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Comment by bluetomcat | Hacker News Reader

As a European observer of the general discourse in "popular speech platforms" of the "American Brain", I am baffled by the narrow breadth of topics that get discussed most of the time. Enormous heat is generated from discussions on gay marriage, gun laws, abortion laws and minority rights. Identity politics at full throttle. It feels very shallow and unintellectual. You are forced to identify as a member of some group, and then you become a social justice warrior of that group. It all feels like a very wrong way to approach politics on a national level.

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Sure it's wrong; that's how the clique on top remains on top. It works similarly to a forced card or misdirection of attention in a magic trick. You keep the little people angry with each other; calling each other names, denouncing each other over issues the powerful don't really care about. So nothing changes.

You're allowed to have "choice" in any of these heated micro-issues, but the national security surveillance state, the rule of the oligarchy, cheap labor, cultural atomization, the petrodollar and empire and eternal war are beyond question. I don't see anything changing short of an actual "fall of soviet union" style revolution or dissolution of the country.

Politicians and the people that run our mass media have a vested interest in the status quo, so they are happy to keep the hoi polloi talking about a narrow set of topics. If we start addressing the greater injustices in our society, the gatekeepers of political discourse might find themselves on the outside looking in.

As an American, I would say you've basically got it right (IMO). What is most troublesome to me is how easily and consistently these dynamics are exploited.

And I'm not just referring to the disinformation campaigns of the previous presidential election cycle. I'm referring to the longer term trend of "wedge issues" that have been used to distract and divide.

For example, You can take a group of people who might be fairly homogenous in terms of, say, opposition to the U.S. military "adventures" around the world, but are very easily divide and distract them with abortion, guns, etc., thereby preserving the status quo with respect to the military issue.

What do you mean by "identity politics" in this context? What does identity politics have to do with gun laws, for example?

"Gun Owner" is a way people self identify and cling to in a very irrational way. At least I assume that's what they are talking about.

I think it’s the media that identifies the group ‘gun owners’ more than individuals do.

With respect to gun laws, you identify loosely either as a "Texan farmer who needs guns to protect his farm", or a "student who might become a victim of a crazy classmate", or maybe a gun producer who profits from the sales of guns.

The whole political and societal discourse then starts revolving around satisfying the individual interests of these groups, instead of looking at things integrally from a systematic point of view. If you optimise the system from above, you may even avoid the need of having those groups of people in the first place.

How would one look "at things integrally from a systemic point of view" in the case of gun laws?

Maybe by improving the socioeconomic conditions that generate crime in the first place?

All politics is identity politics. You can spot the people who function from a position of privilege politically, because they're the ones who think that "identity politics" is what other people are doing. Privilege is just a consequence of identity.

I'll bite - how is arguing for or against software patents, identity politics? What about arguing for right to repair? Or trying to abolish anti-circumvention laws?

Which political privilege do I have, that prevents me from seeing these as identity politics?

Go read the parent to my comment again. I was responding to that parent, not to this detailed question of yours.

To answer your question... it doesn't. It isn't a catch-all explanation for every single policy detail. That does not invalidate the generalization, however.

I think the post you originally replied to was fully aware all the topics they mentioned were identity politics in the US. I understood their complaint as:

1) Almost only issues that are identity politics get discussed in the US.

2) Issues that aren't inherently identity politics (e.g. environmentalism or healthcare) get re-cast as such.

To refine my statement... in a representative democracy, our choice of candidates for representatives is purely identity politics. Better?

This doesn't get into details of issues. Our candidates that match our identities have their political inclinations that we probably agree with most of the time, due to our mutual identity.

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