the corporate sector, and ignoring wage theft, pension theft and financial fraud from the corporate sector if it can, while trying to prosecute unions and cut wages and conditions for ordinary folk. Hence they were outraged at the last Coalition prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, because he admitted that climate change might be a problem, and that politicians should occasionally listen to the concerns of other people – even when he consistently yielded to their concerns. Yielding was not enough, he should never have thought otherwise in the first place. This refusal to accept him was effectively a form of violence towards Turnbull, and any Australians who might have agreed with him.

While at the moment some people may vote for the Liberal and National Coalition out of habit or out of fear, there is a risk that it will become a minor authoritarian collection of parties driving off everyone who might question the identity that their hard right promotes.

After all, how big is the intersection between those people who want to promote climate change, kill off gay marriage, incarcerate people fleeing tyranny, and lovey up corporations at the expense of ordinary people? Probably not that many.

So in terms of social category theory, left wing identity politics seems to be trying to expand the categories of what is considered equal humanity, while right wing identity theory seems to be trying to narrow the categories of what seems human, and increase the strength of their identity boundaries and distinctions from others. The higher and harder the barriers they erect, then the more they will probably feel persecuted by the others (‘we-categories’ rarely recognized themselves as persecutory) and the more ruthless and potentially violent they will likely become to preserve that purity.

The path to social disaster and fragmentation becomes clearer.

Tags: disorder, social category theory

This entry was posted on August 25, 2018 at 5:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.