Identity politics are no basis for dissent.

My thinking is that we must move away from competing against other identity groups on the basis of our self-represented moral purity. This approach lends itself too easily to the ways of thinking of those who are comfortable within their positions in the power structures. After all, having power suffices, most of the time, to make anybody appear to be serene and pure, whereas those without power rant and rave and generally lack the ability to convince others --particularly those in power -- that their ranting and raving has any particular meaning. Thus they appear impure indeed, and are so to most practical purposes. As Bataille points out, they become the discarded refuse of society, which retains its moral feelings of serenity and purity by excluding certain people from involvement within the whole. (In "The Psychology of Fascism" Bataille shows that the inclusion within society of those who had been excluded by the bourgeois regime was used to vitalise the fascist movement.)



The emotional blackmail that bourgeois regimes hold over their citizens -- "Behave, and we just might let you in, one of these days" -- has no actual surety or concrete contract to back it up. It is as illusory as pie in the sky when we die. However, the promise of power can almost seem like power itself, a lot of the time, and this is what keeps people cooperating.



Fascism as a solution gives one more the impression of being chained at the ankles to your "gang". Still, walking in lockstep can seem like power, too, and it can be the form that power takes in many ways.