Comment by firasd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by firasd | Hacker News Reader

The professor who says, “But then, at some point, it became really solipsistic” really gets to my issues with the rise of ‘Social Justice’ politics this decade. As a non-white guy, I understand and sometimes agree with claims like: “Your literary canon/history/point of view/etc. is rooted in Western hegemony.” That’s a claim that can be analyzed. It’s another to just say: “You’re [Various Identifier Here]-Splaining.” What can someone really do with that? At that point the claim becomes pure politics, you have to just support the person making the claim or not.

(Not to get on a soapbox but the theatre prof joking “I’m thinking, Oh, God! I’m cast in one of my least favorite plays of all time, ‘The Crucible,’ by Arthur Miller!” gets to another issue I have. People don’t seem understand that the tools they use to oppose others should be applied with proportionality and good judgement, if for no other reason than that in another circumstance those same tools can be used against them as well. In general I think when people are ensconced in any ideology, they begin to overlook Kant’s reminder to “treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.”)

Agreed. These days, Identity politics is absolutely dominated by the idea that everything is just a point-of-view and ideas/arguments are inseparable from the identity of the person putting them forth.

I often say that a "scientific temper" is something we should all strive towards - the scientific method is possibly the greatest achievement of civilization - but there are an inexplicable number of people (who have never heard of it) that simply claim that enlightenment ideals are Eurocentric and that my subscription to those (as a non-white) would count as internalized oppression.

By some, nuance is denounced, absolutism is glamorous. Some others cannot be argued with; they grow an argument for every exception to their blanket theories until the entire ideology is a tangled mess of patchwork, at which point the application of this monster to any real-world situation becomes intractable and the evaluation of new observations strongly correlates with in/out-group membership.

It is incredibly sad to see this dynamic being played out by otherwise smart people that I respect.

That you and I have to explicitly advertise our non-white status when saying this for it to hold any water is a travesty, and demonstrates how bad the environment has become.

that my subscription to those (as a non-white) would count as internalized oppression.

I always feel that such arguments are extremely offensive, as they're denying you agency. Instead of recognizing you as an individual person, they're painting you as a member of a victimized group.

Although I've more often seen it as feminists denouncing other women's life choices, I think the mechanism is similar.

More and more, I find the current generation of far-left and far-right almost indistinguishable in their methods.

IMO, claiming that someone suffers from "internalized opression" is simply this new left's version of the "cuck" slur.

>I find the current generation of far-left and far-right almost indistinguishable in their methods.

That was always the case.

There is a way to be left-leaning without buying into the identity politics of the popular left. The leftist perspective on power is as important as ever, but there's not always a political party to go to anymore.

>Agreed. These days, Identity politics is absolutely dominated by the idea that everything is just a point-of-view and ideas/arguments are inseparable from the identity of the person putting them forth.

Not at all. Identity politics is merely an "us vs them" game with identity only being used to call people sexist/racist/___phobic to force them to agree or be labelled a bigot.

If you're white and you support Trump you're a bigot. If you're black and support trump you're an Uncle Tom. If you're a woman and support Trump you have internalized misogyny. To people playing the identity politics game it doesn't matter what identity you have as a person because "you're wrong". There is no identity in which you can support Trump and not be "wrong" in doing so.

Once upon a time it was the Conservatives playing the identity politics game. Now it is the regressive left and oh boy did they tip the scale more than just flipping it.

> By some, nuance is denounced, absolutism is glamorous.

We humans have been here many times before.

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    (William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming")

I find these lines comforting. Society for the last few centuries has muddled through, often ungracefully. I predict in a few years we'll look back on articles like this and wonder what the fuss was about.

> What can someone really do with that? At that point the claim becomes pure politics, you have to just support the person making the claim or not.

Not a whole lot, and that's by design.

Subjectivism of what is art in the modern art movement was annoying but didn't really affect most people's lives. Now, we have the same thing with the same rhetoric and tactics (well, with the added violence) happening on US campuses.

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