Much might be said about the way New Leftist identity politics has influenced the contemporary cultural and political scene. Not all of it is good, mind you.
The figure who is ostensibly behind the movement towards identity politics in the West is, of course, Herbert Marcuse. He provided a theoretical basis, in the late 60s, for politicising race and gender as categories of oppression in their own right.
I wish to distance myself somewhat from Herr Marcuse, here, not because I disagree with his philosophy in principle, but because I disagree with very much of the use to which ideas of identity politics have been put. There is so much in terms of this way of thinking that is naive -- and which has the opposite effect to what was intended.
Let me begin by making my points of concession towards what is useful, or beneficial, about identity politics -- at least from a leftwing point of view.
On the positive side, I can see that one must raise a standard, a totem, if one wants to oppose The Man. This is my tongue in cheek concession to Freudianism -- but I think it is true. One must publicly proclaim one's own category of identity as being discrete, and total, if one is not to be made into a secondary function lower down the existing totem pole.
On the negative side of the leftist agenda of identity politics, however, we can see that very much is awry with it, and strategically off key.
It is incredibly useful to consider leftist identity politics as a kind of all out psychical assault on existing constructs of identity as they are organised within organisational hierarchies of oppression. (The source of oppression is generally identified in that white, male, middle class attitudes and behaviour are taken as the norm.) One asserts one's identity as being independent from the ONE particular totem of social organisation, which derives its power by drawing all (no matter how different to it you actually are) under its hierarchically organising force. As such, one does an act inter-psychical violence to those whose mode of thinking and behaviour is universalising. (This violence is psychological -- and it consists in the fact that one cannot oppose only the political nature of the existing social system without also opposing its underlying basis for facilitating is self-organisation, which is thoroughly psychological. Louis Althusser has done work concerning this totalising, totemising system, and how it seeks to incorporate all individuals into its whole.) The fact that this agenda does violence earns it its attribution of being "far left".
But what is wrong with doing violence to the presently existing social forms and the psychological states that underpin them?
There are a number of problems with this and I shall list them from a point of view that takes into consideration the psychological violence that is necessitated by an identity politics revolution:
1. The first issue is negative interpellation of individuals as enemies of progress. Perhaps one who has been identified as an enemy is not one. He seems to use universalising forms, but he has no active agenda in terms of oppressing you. He is simply going along with the flow of the system as it happens to be.
*What ethical right do you have to oppress him, in order to make him co-operate with your socially atomising ideology?
2. There will be individuals whom you mis-identify as enemies (as per the point 1, above). When you do psychological violence to them (and they have not done anything actively aggressive against you), you run the risk of turning them into real, hostile enemies.
3. The third point is a shamanistic point. By stripping your "enemies" of their actually existing identities (which had been earlier formulated and stabilised at the level of the neomammalian brain) you run a very strong risk of reducing them to "lizard brain" consciousness. Your attack on their currently existing identity dehumanised them, and in so doing, can also reduce them to a much more primitive level of consciousness. "Lizard brain" consciousness [ Cf. the work of neurobiologist Paul MacClean] is no respector of persons, and has as its predominant function the fundamental goal of survival through fight or flight. The human psyche that has been stripped of its humanising elements, through being attacked, becomes a much more formidable enemy, since it does not care about your feelings of well being. It has lightened its load, so that it functions at the level that maximises mere survival. And once the lizard brain has you in its focus, its logic for maximising its survival is "either my enemy or I". In other words, there may be no more scope, in the regressed consciousness of the one who has been stripped of his already existing identity, to recognise any form of human mutuality. He is stressed so much that he is no longer able to function from the higher, intergrative modes of consciousness, but thinks only how to defend his psychical territory from further damage.
*This result is the exact opposite to what one would imagine identity politics adherents aim for. Surely they aim to be treated with a sense of mutuality and not as hostile lizards?
The figure who is ostensibly behind the movement towards identity politics in the West is, of course, Herbert Marcuse. He provided a theoretical basis, in the late 60s, for politicising race and gender as categories of oppression in their own right.
I wish to distance myself somewhat from Herr Marcuse, here, not because I disagree with his philosophy in principle, but because I disagree with very much of the use to which ideas of identity politics have been put. There is so much in terms of this way of thinking that is naive -- and which has the opposite effect to what was intended.
Let me begin by making my points of concession towards what is useful, or beneficial, about identity politics -- at least from a leftwing point of view.
On the positive side, I can see that one must raise a standard, a totem, if one wants to oppose The Man. This is my tongue in cheek concession to Freudianism -- but I think it is true. One must publicly proclaim one's own category of identity as being discrete, and total, if one is not to be made into a secondary function lower down the existing totem pole.
On the negative side of the leftist agenda of identity politics, however, we can see that very much is awry with it, and strategically off key.
It is incredibly useful to consider leftist identity politics as a kind of all out psychical assault on existing constructs of identity as they are organised within organisational hierarchies of oppression. (The source of oppression is generally identified in that white, male, middle class attitudes and behaviour are taken as the norm.) One asserts one's identity as being independent from the ONE particular totem of social organisation, which derives its power by drawing all (no matter how different to it you actually are) under its hierarchically organising force. As such, one does an act inter-psychical violence to those whose mode of thinking and behaviour is universalising. (This violence is psychological -- and it consists in the fact that one cannot oppose only the political nature of the existing social system without also opposing its underlying basis for facilitating is self-organisation, which is thoroughly psychological. Louis Althusser has done work concerning this totalising, totemising system, and how it seeks to incorporate all individuals into its whole.) The fact that this agenda does violence earns it its attribution of being "far left".
But what is wrong with doing violence to the presently existing social forms and the psychological states that underpin them?
There are a number of problems with this and I shall list them from a point of view that takes into consideration the psychological violence that is necessitated by an identity politics revolution:
1. The first issue is negative interpellation of individuals as enemies of progress. Perhaps one who has been identified as an enemy is not one. He seems to use universalising forms, but he has no active agenda in terms of oppressing you. He is simply going along with the flow of the system as it happens to be.
*What ethical right do you have to oppress him, in order to make him co-operate with your socially atomising ideology?
2. There will be individuals whom you mis-identify as enemies (as per the point 1, above). When you do psychological violence to them (and they have not done anything actively aggressive against you), you run the risk of turning them into real, hostile enemies.
3. The third point is a shamanistic point. By stripping your "enemies" of their actually existing identities (which had been earlier formulated and stabilised at the level of the neomammalian brain) you run a very strong risk of reducing them to "lizard brain" consciousness. Your attack on their currently existing identity dehumanised them, and in so doing, can also reduce them to a much more primitive level of consciousness. "Lizard brain" consciousness [ Cf. the work of neurobiologist Paul MacClean] is no respector of persons, and has as its predominant function the fundamental goal of survival through fight or flight. The human psyche that has been stripped of its humanising elements, through being attacked, becomes a much more formidable enemy, since it does not care about your feelings of well being. It has lightened its load, so that it functions at the level that maximises mere survival. And once the lizard brain has you in its focus, its logic for maximising its survival is "either my enemy or I". In other words, there may be no more scope, in the regressed consciousness of the one who has been stripped of his already existing identity, to recognise any form of human mutuality. He is stressed so much that he is no longer able to function from the higher, intergrative modes of consciousness, but thinks only how to defend his psychical territory from further damage.
*This result is the exact opposite to what one would imagine identity politics adherents aim for. Surely they aim to be treated with a sense of mutuality and not as hostile lizards?
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