Are identity politics dangerous? 

Juanito libertarianism built the world that everybody takes for granted now.

Very well said.

that kind of makes no sense...

What a meaningless platitude.

The trouble is liberalism figured this out two hundred plus years ago. Where as intersectional types still haven’t

Thank you!

All politics have an identitarian component, m0r0n. You can't even evaluate economic policies without people identifying with jobless/working demographics in different ways and that's just for starters.

@Kevin Elsworth YES. 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Exactly!

Thank you. Identity politics by definition is shallow, skin deep you could say. The most oppressed is always the individual and collectivism is a small step away from genocide.

This! 🙌🏼

Jordan Peterson has entered the chat😁👌🏼💯

Huh? When did identity politics become about having certain rights for certain groups? Wasn't it always about having equal rights?

iih It should be about equal rights but that's not the goal of identity politics.

Bengali - Umm I never even implied one group has more rights than another. I meant that many people are using identity politics to try to achieve unique rights for different groups.

Women. They have the right to absolve themselves of all legal, financial, and social responsibility of raising a child they do not want. They have the right (in some countries) to abort their baby and husband has no right to interject. They have the right to legal protection against genital mutilation, boys do not.

Bengali - name one that doesnt have the same rights then

People should be allowed to have their own identity.

Agreed this only benefits those that wish to divide and segregate

@@novosprospectus882 Are people not allowed to have there own identity? Division is only bad when it results in one side believing there better then the others

@@brianbrush5107 Are the majority supposed to be ignored? Division is bad when it results in on side believing they are better than the others which is exactly what is happening with the majority being ignored.

@@novosprospectus882 That ain't what identity politics are. Identity politics is taking pride in yourself and who you are.

Which is also dangerous... when we are dealt with as groups rather than individuals we carry consequences/guilt/shame as a group for example black/latinos/natives and really every minority group has to carry stereotypes and feel apologetic for crimes some of them has commit and are all stereotyped accordingly ... we should focus more on individual rights rather than group/pack rights and mentality.

Thats the point you fool lol

@Zangyaku Diluc /whoosh

I will join team white male and we will commit violence to persevere ourselves if required. If you want me to focus on your vision of my identity, you will not like the results. If you want to be a fellow American we can play that way too.

@Dorey DNM In terms of rights and opportunities, yes. I don't have to agree with them to acknowledge their right of free speech and individualism. You basicly just proved his point by using identity politics in a destructive way.

+Sydney Piper Bristow, there are two approaches to improving representation of low income populations in universities: 1) improve schools, institutions and family structures in these neighborhoods so that they have the same opportunity as those in high income neighborhoods. This may include putting more resources in low-income areas, lowering crime rates, or provide incentives for businesses to invest in these left-behind neighborhoods. 2) leave the system as is and incorporate affirmative action. This evens out the enrollment distribution by enabling those at the bottom to enroll, but at the expense of those who have the highest enrollment scores. This favors some minority groups (such as native born blacks and indigenous) at the expense of other minority groups (asian american and ashkenazi jews). The second option is of course representative of institutional racism, and is why schools such as harvard are now in court over their historic enrollment records, or why Tokyo medical school is in hot water for preferentially admitting males over females to improve representation of males as doctors. The former option 1) is one that I support, and I would also support an enrollment system that gave preference to individuals from low income neighborhoods and sub-par upbringing. This option gives preferential treatment to those that had to overcome more in life simply based on upbringing, as opposed to option 2) which discriminates based on skin color, i.e. a practice America is slowly trying to phase out.

+Sydney Piper Bristow, maybe I should have been more direct. I am against affirmative action as it currently stands because it is predicated on race or any immutable characteristic, but I am for a form of affirmative action if it takes into account upbringing. Hope that clarifies it, but I can be more descriptive if you like.

Syndey Piper Bristow, thanks for your response. I also want to commend you for not getting at least too emotionally invested in this argument, as it's difficult to have a telling debate with many people on topics such as this. I will answer your questions in order: "So even though race, sexual orientation, etc , immutable characteristics are the specific reasons why they are oppressed, you think they don't deserve affirmative action????" Two things on this point. Firstly, for all the reasons mentioned in my earlier comments, affirmative action is a form of institutionalized racism, simple as that. You cannot discriminate on any immutable characteristic, simple as that. If any group is oppressed we need to remove the barriers of oppression, not punish other minority groups institutionally. Second on this point, birthplace and upbringing are stronger indicators of economic mobility overall that racial identity. In a poor neighborhoods with < 50,000 USD in household income, the black woman have better economic mobility than white woman, with black men having the worst chance of moving out of poverty - largely due to high incarceration rates. In rich neighborhoods, black and white males have the same chance of accumulating wealth; regardless of race. All of this was noted in a study by Stanford University, and was used to indicate the fact that people - regardless of race - have poor income mobility when they are born in areas with fewer opportunities and higher crimes rates. "Does that really sound logical, when you refuse a group affirmative action based on something they were born as ?: That's an interesting spin on what I said. I suggest we can't base affirmative action on immutable characteristics, but rather by upbringing, i.e. no race base discrimination. I'm assuming you are for affirmative action, meaning you believe in selecting certain groups of privilege over others, at the expense of other minority groups. I hope you understand the irony in what you say; again, I believe no where in life should you be identified, discriminated or favored because of your racial, sexual or gender preference. We actually have laws on the books saying that explicitly, so I don't think that should be debatable. "Are you really saying that there are no victims in those minorities?" There are victims of society in all groups, that's not the point. I have already mentioned at length why some people are disadvantaged in society, but the approach I take doesn't discriminate based on immutable characteristics, and targets the worse off more directly. In race based affirmative action, an asian american is at a disadvantage regardless if he came from a family with nothing, or he was born from a wealthy household. In both instances he is judged based on his racial identity, and that is a practice I hope to phase out over time. Hope that clarifies by position better. Cheers.

+Sydney Piper Bristow, "You said you cannot discriminate on immutable characteristics, except, that's exactly what's being discriminated . Discrimination doesn't follow rules or laws, it's why it's called discrimination. Do I really need to provide evidence of this for you?" I don't know if I'm not conveying myself properly, or english may not be your first language - no offense. I'm saying you cannot discriminate on immutable characteristics, it's illegal and is a policy that traces by to the Jim Crowe era. Discrimination still exists, but we should phase it out in all forms it may take.

+Sydney Piper Bristow, "Minorities are not a privileged group. Affirmative action is there for oppressed groups. Not sure why you think they're privileged? What is at the expense of other groups? What exactly is expended?" Privilege comes in many forms, any application/process that overtly gives preference based on race is giving some privileges to some groups over others. As for what is expended, in affirmative action if you are asian america you have points docked against you, while if you are african american or latino, you have points added to your score. Do you understand what is expended? Some people don't get in because they are asian american, simply because they were born of a certain ethnicity; that's institutional racism clear and center.

Like we already have?

@@mynamemylastname1835 nope. Some groups have special protection under law.

@@Naveenkr7102 OK I'll bite, what groups have special protection in your opinion?

@@mynamemylastname1835 women and children

Giving children additional legal protections seems legitimate.

Марко Тотев It certainly is suspicious when The Economist logo is a “Red Square”. I’m sure it’s purely coincidental of course.

woodchuck 00 if you don't track demographics, then you won't see disparaties in the population. And when there's an unexplained underrepresentation of a group in a population, you have the option of either letting it persist or correcting the disparaties to what is expected holding all else constant. Disparaties of minorities in populations for various services/etc have and continue to exist. TL:DR colorblind is not equal to not racist

Derek Chance If you want to be not racist then maybe you should refrain from racial discrimination. Unexplained under-representation is a statistical leftover, not a blank check for you to write into whatever you want. If you don't know what causes the disparities then you won't correct them either. The only thing you will achieve is discriminating against certain individuals based on their race. Some might call that racist in and of itself, but I'm sure you have some neat euphemism for it and all the double standards you might possible need to back its use.

romaliop Even if I, or the public, refrain from discrimination doesn't mean others will. Simply observing the spread of a population is not discriminatory. Sure, policy that is discriminatory could be made based on it, but to say that policies that seek to prevent racial discrimination are racist is about as oxymoronic as it gets.

Derek, this is The Economist you know what kind of affirmative action they are talking about. They want the affirmative action that lead the FAA to think its a good idea to allow unqualified people to be air traffic controllers, the kind that Harvard is being sued over (making it harder for Asian-Americans to enter), the kind that made Saddleback College think it was a good idea to give two title IX investigations to a student with autism and cerebral palsy.

Derek Chance Seeking to prevent racial discrimination with policies of racial discrimination is the real paradox here.

@@eddiew2325 you better find your "safe space"

So true

Civil rights can be argued to be the opposite of identity politics, it was about getting to the point where we'd see ppl as individuals rather than members of groups

But it's inevitable so deal with it.

@@Ryan-gz6ym It isn't inevitable. The ruling elite have simply made it acceptable, by introducing the concept of privilege. Racism, tribalism, bigotry and discrimination used to be morally bad, whoever you were, but now all of them are acceptable, so long as the person you are doing it to is "Privileged". Of course the concept of privilege is seductive, and is so loose and ill-defined, impossible to prove one way or another, it is perfect for their needs. The media, the rich and politicians are stirring up hatred and division, to get viewers, maintain the status quo, and earn votes. That is the same morally evil thing as Mao, Stalin or Hitler did. The problem is that we (the public) have been persuaded that it is not evil, by these very generally bad people who now have all the wealth, run our governments and broadcast our entertainment.

@@marioferreira7605 No, If you decide that you are going to belong to a tribe and identify with that tribe, you immediately create the situation where another tribe opposes you. It is like gang warfare. Unless you think you are better than everyone else, if you can do it why can't everyone else? It is morally wrong. If you want to help the poor, help poor people of every gender and color. If police are shooting innocent people, it is wrong whatever color they are. As soon as you say, we only support helping people who are a certain color, its you who is the racist. If black people only help black people, why shouldn't white people only help white people? You create exactly what you are trying to avoid.

So you swore on oath to only defend people who share the same national identity as you? That is the very definition of identity politics! Did you get hit on the head in the marines?

@@dangumbo4835 marines aren't the brightest crayons in the box :/

@@michaeldudley3756 Or the sharpest stars in the sky. :)

@@dangumbo4835 I don’t remember a single country’s soldier vowing to protect the world instead of the nation

@@dangumbo4835 Call me wrong but, when was the last time members of foreign armies or defense forces vowed to protect the US? Or any other nation beside theirs?

Coby Whitaker can you explain what he did to make it worse?

Ravi GOPINATHAN let me educate you. Obama is a collectivist. He called conservatives bitter clingers that cling to guns and bibles. Identify white police as racist. He created the DACA program just for votes with no Pathway to citizenship. He told cities to ignore immigration law and favor foreigners over citizens. The media called anything negative against Obama racist. The Democratic party completely gave up on the white working man if he is straight.

Coby Whitaker what? Did you miss the 60's or something?

Agreed

Kevin O'Brien Asking for it specially for your group is not the same, then.

Women have had equal rights with men for decades now.

Tribal past? When did we ever evolve past tribalism? I haven't seen one piece of evidence to support that.

I agree completely. It has done nothing to unite us and merely appeals to the worst elements of our nature.

Is it sexist that 70% are men? Sexism is needed to fight sexism

One can be a woman and competent. I'll just point that out

@@Burikami Way to miss the point dumbass. Learn to read . ATLEAST ATLEAST ATLEAST. Not 30 percent, ATLEAST 30 percent.

Problem with egalitarian identity politics is that it's flawed at its fundamentals. Create equal opportunity and free choice, and you WILL get an unequal outcome. Pointing at the unequal outcome and saying (for example) that it's sexist is a dangerous oversimplification of a complex reality.

Why intersectionality is part of it, in other words, a victimhood checklist.

Facts

every violent revolution started with the promise of "going forward" there should always be an awarness and skeptisism to who says those words and what are their ideas for doing so .

Equal rights regardless of identity is an identity politics position. You can deny that but when you feel someone wants to take rights from you based on identity and those people exist on all sides you might feel differently. It does not make sense to reject identity politics as a concept, instead we should identify bad ideas within identity politics and fight those.

Seems more or less spot on to me.

Platform. Precedent. Consciousness of these, always.

In lots of ways modern day SJWs have lot in common with eugenics people in 1900s, which was tribalistic and racist. But after the nazis the eugenics vanished

@@matrix91234 Hardly. SJW’s are more like whiny brats who need to grow up and stop living in a bubble.

@@CoreyStudios2000 I can kinda say same thing with right wing autocrats. I just mean the effects identity politics is it bases brash generalization and can hurt pointing out the actual problem

Exactly

Facts

More "we vs them". Focusing on us means we get along

Circadin all humans are equal, no one person is the same.

Divide and conquer is how Europe colonised the world

Yep that's all. Human rights. That's all we need. That's it.