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A political group that ONLY allows you to believe as THEY do ... or else, is NOT a "liberal group", That only accepts white, German, preferably blond.... is not, in any way ... LIBERAL!
You do realize that Nazis were liberals, right? ;)
Hello again, j:
Uhhh, no.. They were the epitome of right wing fanaticism, authoritarianism, and vile hatred.. Those AREN'T liberal traits.. I'd step away from the FOX News machine.. It's ROTTING your brain.
Yes, they had the word "socialist" in their name.. But, that's NOT enough to convince me.. I don't BELIEVE Nazis. But, you buy it, huh?
You conflate the right to life with right to life at someone else's expense.
That's the distinction when it comes to abortion. We all, and I include unborn children, have a right to life. None of us have the right to life at the expense of somebody else's and I don't see any reason to afford special rights to foetuses.
ROFLOL, you just said "We all, and I include unborn children, have a right to life."
And then you say..... "I don't see any reason to afford special right's to unborn children.?
Scientists say a human life begins at conception, so tell me in all your selfish mindless inhumanity, when does your so called "foetuses" become that unborn child?
The Democrat Party says NEVER! Do you vote for these inhuman Liberal politicians who keep no restriction abortions legal?
If you do, you are supporting the deaths of innocent human lives for mere convienence. No one else is being hurt!
WE ALREADY ALLOW LIFE OF MOTHER AND OTHER EXTREME CASE ABORTIONS! NO ONE IS TRYING TO STOP THOSE!
Yes, you've missed off a section of the point I've made and are now attacking a strawman.
Nobody has a right to life at the expense of someone else's, or to put it simply somebody else's rights or wellbeing.
Wellbeing covers a wide array of things for both mother and child. It does include but is not limited to life and death.
I have a right to life, does that mean that if i needed a new kidney and there wasn't a donor available that the state should legislate that somebody is forced to give me one?
It won't kill them, they may have to change their lifestyle a bit, but that's just an issue of convenience.
Also I'm from the UK. We established the rules on abortions years ago and moved on to bigger issues. It's not even on the political agenda anymore.
With your one broad statement used by the abortion lobby of so called "health of mother", you have allowed ALL ABORTIONS FOR ANY REASON UP TO BIRTH!
Can you grasp what the Left has done? If it is not life threatening, late term viable babies deserve the right to life no matter what inhuman selfish fools think.
What's so sick about people like you? You have no probem supporting the killing of special needs babies for merely being different!
Those special olympic children (Down syndrome children who love life) who are paraded across the track fields by hypocrites, are beng erradicated my many European nations, simply for being diverse and different from others.
How sick and intolerant can those on the Left become?
"Can you grasp what the Left has done? If it is not life threatening, late term viable babies deserve the right to life no matter what inhuman selfish fools think."
Not at the expense of another persons wellbeing or rights. I've already explained that wellbeing covers much more than just life or death. Think carefully on the analogy I gave and ask yourself if you think it was ethical or not.
I thought and have come to my original observaton. You are an inhumn fool living in your selfish world whereby killing a baby is more convienent for you after not using birth control and getting someone pregnant. IGNORE!
Just start the sentence with "Ism" and you're more accurate. Living by any ideology or dogma is about defining everything in set parameters and then endorsing or rejecting depending on that parameter. Liberalism can indeed do this. So can conservatism. So can any "ism".
Right wingers HAVE litmus tests.. Liberals don't.. That's what liberal means, after all.. Our doors are OPEN.. You can have 57 genders, or be pro life. Liberals don't CARE.. Come join us. We're right, and you KNOW we are.
When delving into areas such as these, you need to be a little more precise.. I dunno what you mean by "accept".. I have family who're bigots and right wingers. Do I accept them? Yes. Do we argue? Yes. Do I love them? Yes.. Can they join a liberal political party? Yes. Would they? No.. Would the liberal party GRILL them about their politics BEFORE allowing them to join? No..
When you talk about liberalism here you actually mean identity politics (progressivism would also fit). Some of the most effective criticism of identity politics is coming from the center-left. In addition, identity politics is actually antithetical to several tenets of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism is the basis of liberal democracies (such as the U.S.) and includes:
1) Individualism and judging people as individuals rather than exemplars of their group (racial or otherwise)
2) Civil liberties and civil rights (including freedom of speech and expression)
3) Equal treatment of all people regardless of sex, race, religion etc.
4) The rule of law and private property rights
5) Equality of opportunity as opposed to equality of outcome
I MIGHT agree IF I knew what identity politics is.. But, I don't.
Look.. I'm a LIBERAL.. I'm VERY liberal. Seeking freedom for EVERYBODY is at the heart of my liberalism.. I spose if I thought EVERYBODY was free, I'd make fun of identity politics too.. But, everybody ISN'T free. I dunno HOW I could explain it further WITHOUT mentioning the particular people who AREN'T free..
For example, women don't have dominion over their own bodies.. I COULDN'T mention that disparity WITHOUT mentioning women.. Is THAT identity politics?
Voter suppression is a happening thing these days.. I couldn't talk about that WITHOUT mentioning the people who are most effected by it. Is THAT identity politics?
Sure.. They attack Nazis.. Nazis kill people. Didn't you learn about WW II?? The murdering Nazis were on one side, and freedom loving people were on the other..
Appreciate the list; I'll check them out. I'm working on a treatise against identity politics so I'm quite interested in what others have to say on the matter, particular other critics at this point (not wanting to retread exhausted ground).
I'm especially focused on critiques about the a priori essence of identity and why it's objectionable, particularly when leveraged politically, if you've any thoughts on that at all. I wouldn't mind hearing any other thoughts you've got on the matter, though that's rather open ended.
Awesome, I hope it goes well and I'd love to read it when it's finished. For a more academic critique of identity politics I'd recommend the psychologist Dr Jordan B. Peterson, though he's probably center-right (which is why I didn't give his name before).
"I'm especially focused on critiques about the a priori essence of identity and why it's objectionable, particularly when leveraged politically"
Well first of all, when someone says I'm X because I'm black/white/male/female etc. they have stereotyped themselves and as we know stereotypes can be true as a group trend but isn't applicable to individuals.
A more astute criticism might be that undue focus on one facet of identity is counterproductive to a holistic view of the individual. While one focuses on what one's race/gender/sexual preference etc.'s stereotype supposedly says about the individual, everything else about the individual, usually the more important features, are relegated to secondary importance. These, non identitarian, features are what we should be focused on, particularly if our goal is ending discrimination based on identitarian features. I no doubt need not elucidate why character, intelligence etc. are more important features than one's skin color, gender sexual preference etc.
Interestingly, this also ties in to the oppression-privilege dichotomy. If one can be said to have privilege or oppression based on what one's features elicit from their socio-cultural environment then features such as attractiveness are far more important determinants of this. To begin, attractive people are thought of more positively on all dimensions relative to average people due to a psychological phenomenon known as the Halo-effect (Source 1). The Halo-effect also applies to other positive aspects of people, but since attractiveness is the most obvious positive aspect one can have, it's effects are the best documented. In addition to being perceived more positively in all areas, attractive people are paid more (Source 2). The same applies to taller and slimmer people (Source 3). These groups also of course have an easier time finding mates and siring offspring.
These are just a few physical features that appear to have greater predictive power of how one will be seen and treated than any identitarian feature. There are also many non physical predictors of success in multiple domains, such as the fact that those higher in extroversion will have more friends and those higher in neuroticism will experience negative emotion more strongly and more often. One could go through all the temperamental subcategories and find multitudes of categories that confer advantages relative to others. The same applies to the myriad of different circumstances of birth (single-parent households, poorer households, abusive parents etc.). When we take a holistic view of the individual then, we cannot conveniently place the individual into the advantaged or disadvantaged category because we lack the information to do so. It would appear that the decision to base one's relative advantage on identity rather than any other feature is strictly arbitrary and that an accurate holistic view of relative advantage and disadvantage seems impossible.
Dividing groups into "oppressed" and "privileged" also engenders resentment between the groups. The "oppressed" envy the "privileged" for their perceived ease of life and the "privileged" are angered by the allegation that they have things easy, particularly if they are struggling. Also, historically such narratives have precluded massacre, such as the massacre of the Kulaks in the Soviet Union.
Thanks. It's coming along; if I remember to, I'll share it when it's done. And I appreciate your thoughts on the subject, by the way. I spend an unfortunate amount of time in liberal echo chambers, so it's refreshing.
A colleague actually introduced me to Peterson's work a while back, so I have some familiarity. I don't know many people who are aware of his work, though. He makes some valid arguments, although I don't entirely agree with him.
I'm sympathetic to your critique of identity as oppositional to a holistic view of the individual. However, I'm also cautious about how intelligence and character features are called out because they generally reference back to something outside the individual to assess and classify the person (IQ and morality, respectively). My approach is heavily informed by the philosophy of Maxwell Stirner, if you're familiar. Briefly, I think that understanding the individual through any classification is irrational and repugnant because the uniqueness of the person is obscured in that process (i.e. the relegation you mention).
I agree that the features currently called out in identitarian politics are arbitrary and that an accurate holistic view of relative (dis)advantage through that perspective is impossible. I am, however, a bit dubious of the distinction you are drawing between identity and features because the latter seems like a type of the former. I take this distinction to be non-integral to your broader observations, though, since what you really seem to be highlighting is that we are socially classified by more than the set of identities mainstream liberality calls out for emphasis.
The divisiveness of the language is probably non-essential to identitarian politics, and generally comes down to the sort of plebeian misinterpretations most philosophies are subjected to when they become popularized in practice. It is not inherent to the ideas of 'oppression' or 'privilege' that they presume the specific conditions of particular individuals. Statements like "women are oppressed" or "tall people are privileged" can be accurate so long as they are taken as general observations of trends about socially conceived groups. What identitarianism gets correct is that it points to the existence of trends in categorization processes that use broadly accepted identity concepts in such a way as to affect general distributions of social power among individuals. Where it errs, though, is that in practice it takes these homogenous family resemblances as literal representations of heterogenous practices and circumstances. It observes that 'racial minorities' and 'women' actually exist, for instance. While intersectionality is identified as important to the identitarian project, probably anticipating objections like ours, there is no coherent articulation for how the unique intersections individuals occupy can be properly accounted for through homogenous identitarian accounts. Further, the emphasis is placed upon the recognition of identity... rather than in categorical antagonism towards it.
With respect to massacres, I think strong in-group/out-group thinking is a necessary but not sufficient condition for that. I'm wary of arguments that suggest any strong connection between identitarianism and massacres or genocide simply because there are so many cases where the former has not led to the latter. It strikes me as somewhat alarmist, and it's also unnecessary given how weak identitarianism already is.
P.S. Do you know where you got the term 'identitarian' from? I'm partial to it but have encountered some resistance to its usage in academia, and am trying to figure out where and by whom it's used.
"However, I'm also cautious about how intelligence and character features are called out because they generally reference back to something outside the individual to assess and classify the person (IQ and morality, respectively)."
We don't need to make a "value" judgement on their characteristics (though we inevitably will), it's just that a person's personality is actually a relevant feature for interactions with them.
" My approach is heavily informed by the philosophy of Maxwell Stirner, if you're familiar."
I'll look into his work, thanks for the rec.
" I am, however, a bit dubious of the distinction you are drawing between identity and features because the latter seems like a type of the former."
Yes, I had intended to note this.
"The divisiveness of the language is probably non-essential to identitarian politics"
I disagree, when you divide people into advantaged and disadvantaged it creates friction between the groups. I'm not saying we should ignore relative advantages if they exist (because it appears that the relative disadvantages of allegedly advantaged groups are ignored). What I'm saying is that the aim of applied intersectionality is presumably to foster positive intergroup relations and the outcome is in fact the opposite.
"With respect to massacres, I think strong in-group/out-group thinking is a necessary but not sufficient condition for that."
Don't get me wrong I'm simply saying that these narratives cause a major breakdown in intergroup relations and makes acts of aggression between the groups more likely.
"Do you know where you got the term 'identitarian' from?"
It originally was used more to describe the white nationalist crowd because of their use of identity politics but can be applied to anyone using identity politics (Source 1).
We don't need to make a "value" judgement on their characteristics (though we inevitably will), it's just that a person's personality is actually a relevant feature for interactions with them.
You cannot know a person's personality through generic identifiers, though. To know someone you have to engage them beyond the generic, otherwise you are filtering them through abstractions that entail things which won't be true of them. Even if that doesn't involves a value judgement (I'm not sure how it couldn't), it's still going to be epistemically inaccurate.
I disagree, when you divide people into advantaged and disadvantaged it creates friction between the groups. I'm not saying we should ignore relative advantages if they exist (because it appears that the relative disadvantages of allegedly advantaged groups are ignored). What I'm saying is that the aim of applied intersectionality is presumably to foster positive intergroup relations and the outcome is in fact the opposite.
I don't think my argument has been properly understood here; I'll try again. My point is that the ideas of (dis)advantage and (dis)privilege can be separated from the belief that identity groups call out something that actually exists. The implication is that we can talk about relative (dis)advantage between groups so long as we understand that the groups don't literally exist and that individuals are uniquely positioned socially. I'm saying that identity politics is partially correct in identifying trends, but that it overextends some of its other claims from those trends. It seems like we might not disagree that much here, but maybe I'm mistaken.
Don't get me wrong I'm simply saying that these narratives cause a major breakdown in intergroup relations and makes acts of aggression between the groups more likely.
Noted. If that's all you meant, then that was my misunderstanding.
It originally was used more to describe the white nationalist crowd because of their use of identity politics but can be applied to anyone using identity politics (Source 1).
Interesting. I'm starting to think 'identitarian' may be a leftist dog whistle to signify identity politics they don't agree with, which could explain why they don't like me using it to talk about their identity politics. :P
"You cannot know a person's personality through generic identifiers, though. To know someone you have to engage them beyond the generic, otherwise you are filtering them through abstractions that entail things which won't be true of them. Even if that doesn't involves a value judgement (I'm not sure how it couldn't), it's still going to be epistemically inaccurate."
I agree, I mean if we somehow know their personality.
"I don't think my argument has been properly understood here; I'll try again. My point is that the ideas of (dis)advantage and (dis)privilege can be separated from the belief that identity groups call out something that actually exists. The implication is that we can talk about relative (dis)advantage between groups so long as we understand that the groups don't literally exist and that individuals are uniquely positioned socially. I'm saying that identity politics is partially correct in identifying trends, but that it overextends some of its other claims from those trends. It seems like we might not disagree that much here, but maybe I'm mistaken."
I think you're thinking about the concept/idea of identity politics and I'm thinking of it's application. I don't particularly disagree with what you're saying but as you say when it filters down to popular use the problems arise. I personally don't really see any positive ways to implement these ideas but perhaps I'm wrong and you can change my mind?
"Interesting. I'm starting to think 'identitarian' may be a leftist dog whistle to signify identity politics they don't agree with, which could explain why they don't like me using it to talk about their identity politics. :P"
Haha, it wouldn't surprise me, it's probably a dirty word to them. The power that these identitarians have both in the humanities departments and culture itself is rather alarming.
Liberalism is about equality for all and when any group is being denied respect because they are a minority, Liberalism will champion them. Naturally, Liberalism whill condemn any group which espouses persecution of a minority because of their race, creed, sexual identity, and so forth.
Hmmmm. I don't REMEMBER any feminists objecting to transgenderism so it isn't likely it's a big deal to most of them. There are always a few, in any large group, that have differing opinions. Liberalism IS about being inclusive while harboring SOME difference of opinion. Your avatar is known for being and/or acting about as "feminist" as one could be. I don't like the term "feminist" when used to push for nothing but equality. Jolie's movies (many) characterize her as superior to men. That's what I would call a "feminist".
I wouldn't object, at all, to having her "superior" over me. ;-)
Precise speech IS important... Do liberals and conservatives BELIEVE the same thing? No. Does EVERY liberal believe what EVERY other liberal believes? No.
Why don't you post about the ISSUE instead of WHO supports it??
A lot of words ... no idea where they came from. If Nazis were liberals, how is it Fascism is a "right wing" political movement?? I know of NO liberals who like Nazis ... as was shown a couple of weeks ago, and we DEFINATELY don't like Fascism, don't like nationalism, don't like white supremacy, don't like communism! Democratic Socialism, as in European governments, a combination of two imperfect idioms,.... better, again, not perfect.
WWW.create debate.com is an opinion of "someone" ... maybe Putin? Who knows? I know what I believe, and it is NOT "dictating" groups. It's being inclusive with "groups". I'm a proud liberal.
It's true. But, things change, don't they? The Democrats of TODAY are NOT the racist party.
It's amazing that nobody ever seems to take into account how the times themselves change the standard definition of what is considered progressive. Back in those days everybody was racist. Racism was the default condition. Abraham Lincoln, considered the great emancipator of black slaves, said things like:-
Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.
I lived through that time, born in the thirties, lived through the 50's. I remember the "liberals" that "loved segregation". They largely lived in the south, cheered "The Gov" (and the Klan) when he (they) spread his hate. I'm sure you saw Mississippi Burning at least once. We "liberals" rejected those people, Republicans welcomed them with open arms. The only thing they were liberal with was their hate for anyone not white! To say we loved them or their segregation is to ignore the actual history. REAL liberals rejected them, grew up, changed the outlook of millions, welcomed all people .... as Christians are supposed to do ... and, by the way, I think you'll find more really devout Christians in church on Sunday have dark skins! A LARGE number of the white ones are CYA Christians. My mother and a daughter have lived in the south for years, I'm very familiar with the hypocrisy!
I also know the love conservatives have for turning around that hypocrisy and making it look like it's "liberal". Not exactly a successful move.
The point is, this is TODAY. People are supposed to learn from their mistakes. Liberals have decided they were (some of them) WRONG about some earlier feelings. WE believe in science and what it has taught us. It translates things into common sense. WE accept common sense.
According to your above post that liberals loved Nazis and segregation ... which would insinuate that conservatives did not. I do not, never did like segregation OR Nazis, I think skin color has nothing to do with a persons character or intelligence, I don't give a damn what people do in their bedrooms, who they love, what religion they follow (or not), I don't think there should be different rules for women and I am into protecting the environment. I guess you're saying I'm actually a conservative??? Maybe. Trump campaigned to be friendly to ALL those things! Holy SHIT, I'm a conservative! (P,S, I do NOT think there were some very good people ...on BOTH sides!) :-(
It's not a mistake. How can anti-fascism be a mistake?? Maybe a little "overzealous" ... like the Tea Party, but with a better cause. Do conservatives think anti-fascism is a mistake?? No doubt they don't, ... if their Presidents remarks can be accepted! "...very good people on BOTH sides." Liberals don't feel ANY fascism is acceptable! I agree! We don't like Nazis any more than Fascists! And , yes, THAT'S being "inclusive"! (And we DO dictate that THOSE groups are not to be indulged in!)
Search "TERF" if you want to find the feminists who exclude transgenderism. Although I doubt they're a majority they are nevertheless a substantial minority, and some of them hold positions of influence in liberal circles (e.g. and esp. academia).
