'Identity Politics'

[rc-am]

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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