My column on Larry Summers, Bill Clinton and Democratic identity politics provoked a furious response from Ann Friedman of the American Prospect. I reply to Friedman here.
--Jonathan Chait
Posted: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 4:19 PM with 4 comment(s)
Great response. Something else you don't say explicitly:
Friedman seems to be implying that to reject identity politics is to set aside the *substantive* interests of minorities, women, and gays. She's wrong; to reject identity politics is just to reject the elevation of identity-related symbolism over substantive issues and individual qualifications. Were there any good reason to think Summers would actually use a Treasury position to undermine American women, then criticizing his candidacy on that ground would be morally required.
But the current debate isn't about that; instead it's about whether some impolitic but essentially innocuous comments completely unrelated to the Treasury job ought to be a disqualifier. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the substantive rights or interests of American women. It's about punishing someone for saying something that feminists consider reprehensible. That's why opposing Summers on this ground is pure identity politics, and that's why it's wrongheaded.
Come on! Yes! Get in there, get stuck in!
it's Jack vs Mac in a Spine cage death match. Lets be having ye. Zionazi vs Nazi in a winner takes all, once in a lifetime grudge stabbing frenzy.
Oh yes, this is the one I've been waiting for. Let's get ready to rum........what?...it's just Chait and some other intellectuals discussing identity politics.
Jesus.
You call that an internet pissing match? You need to get out more Jonathan, or stay in more, I'm not really sure, but you should definitely read more of The Spine.
Identity politics is the sort of mind set that misses the crucial point about what all of us share in commom: subsisting from day to day.
In other words, all men and women must have access to food, water, clothing and shelter. They need a relatively stable environment in which to reproduce. In turn, they must to be able to defend their community from enemies within and without.
Think about it like this:
It is estimated that over 2,000,000,000 men, women and children live literally on the equivalent of one to two dollars a day. Consequently, few of them can afford the luxury of debating how "identity politics" makes their lives so precarious.
In the modern industrial world, however, subjunctive identity categories are pondered, proposed, probed and propagated in order to [one way or another] make sure that most of what gets divvied up in the end ends up going to the folks in our own demographic profile. At least that is how many view the world.
Black, white, brown, red, yellow....working class, middle class, rich....gay, straight, transexual...Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim.
Do these identites mean anything at all to a new born babiy? No, they are acquired in the course of being reared in a particular community embedded in a particular culture at a particular time in history.
Is it just a coincidence that, coming from a conservative military family, John McCain chooses the same path? Is it just a coincidence that, coming from a swirling kaleidoscope of multifaceted and multifarious influences, Barack Obama sees the world around him from many different [oft times conflicting] vantage points?
Identity is an inextricable and ineffable mosaic of what you have been taught, what you have experienced, and what you have learned from books and from other people.
And this is always subject to change without notice.
george walton
What is a Zionazi?