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Originally Posted by demonrail666

I think there are parallels between intersectionality and fascism but I now consider the thinking (for want of a better word) behind much of what it stands for to be so muddled and contradictory and essentially self-defeating that I exhaust myself knowing where to even start with it. Fascism at least has a logic, as does Communism, Free Market Capitalism, Classical Liberalism and all the other grown-up ideologies. They at least allow for a rational argument either for or against them. Identity politics is like a shouting child, whose shouts only become louder and more impassioned the more you try to reason with it. The tragedy is that so-called adults gave it a voice to begin with, so now we're not only doomed to having to listen to it but even adjust our lives according to its imbecilic demands.

the thing with identity politics is that it’s always been there though. tribalism is the constant of what the marxists like to call the barbaric stage of society. even in the so-called logic of fascism there is a core of irrationality and identity politics—blood and race. so il duce invades ethiopia, adolph exterminates the jews and subjugates the slavs, etc. the english royal family thus changes their german names to windsor. so very ethnic.

communism ignored ethnicity and look at what happened: the breakup of yugoslavia gave us a long bloody civil war and ethnic cleansing. the soviets split back into their republics and it hasn’t been as popular to talk about the bloodbath in the caucasus but that mess will continue for at least another century.

the enlightenment and classical liberalism glossed over the expansion of empires that justified their conquests on the bases of ethnicity. france in algeria, belgians in the congo, england all around the globe, the dutch in indonesia and south africa, spain and portugal in the americas, continental genocide, the slave trade, etc. sure there were economic interests at stake but those were justified on the basis of ethnic or religious arguments. the white man’s burden, the advancement of christian civilization, manifest destiny vs. the wild irish, the beastly negro, the primitive indian, etc etc etc. and it was always a man’s world.

at the same time many of the modern republics rose from ethnic / nationalists impulses out of the old empires. greeks freed from the turks, ireland freed from england, finland out of russia or was it sweden? etc etc.africa is still figuring it out but let’s not forget rwandan machetes. latin america is a bit different, too long to get into it, but it was the creoles (whites) lording it over brown people—so, ethnic. now catalonia wants to break free again. scotland might try again. every ethnic group is looking to separateas the world becomes more integrated. laugh at alvin toeffler all you want but he saw this coming.

do i find identity politics appealing? as a global mongrel, i certainly do not. but that’s also based on my identity no? hahahaha. well, everyone is a mongrel really if you ask me, but many find the label repugnant/insulting. dumbfucks love racial purity and hate science.

but anyway, identity politics has lived longer and harder than any modern political ideology. everyone believes they’re the chosen people, or beyond that, simply “the people”, and the rest are just barbarians, bar bar bar, barking unintelligible words, or you know what, merely animals—let’s put them to work.

intersectionality etc is merely the current way of describing those on the receiving end of the ethnically centered and gendered power systems that haven been with us since the dawn of time. i find it absurd and logical at the same time. it’s a form of resistance, but it goes nowhere.

the talk of white working class you find so objectionable is precisely what’s going on here: the white working class left out of the feast of globalization embracing identity politics. it really is an ethnic voting block.

when will this end? i have no fucking idea. but it’s been with us since the dawn of our species. and none of the grownup political ideologies have properly grappled with it.

my hopes are of course on liberalism, not in the “left liberal” sense that came to be in america but on the broader one that gave us modern democracy, human rights, economic freedom, and protects the individual from collective oppression, updated for our time. the full promise of the enlightenment.

the unavoidable march of globalization might be delayed but can’t be stopped. it’s been inevitable since we left africa, and the only real question is what are the values that will shape it.