'Identity Politics'

rc-am rcollins at netlink.com.au
Fri Sep 17 00:46:22 PDT 1999


why is everyone assuming that identity politics relates to feminist, civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, etc movements and politics? does anyone seriously beleive that there is not also an identity politics within certain strains of marxism, socialism...? what about council communism or syndicalism or the lassallean socialists with their 'labour is the source of all value' position or whatever else posits emancipation in already-given identities, liberation as the revelation of the hidden truth of such-and-such identity?

it seems to me that when people think of identity politics, they think immediately of things like particularity and universality (in which all sorts of things get supposed about, say, women).

adorno's critique of what he calls 'identitarian thinking' is perhaps the best place to begin for understanding the practices and suppositions of an identity politics (with whatever identity you like to pin to that), and it certainly has nothing to do with women, blacks, lesbians, ... unless you want to continue assuming another identity politics as the unexplored, and universal identity (humanity, Man, proletariat as the universal class, etc) upon which all other identities are rendered insufficient, inadequate, etc.

Angela _________



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