10

The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution

Posted by $ nickursis 7 years, 4 months ago to Culture
41 comments | Share | Flag

A very interesting discussion of one of the major reasons (IMHO) that we are seeing so much dysfunction today. When you isolate and label people as a this or a that, you immediately box them, expect specific loayalties and behavhior, and that is rarely true of the wild American. I do disagree that this is a recent invention, it has been a tool of societies for as long as there has been writing. Any time you set a preference for a group over another, it is a practice of identity politics, so ancient Egypt over Hebrews, Romans over "barbarians" Muslims over Christians (in all the many forms that has taken), English over "continentals" (French, German, Spanish, all at different times). It is recent that it has become such a fractured art, where they have invented a million things you can be, to allow for ever smaller groups to be pulled in and manipulated, that seems to be the truth at hand.


All Comments


Previous comments...   You are currently on page 2.
  • Posted by term2 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    One thing that concerns me for the ultimate survival of the human race is that things are different from when AS was written. Today we have worldwide surveillance and the availability of really powerful weapons. Plus, almost every inch of land is occupied compared with when the USA was started. I have serious doubts that an objectivist based country could even be started and not attacked and destroyed before it could defend itself. Without that, the seemingly incessant run towards statism will just prevail. Maybe the only thing that WILL work is complete destruction of statist regimes so they arent so powerful, and then a small group of objectivists start up a Gulch and expand from there. I will be long dead before that happens, so all I can do really at this point is try to hide in plain sight (as it were) and try to avoid as much statism as possible.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not when the statists and Liberals control the education system, that is part of the problem and has been building for 30 years.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by term2 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yeah, exactly. and she was right on. It IS a war and we DO have to take sides. Right now, the best we can hope for is someone who will stand in the way of the "progressives", and gridlock until in 50 years or so, statism can run its course through better education of the citizens.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Wasn't that sort of what AS was all about? Yet 50 years ago...so things don't change much, do they?
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by term2 7 years, 4 months ago
    I think its a battle between half the people acting like animals in that they dont produce, just take whats there for their use. The other half provide the production that the first half provide (unwillingly).

    So its the takers vs the makers, and of course they are at loggerheads. The takers want to take, and the makers want to keep what THEY made.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It's the so called enlighten one's, operating in a black out, that engage in the child slave markets.

    It is found that in the Philippines the typical patrons of child sex slaves are those in Our Government. (found by Mercury 1), so, here we go again...pointing their fingers at us for what they themselves do.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thanks for the ref. freedom. I wanted to know from where you were coming.
    Yea, I've been hearing: "history is written by the victors", a lot lately.
    David Barton's work on lincoln isn't all that glowing either but not to the extent you have read...would be interesting to see where they intersect.

    No doubt that our history has been confounded beyond reason. Dan and I discuss often how the timelines in ancient history is a big mess and don't match up to anything.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I have to believe that we have to have certain inalienable, unquestionable truths that fit our society. Slavery is one of them,yet, to be honest, did we not trade one form of slavery for another in that we have economic slavery, where people work for a specific wage and yet other people who are the "superior" ones, get vast, unequal payments, for little or no work? That takes you back to the communist theory of share and share alike, yet even then, true communism never has appeared, it has always been a dictatorship of a few over the rest. Yet the fundamental idea of one person owning another is wrong and I would think violate objectivist principles through taking away the ability of self to decide ones actions.

    However, today there are various slavery markets in action, that never seem to get stamped out: children for sex, religious slavery (ISIS was running some pretty miserable slave rings), several underground slavery rings to nations with less "detailed" law enforcement. Yet no direct action comes from the enlightened ones who choose to lecture and yell at us for deeds from 150 years ago....
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Looks simple 160 years later if you accept the history as written by the victors without researching the contemporary writings of both sides.
    The winners always write the history books and establish themselves as saints.
    How certain are you that Lincoln consistently made the arguments that you have been told he made?
    Thomas DiLorenzo did the research and published two books: The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I would take Freedoms information and see if it matches documentations that wallbuilders.com might have or even what the Mercury1 museum might have.

    However, my question below still needs to be answered if at all possible...either way, all possible outcomes sucked as I understand it at this point.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 4 months ago
    From a week ago Posted by $ Dobrien 1 week, 1 day ago to I am whatever race I say I am--at Brown University
    Thanks Walter, this is the kind of info that I would never hear about but have suspected.
    I have passed this on and suggested they do the same.
    Identity politics followed your graduation by a decade when Alexander Solzhenitsyn book GULAG ARCHIPELAGO destroyed any cloak of moral authority by communists. To continue the attack on capitalism they needed a new tactic and the answer was identity politics. The lefts tactics morphed into an ethno-racial battle pitting all
    minorities as victims of oppression as the result of freedom and capitalism.
    your essay is an example of the result of that ideology.
    humanities studies of western civilization now ignore reason and judge according to victims viewpoints .
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I would imagine, dealing with the south was like dealing with stupid, dealing with parasitical non-conscious humanoids or... today's Left!?!?, the "new world dis-order!?!?!, the great unwashed refusing to take a bath!?!?!?, environ[mental]ist!?!?!?.

    I remember viewing a piece of paper where Lincoln wrote out the arguments that could be made about any one of us in regards to enslavement.
    July 1, 1854: Fragment on Slavery

    "Lincoln often encountered views supporting slavery. In this fragment, he countered the arguments that slavery was justified based on color and intellect."

    "If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. -- why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?--"

    "You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own."

    "You do not mean color exactly?--You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own."

    "But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you."

    I guess the south was too stupid, too corrupt, too narcissistic, too bicameral, to understand the argument.

    Killing each other was not the best way to settle the argument but we are back to my original posit...how do you...deal with stupid?

    How would an objectivist deal with the problem today...run away to a place called Galt's Gulch?
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ok, I have never heard of it thin that context, I will have to do some digging around, as it sound interesting.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    He didn't get stuck with it. He created it. He was elected by northern interests on a plan to tax the south to death and transfer the funds to his supporters in northern industry. This had already been tried in 1828 and it had already caused South Carolina to nullify the tariff- yes, SC where Lincoln's War started. Lincoln knew exactly what the reaction would be and that war would be the result. Lincoln was a looter, murderer of 400,000 American young men, and condoned the first war on civilian targets. Lincoln was the American Stalin.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 7 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Remember, the war he got stuck with was all about identity politics, in many, many respects.Beyond color, you had political identities staged off of southern/northern. slave/no slave/black/white and the nascent publishing and photo media learning to manipulate hype.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 4 months ago
    How dare Matthew Continetti, that NY Yankee Irish-Italian preach about bias to me!
    (sarcasm off)
    Decent article with one glaring exception.
    "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection."
    This Lincoln quote is a fantastic example of Lincoln as consummate politician striving for power at all costs, reminiscent of Hitler-pretending to want peace while refusing to even negotiate with southern leaders. Worst murdering POTUS in history and an early adopter of identity politics to shift blame.
    Reply | Permalink  

  • Comment hidden. Undo