Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Max Diamond — Identitarianism and the Splintering of Democracy


I don't see identarianism or identarian epistemology as problem although it is an issue. It lies at the foundation of postmodern critique. 

identarianism or identarian epistemology are issues that a represetative democracy should be able to handle by ensuring that all identity groups are represented by qualified people. so that all can feel –genuinely – that they have a seat at the table rather than either token representation or no representation.

This is what social and political liberalism are about, after all.

Quilette
Identitarianism and the Splintering of Democracy
Max Diamond
Hannah Arendt was a literary intellectual, defined by Thomas Pynchon as, “people who read and think.” Like Socrates, Hannah Arendt thought and went where thought took her. Arendt’s thinking led her many places, but one of the more interesting topics she thought about was the source of human values. Arendt shared Nietzsche’s and Marx’s belief that moral values are made by humans and not, as the Enlightenment believed, independently existing principles of right and wrong. As Nietzsche and Marx are both earlier in history and more forceful in their language then Arendt (and also, notably, men), Arendt’s own thinking on how values are made gets less attention than it merits.
Arendt devotes much of her most important book, The Human Condition, to elaborating three different categorical distinctions important for how she thinks our experience of existence shapes how we make human values. She calls the first distinction the social/private/political distinction, the second the labor/work/action distinction and the third the earth/world distinction. To understand these three distinctions correctly is to follow Arendt’s thinking on human values, and they are best taken in reverse order....
OUP Blog
Hannah Arendt and the source of human values
Steven Maloney


6 comments:

Matt Franko said...

"democracy should be able to handle by ensuring that all identity groups are represented by qualified people."

You have to lower the qualifications in order to guarantee this currently Tom, this is a large part of the current problems... the people are not qualified...

Matt Franko said...

China doesnt have to deal with this... Japan doesnt have to deal with this... etc...

Only the west is having to deal with this... it without doubt is acting to reduce the quality of material system outcomes.. may turn out to be worth it in the long run but this only started here in earnest a couple of decades now....

Matt Franko said...

"She calls the first distinction the social/private/political distinction, the second the labor/work/action distinction and the third the earth/world distinction. "

You can see Batra's categories here too:

"social/private/political distinction" = intelligentsia

"labor/work/action distinction" = laborers

"the earth/world distinction" = acquirers

she is missing the warriors...

NeilW said...

Identity groups are not groups at all. They are prejudicial labels.

At what point did progressive politics decide it is ok to put individuals in pre-labelled boxes? That's the very definition of stereotyping.

Matt Franko said...

Well Neil for instance the LGBT people have been singled out by others for a long time not in a respectful way... they could just be getting back in other people’s faces...

Tom Hickey said...

Identity politics has been strong in the US since the founding. It experienced a shift with every wave of migration. Women's suffrage was another big issue. Now it has branched into a network of intersecting groups and it will only grow and deepen with the Internet and social media.

Persuasion is based on feeling, identity and reason in descending order of effect.