The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution

Imprimis ^ | November 2017 | Matthew Continetti

[Jacquerie]

The beginnings of identity politics can be traced to 1973, the year the first volume of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago—a book that demolished any pretense of communism’s moral authority—was published in the West. The ideological challenge of socialism was fading, its fighting spirit dwindling. This presented a challenge for the Left: how to carry on the fight against capitalism when its major ideological alternative was no longer viable?

The Left found its answer in an identity politics that grew out of anti-colonialism. Marx’s class struggle was reformulated into an ethno-racial struggle—a ceaseless competition between colonizer and colonized, victimizer and victim, oppressor and oppressed. Instead of presenting collectivism and central planning as the gateway to the realization of genuine freedom, the new multiculturalist Left turned to unmasking the supposed power relations that subordinated minorities and exploited third world nations.

This revolution in American universities was accomplished swiftly and largely outside the public eye. What little resistance the radicals met was vanquished with accusations of racism. It was not until the late 1980s, with Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns, the battle over the Stanford core curriculum, and the publication of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, that the rise of identity politics on campus and the idea of “political correctness” became a page one story. By that time, however, it was too late. Alumni, trustees, and parents had no recourse. The American university was irrevocably changed.

In 2004, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published Who Are We? Huntington examined the stunning immigration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico and argued that it was undermining longstanding notions of American national identity. America, Huntington said, has both a creed and a culture.

The culture derives from the Anglo-Protestant settlers who first peopled North America. Huntington worried about a “hispanicization” of American culture.

[Jacquerie]

Well, there you have it. Today's identity politics, which is responsible for the muslim invasion of the West, is a substitute, and a good one, for good 'ol fashioned, but discredited, communism.

[Diogenesis]

“Western thinking has become conservative: the world situation should stay
as it is at any cost; there should be no changes. ....
The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support
from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see
communism's crimes. And when they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them. In
our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero
and less than zero. But Western intellectuals still look at it with interest and with
empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to
withstand the East.”
[Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn at the Commencement, 8 June 1978, Harvard University]

"Our enemies may be irrational, even outright insane,
driven by nationalism, religion, ethnicity or ideology.
They do not fear the United States
for its diplomatic skills or the number of automobiles
and software programs it produces.
They respect only the firepower of our tanks,
planes and helicopter gunships."

President Ronald Reagan

[Jacquerie]

Regarding Allan Bloom's 1986 book: Wading Into Left-Speak: The Closing of the American Mind.

[exDemMom]

I wouldn’t call it a substitute. It’s more of a facade. The old goals are still there—they just disguise themselves these days.

[rlmorel]

Excellent, excellent article, thank you for posting it.

"...He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men..."

To learn every single cursed thing about Barack Obama that you need to know, you only need to look at Obama's speech at the 2004 convention, and then look at every word he uttered, every action he took, every thing he signed, and every breath he took.

He said what he needed to say to shape the public view in an acceptable way to many gullible Americans (what it meant to be an American) then once he became President, repudiated every single word with contrary actions, behavior, speech, and legislation.

[rlmorel]

Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago ranks for me as one of the most influential political books ever written right behind Witness by Whittaker Chambers.

I had always been anti-Communist even since my youngest days and never had any illusions about what it was, but Solzhenitsyn's book cemented it for me in a way that nothing had up to then or since.

Very powerful.

[rlmorel]

I wasn't clear that I was initially referencing the passage taken from Jean de Crèvecoeur’s 1782 Letters from an American Farmer...NOT Barack Obama's 2004 speech.

[gattaca]

bmp

[Liz]

[marktwain]

Very powerful.

---

I found the Gulag Archipelago difficult to read. Not because of the writing style, which was fine, but because of the documentation of evil that permeated every page.

The banality of the evil, everyday men and women committing horrific acts, because the faceless bureaucracy willed them to do it. Even the NAZI socialists seemed better.

I had to stop every few pages to absorb it. It took me several months to finish it.

[rlmorel]

Oh, I agree 100%, though I did not have the same reaction as you because it validated at a fundamental level all that I knew of extreme leftist ideologies. It was gripping to me and I couldn't put it down, because I already thought it was true. I had the same feeling as you when I read "Rules for Radicals". I didn't believe in my heart there were Americans who used that book as a bible (such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) and I had a constant urge to throw the book down and refuse to read more of it. But I forced myself to.

And because I did not give a crap about any copyright issues when it came to that vile tome, I wanted to record it as an audiobook for friends, but...I couldn't do it.

To make a book like that listenable, you have to read it as if you agree with it, otherwise it becomes impossible to listen to due to the distaste leaching out of every word.

I gave up after a few chapters.

[Jacquerie]

Yes, last February I wrote of Crevecoeur and the American experience.

This is an American.

[spintreebob]

The beginnings of identity politics can be traced to 1973

No. 1973 was in the middle of the slow creep of identity politics. Politicians and movements have always appealed to racial, ethnic, religious, gender and other identity factors.

The Black Power movement that started in 1968 was far more significant than 1973 in US identity politics. What I saw in the civil rights movement of the 60s was that is occurred at the same time as the birthcontrol pill launched the sexual revolution.

Rich White guys in the civil rights movement were trying to call the shots. Specifically they wanted to abandon racial discrimination in all but lip service and put all the focus on the war in Vietnam. They repeatedly would say things like My family's money.... or My grandmother's foundation.... This antagonized the Blacks who did not want the focus shifted from US discrimination to a war thousands of miles away.

But underneath the spoken opposition was another factor. Black guys were hitting on white gals in the movement... You are racist if you don't let me do it to you. Black gals did not like it that Black guys seemed to be favoring white gals.

But the rich white guys were also telling the Black sisters, typically the receptionist in the office Do it with me because my family foundation is paying your salary.

This did not sit well with Black guys, and not with Black gals. Call it a double standard if you wish. But the result was Blacks wanted to call the shots in the movement and did not want rich Whitey calling the shots.

The response of the White left to all of this was what drove identity politics in the early days. The White left had to adjust to prove they were not racist or sexist.

[wjcsux]

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[Albion Wilde]

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