Debate:Identity politics has no meaning

This is a Debate page. Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil! This debate was created by LynnR.

Identity politics is meaningless, as all politics is based on identity. Gay rights? Based on the identity of gay people and those with a progressive identity who want to support them. Racialism? Based on the identity of certain people of a particular race, like the Nation of Islam for black people and the KKK for white people. Communism? Based on the identity of the working class. Any political ideology is rooted in identity, so identity politics is meaningless and is simply used as a snarl word by people like Milo Yiannopoulos (despite him being the epitome of identity politics) to demean anyone with a different identity. Do you agree, disagree, or goat, and why?

Agree

1. Protecting christian values is as identity politics as you can get. So it's a yes from me. —ClickerClock (talk) 01:56, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
2. On the basis that absolutely nothing matters. RoninMacbeth (talk) 01:59, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Disagree

1. Some political ideologies are rooted not in identity as distinguished from some other, but in a belief about the human condition in general e.g. (classical) liberalism, environmentalism.109.156.114.56 (talk) 14:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
2. 'Identity politics' is not really all that meaningful, but the phrase is useful shorthand for an absolutist sort of egalitarianism in cultural politics that ignores the way all complex societies have historically worked. I'd be happy to call that belief system by another name that would be understood. As a belief system it fails on a number of ways, most obviously by politicizing various cultural issues that politics really can't deal with. It keeps people's attention focused on statues and Halloween costumes and diverts a great deal of moral earnestness that might otherwise turn its gaze towards the financial system. It generates a highly moralized etiquette that, like any other etiquette, undermines the hard egalitarianism it strives for by defining an underclass of the uncouth. Worst, it's just more divisive cultural politics of the kind that makes the moneyed classes happy. They're content to impose it on underlings through human resources departments and middle-management pieties. It actually worsens the problem of class blindness in the soi-disant Left. The people it targets are often poorer and less educated and lack the ability to stay current with academic trends. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 16:35, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Goat

You aren't going to exactly have a debate here. We can predict views on identity politics depending on political views.

Hypothesis:

Politics	Views on identity politics
far left	Horrible, destroying the left
left	Love it or Meh
left center	Meh or destroying the left

—ClickerClock (talk) 02:13, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

You missed one:

• Right - we're against it, unless we're doing it and it's called something else. Avida Dollars^{her again} 14:59, 8 December 2018 (UTC)