Posted by Keith Tidman
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| Chameleon – Image acknowledgement: National Geographic |
The great English political philosopher, John Locke, observed:
“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the colour of our
moral character, from those who are around us.”
Locke’s insight into human tendencies and the effects of relationships
applies as much to identity politics — and the behaviours, aspirations, and
goals of group affiliation — as to society as a whole.
Identity politics has been making increasingly recurrent
global appearances, announced with bold headlines: In the United States, legal
and constitutional grappling over a ban on incoming travelers from select
countries; in the United Kingdom, a vote to leave the European Union, at least
in part inspired by unrest over borders and immigration; in the Netherlands,
calls heard for those who do not ‘agree with us’ to leave. The examples are
plenty; the social and political lines are clearly and often-fervidly drawn.
This brand of politics typically pulls in groups whose allied
members self-identify on the basis of assorted social identifiers and causes — race,
ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, social background,
disability, religion, economic class, generational cohort, education, indigenous
provenance, language, and others. Identity politics also pulls in policymakers
disposed sympathetically to reach out to, understand, and advocate on behalf of
these groups’ interests — as well as policymakers who, rooted in their own conviction,
don’t and won’t. The glue that binds members of self-identified alliances is wariness
over the specter of coercion and disapproval, as seen to be normalised by the
dominant demographic of society.
‘Identity politics’ is a loaded term, fraught with powerful
emotions and symbols. Members of these subgroups, apprehensive of diminished
power in their personal and public lives, share the belief that clear-cut
identifiers set them up for potential distrust and discrimination. Those reactions
by ‘outsiders’, whose judgement may at times be tinged with nativism, fuel a sense
of marginalisation and disenfranchisement. The distinctive ‘otherness’ of these
self-identified subgroups may prove a handicap not just to acceptance by the mainstream,
but to opportunities to fully partake of the benefits that society routinely offers
to the majority—or, perhaps more often, that the majority offers to itself.
Group constituents feel deprived of opportunities to determine —
at their own discretion, undiminished by reactionary elements — even the larger,
existential contours of their lives: their role, their purpose, their future. Through
group consciousness and identity, the groups’ struggle has a cosmopolitan ring:
communities with shared values, sometimes philosophically disagreeing with one
another as ideas churn and contradictions slowly get untangled through a
healthy dialectic, often subsequently guided by a written or at least implied
platform. Moreover, collaboration across groups may be seen as a viable
strategy to amplify their individual voices. Good ideas, after all, are not a
zero-sum currency, so aggregating ideas across groups is to their collective
advantage.
Perhaps it’s too easy to shoehorn people into social categories
with their own demographic markers, but that seems the reality — with the potential
for wedge issues to spur spirited differences of opinion about leadership,
principles, and methods. The latter being a beneficial dynamic, however. Identity
politics serves as a force multiplier in burnishing the groups’ philosophy and ideology,
and in the process taking it public. This includes their grievances, their
claim to rights and redress, and their petitions to political representatives
for systemic, institutional change. Like-minded political representatives may
act as the advance guard, taking to the bully pulpit, as well as legislating to
replace discriminatory policy with positive policy — practical, actionable
policy, not just feel-good nostrums.
Collective action and voice are aimed at repudiating and pushing
back against recursive incidents of stereotyping and stigmatizing. Such action
and voice provide the bedrock for defying what arguably bodes the worst for
members of these subgroups: that is, the threat of irrelevance. And they are
aimed at harnessing the energy to successfully counter the narratives that deepen
the social fissures and attempt not only to carve out a lesser status in
society for group members, but also deprive people of undiminished expression
of their equality and value in an otherwise often heterogeneous society.
Identify politics is neither a conservative nor a liberal
phenomenon; it falls on both sides of that (reductive) divide. Populism, for
example, comes in both political flavors — as continues to be seen in countries
around the world. One category that fits under either the liberal or
conservative rubric is ‘social background’ — where a sense of victimhood is
more important to group members than is simple demographic labeling. People
resorting to a crude, reflexive branding of groups may wield any ideology on
the political continuum, from the far left to the far right. It’s whatever
proves handy in the moment, however one may be philosophically predisposed — where
actions, not just reimagined theory, matter, serving as an accelerant for change.
Accordingly, those who disapprove of what they see and hear may
seize upon both conservative and liberal identifiers as a framework and
animating principles for their cause. Social groups that fall into either category
must reclaim their history and draft their own narrative, shouldering how they
wish to be defined — outside the orbit of cultural hegemony, accepted non-judgementally
for who and what they are and for what they want to become. Societies benefit
by allowing room for both conservative and liberal identities to thrive,
serving as a bulwark for the best of democracy and its organising principles,
even as the balance between the two ideologies might shift back and forth in
turns.
Whether identity politics — largely unmoored from mainstream
politics — is an effective strategy for politicians campaigning and legislating
is an ongoing debate. Legislators, strategists, political pundits, academics, and
the public have weighed in. Concerns include, at the core, whether the focus on
identity politics atomises audiences with very different identities and needs,
and in so doing risks diluting broader-based political messaging.
Those opposed to identity politics argue that messaging would be
more effective if the targeted audience is only ever all society — hoping to hit the broader themes of greatest concern to
the greatest number of people for the greatest return. Preferably as much
outside of a partisan framework as possible, notwithstanding policymakers’
predisposition toward political expediency. Yet, an ambitiously inclusive
message risks misfiring in the minds of many self-identified groups, whose platforms,
expectations, and anxieties need to be spoken to in a tailored way in order to
resonate most productively. Ideally, the greatest effectiveness would emerge
from a fusion of both identity messaging and mainstream messaging. Coffers and
personnel permitting, it doesn’t have to be either-or.
As the
contemporary political philosopher, Sonia Kruks, puts it, how today’s identity
politics steers a materially different path from earlier forms of the politics
of recognition is the “demand for recognition on the basis of the very grounds
on which recognition has previously been denied” — race, gender, ethnicity, and
so forth.
This
key, enabling ‘demand’ goes beyond the mere superficialities of unsatisfying, insufficient protectionism. Rather, it conjures proactivity, self-assuredness,
articulateness, and an embrace of the legitimacy of one’s identity through
shared experiences. Locke’s enlightened spirit fits this endeavour, valuing
everyone (irrespective of ‘social tribe’) as “equal and independent,” free
from “harm” — where the restorative powers of human and civil liberties take an
ever-firm hold.
