> "Anytime you make visible choice that refutes assumptions made by 95% of the population you will be identified according to that 5% group."
I understand that point. I think however that there is an underlying assumption which I find questionable.
Current neo-progressive ideology attempts to reframe individual personality traits, desires, proclivities, and aversions into intersectional group "identities". Rather than allowing each person to simply self describe their nearly unique and potentially changing personal set of traits, they are pushed to consider each of those traits as instead being "membership in a community of people who have that trait", with that membership being reified as a component of one's very "identity" as a human being.
Going a bit further for illustration purposes, if this trend were to continue, people would eventually begin considering their choice of beer or toothpaste brands part of their "identity", and consider themselves part of the Dr Pepper "community" rather than simply liking that soft drink.
I believe this reframing is tactical even if unconscious. It gains a kind of rhetorical moral leverage; one might praise or critique an individual trait, but to question somebody's "identity" is to violate them, to "erase them", to "other" them.
I've seen a similar trend in some circles where some reframe not getting their preferences met as "crossing their boundaries", because crossing somebody's boundaries is a big no-no, so people have to comply with what one wants, or be labeled as a kind of aggressor violating civilized norms. The payoff of that tactic is obvious, even though in most cases completely unconscious (we humans are often unaware the strategies our psyches adopt, whether functional or dysfunctional).
In your comment, you appear to be falling into the trait=>identity reframing habit, and I wish to challenge whether that is a productive approach to reasoning our way out of this mess.
That is, I think the conundrum you are presenting (where somebody is forced to "identify" as non-binary even if they don't internally resonate with it) is in large part a negative artifact of this common yet dysfunctional "identity" reframing, rather than being an inherent problem. That is, the quandary is created by the reframing.
Rather than directly saying the straightforward, flexible and nuanced "well, I never smoke cannabis nowadays (tho I did in High School), but I occasionally have a glass of wine and rarely hard alcohol, but I don't like most beers", you feel forced to define yourself in terms of competing and overlapping "identity groups", a clumsy and imprecise reframing which I believe is better rejected than institutionalized.
I do not consider that tactical fad to be psychologically healthy, nor intellectually robust.
Coleman Hughes said something a while back when asked if he identified as conservative or liberal; I don't have the exact wording but the gist was "we need to have the flexibility to decide issues on their merits and to change our opinions as new evidence arises, rather than fossilizing our current opinions into an essential part of our being or identity" (my paraphrase).
I get that. For most of my decades on this planet, I thought of myself as a progressive liberal leftist, and assorted myself into communities with similar proclivities. As I have come to question the current views and prescriptions of that group, it becomes difficult - there are pressures to either ideologically conform or lose one's "identity" and "community". Only the strongly independent can break away.
Reframing traits, preferences, opinions etc into parts of our "identity" has the payoff of making them "hard to criticize without boundary crossing", but it also makes changing them in the face of evolving evidence and reasoning rather more difficult - any change becomes a challenge to one's very identity and group membership. It fosters "lock-in".
Is it any surprise that adopting this rhetorical ploy has resulted in an increasingly dogmatic neoprogressive left, where even disagreement on strategy is morally stigmatized?
I think we can have more productive discussions of sex, gender, race, etc if we back away from the tendency to reframe life into membership in various intersecting identity groups. I contend that this reframing misleads us and takes us down unproductive paths.
Does that mean that there is NOTHING one can call an identity? No, we don't have to go to the opposite extreme. But we should be very careful before telling our psyches that some trait or preference is now part of our very essence, because it leads to inflexible thinking, and conundrums like the one you express, where you reason yourself into being forced to "identify as" a a member of the non-stoner, non-drinker identity grouup, even if you don't want to, rather than simply describing your individual traits or preferences.
Your response is well thought out, and there is a lot to like in it. But let me pick on a few key parts of it:
you wrote:
“… there is an underlying assumption which I find questionable. Current neo-progressive ideology attempts to reframe individual personality traits, desires, proclivities, and aversions into intersectional group "identities".
This mis-characterizes reality:
- All organisms with basic cognitive processing tend to group things as a way of understanding and operating in the world.
- Further, any organisms (like humans) that can gain resource/reproductive advantage via collaborative strategies will centrally focus upon, manage, and optimize their group affinities and indirectly the group affinities of others. Group affinity & identity is and always will be their single most important aspect of their social life.
So there is nothing new going on here.
I wish to challenge whether that is a productive approach to reasoning our way out of this mess.
Hehe, and if gravity didn’t always point down, we could save so much power when flying planes. Challenge either all you want, neither will change.
Steve wishes that humans would select different group identities. Identities that more closely connect with attributes that he (and I) view as more meaningful/beneficial groupings. Sure I can get behind that agenda too. Still down thru history, humans have had some pretty irrelevant/dumb identities… in broad strokes I think we are moving in a positive (meritocratic) direction.
Still it seems at both a pragmatic and moral level one must simply accept the group identities an individual puts upon themselves, and try hard not to roll your eyes at it all. For if I declare unimportant what you deem important, then I have attacked you. It has always been so, and it always will be so. Indeed if I attack a belief that you hold centrally, then it is a large attack. There is no point in debating whether this “should” be viewed as an attack.
you wrote:
Is it any surprise that this rhetorical ploy [to tie ones identity to specific definitional beliefs] has resulted in an increasingly dogmatic left, where disagreement is morally stigmatized?
I have sympathy for your view here, whether it is intended as a “ploy" or not, merely expressing ones favored definition for a term (like ‘man’) will be seen as an attack on others. In one sense this situation is not new. Protestants and Catholics would kill each other over differences in the definition of things. (e.g. is Jesus God or not, was Mary immaculate)
But this is new, in the sense that the offending definitions are those that were prevailing in the past. Thus we have a group that has changed the definitions and then said, and if you don’t accept my new definition then then you are attacking me.
But the reality is that they folks genuinely DO feel their identity is attacked anytime one uses the unqualified term ‘man’ as referring to ones sex genes. So what the F*** should we do about that? Tell them they need to change their sense of identity to be one that is less sexually tied? Pragmatically this seems a bad move, and morally it seem suspect too.
Here is my best idea:
-1- We support the idea that it IS a courtesy to acknowledge someone's identity in any manner in which that they see themselves as much as we are capable without judgement, since in general we don’t have the moral high ground required to declare their self identity as silly or such in some absolute sense.
-2- We also acknowledge that one one has the right to require another person to think a certain way, even if the thinking in question is about ourselves. We still do not own their mind. If they choose to defer to our own interpretation of ourselves we need to thank them for that favor. If they do not, we can hold an opinion that they are not very courteous, but that is it. We need to accept their incompatible way of thinking.
I am not sure about this concluding spot. I actually began my thinking about this issue being quite opposed to redefining things, and generally just against these identities which I viewed (or maybe still view) as a bit silly. But I have come around to thinking that it is courteous to try to accommodate folk in their identities whatever the heck they are.
"Steve wishes that humans would select different group identities. Identities that more closely connect with attributes that he (and I) view as more meaningful/beneficial groupings."
For the record, I wish humans would stop clinging to group identities entirely. But that may well be unrealistic. So I wish, at the very least, that people would choose better/more meaningful ones.
1) Humans spent most of our history in small tribal groups often in violent competition for hunting grounds and The Other had to be regarded with suspicion and fear. To identify with one's group was absolutely required and those whose behavior genetics weren't strongly aligned with this got attenuated and deleted from the pool. Tribal identification is our nature.
That doesn't mean we have to accept it. Rape and murder are in our nature too. But we are up against more that bad attitudes.
I've said this before.
2) "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation" — Thoreau (I thought it was Nietzche). Most people are dissatisfied with their lives, with their status, their isolation, and they seek to create a sense of authenticity through membership. And membership with the whole of society doesn't achieve that, it has to be with some subgroup, and better if it can bring along some grievance, real or feigned. I'm gay. I'm white. I'm trans. I'm a Cubs fan.
We the Oppressed must ban together in our group identity. This reaches absurdity with white Christians when the nation is over half white and there's a church on every block.
I think changes in attitude can only come after changes in behavior and that these must come from law. Without affirmative action black men with doctorates would still be janitors.
Chris, you appear to be making the argument that it's natural for humans to have some degree of group identification, and you can rest your case because all of us understand that. We agree on that.
Some of us are making the point that the current political trend in the US has gone way beyond that natural tendency, to an unhealthy degree.
To use your example, suppose were were talking about the murder rate among a particular tribe being exceptionally high - and somebody in the conversation keeps pointing out that humans have certain proclivities which mean that we will likely never get to a completely zero murder rate. Agreed, but nobody was questioning whether it's practical to get to zero, only observing that it's abnormally high and that's not good.
One problem with substituting identity group membership for most individual traits is that group identities ALWAYS involve stereotypes. ALWAYS. Think about it.
So suppose you know that somebody is a member of the Black identity group. Or the Muslim identity group. Or the white identity group, or the bisexual identity group. What does that membership tell you? Does it tell you whether they feel oppressed? Whether they are middle class? That they are a criminal? That they are a Supreme Court Justice? That they like watermelon? That they like to dance? Other than the nominally shared trait, any other association involves pre-judging and stereotyping, and there are always such associations.
You might say that some of these things are statistically more or less common among some particular identity group, but even if that's true and you have an accurate understanding of the probabilities involved (rare), you still don't know in which facets that person is typical or atypical of the identity group. So all you have gained is a bunch of stereotypes which may or may not fit and so should be ignored until you know more about that person individually. I don't see that as a useful mental shortcut to encourage or cultivate. The pitfalls and downsides of the stereotyping shortcut as a filter to our mental models of people and the world outweigh the benefits in most cases. And doing this to ourselves rather than to others has its own problems.
An exception might be if you are in a dark alley and need to make a very important split second decision based on limited information - and thus might need to rely on statistical correlations between visible identity group information and behaviors more or less common in that group. That's a case where the shortcut of stereotyping (by perceived group identity) may be a survival positive evolutionary trait. Maybe somebody looks like a tweaker or a gang member and you don't have the luxury of getting to know them individuall.. But I submit that such situations are exceedingly rare for most of us today; we can generally afford take the time to learn about individuals rather than rely on stereotypes or group identities in our understanding of ourselves or others.
But let's put a finer point on it. As Steve says, he'd rather we abandoned group identities but if that's not realistic, that people think carefully about a few group identities which they choose to incorporate into their understanding of their very personhood, their core understanding of themselves as a being (versus just being one of many less central and less constrictive individual traits or proclivities or interests). I ratify that.
But today it's common to try to coerce other people into non-voluntarily conceiving of themselves as a member of an identity group, the characteristics of which somebody other than themselves are assigning. We adults are being taught in diversity education that we MUST develop race consciousness and consider race to be a core and essential part of our identity. If we do not, then we are either racists (if white), or self hating (if not white). And worse, in some schools, this is being imprinted on kids who are still learning to understand themselves and their relationship to society. I do not think this bodes well for the medium to long term.
We can discuss other pitfalls of excessive group identification if you wish; there are many. Like if being accepted as part of a group is framed as essential to your very identity as a human being, that group has coercive power over you and your mind (apostacy, heresy, shaming, shunning, expulsion, etc).
Just having an individual trait does not give any "community" control over your beingness or self image.
Yes we have a tribal nature so there will always be some degree of group identification, but no we don't have an innate tendency to make EVERYTHING about intersectional group identities - that's a more recent and somewhat regional political & cultural aberration from the norms.
It used to be that identity was about what makes one unique, what distinguishes an individual from the generic average. In the redefined neo-progressive space, it's about what (supposedly) makes one similar to a group's norms.
If sincerely asked about the components of my self-perceived "identity", I would tend to focus on things like my flavor of integrating head and heart, balancing and seeking synergy between caring and thinking. Not with my skin color or sex, which typically consist of bundles of population group stereotypes of which I may be typical or atypical. Where a group stereotype more or less fits me, it's being attributed to the group rather than to me, and where it doesn't fit I'm not being seen at all.
>"For if I declare unimportant what you deem important, then I have attacked you. It has always been so, and it always will be so"
No, that is untrue. A large number of personal and political decisions have to do with differing priorities (or importance), about which we can disagree; and that happens around the world throughout history. THAT is not new.
However, I believe that the current level of reframing any disagreement as an attack one one's personhood is a new dysfunction in our politics.
In regard to group affinities, of course we have always had group affinities, that's not in question. My assertion is that there is a new (to our culture) tendency to reframe individual traits into an unbounded set of group identities - a fairly dramatic expansion of group identities accompanied by corresponding reduction in use of individual personality traits, proclivities, etc. This is a significant shift in emphasis, but not a toggling between binary alternatives.
As an example, I am on LGBTQIA+ Medium groups where young people are constantly trying to understand themselves by finding some new identity group to identify with, even if they have to invent a new "orientation" or "gender". The most recent new "gender" I've seen explained to the uninformed is "cake" gender, which is described as an identity group which feels light and fluffy, perhaps with many layers. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Others are being invented every day, literally. That is not "just what we've been doing forever". And the kids trying to find themselves in this morass are not sounding healthy, but fragile and anxious. (I sometimes try to give advice or reassurance, but I never attack such young people or tell them they are wrong; they didn't create this problem, they inherited it).
When I say that I wish to challenge an intellectual assumption or framing in a subjective interpretation of today's politics (and then proceed to do so), that is not analogous to challenging gravity - such a reframing is not a well evidenced scientific theory and has not earned equivalent respect.
Let me be clear that when I assert that the framing of some trait or desire as an unquestionable "identity" can be a tactic, it need not be a fully *conscious* deception. That is entirely compatible with somebody, as you say, "genuinely" feeling their identity is under attack; after all, their political cohort normalizes and models that interpretation as the morally correct one. So I am not much swayed in my own analysis of the situation, by the supposed "genuineness" of their subjective "feelings".
Consider a related context. If somebody insists that not setting the office thermostat to the level they want is "crossing their boundaries", I don't place a lot of weight on that strategic reframing, no matter how genuinely they "feel" it to be boundary crossing. I need a more substantial argument than that to be persuaded. Otherwise they are on a level playing field with others in the same office in finding a compromise setting for all.
You phrase this as: should we "tell them they need to change their sense of identity...?" and say we don't have the moral high ground to do so. Fine, but I never said anything about telling them what to think; I'm talking about my not accepting their asserted reframing as definitive for myself or as controlling my own actions, and I don't need "moral high ground" for that. If somebody wants to identify as a pumpkin, that's fine, so long as they don't require me to agree - (or else...). I do not find this position "morally suspect", in your terms.
I do tend to treat people with courtesy. I have friends who are into anti-vax conspiracy theories; I treat them with courtesy and kindness. I have friends who really believe in astrology, or in "DNA level healing practices" with aromatherapy; I can even be emotionally close to them. In general in these personal interactions, I'm usually pretty high on the agreeability scale and try to be tactful and to find positive common ground whenever possible. I don't get into shouting matches with conservative relatives. So I also don't go in telling people how they must self-identify either. But that doesn't mean I must agree with the vaccination conspiracies, astrology, or people's reframing of personality traits as memberships in identity groups. Such issues may not come up unless (1) they seem amenable to a constructive discussion, or (2) they want to control me based on their belief system.
I think I may need you to rephrase your point #2, as I'm not parsing it with any confidence and I'd rather not respond to a low confidence interpretation of it.
Please do not assume that I speak the same to people in my daily life, as I feel able to speak in the space that Steve has created here, where I feel I can (politely) speak what I really think and receive similar in return, without having to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering somebody with a dissenting view. It's like being able to talk or even argue real science with colleagues, rather than having to be circumspect about things when talking to a friend who is deeply into astrology. Different modes of communication depending on the co-participants. Here I can openly say that I don't buy astrology, and I have deep reservations about woke reframings and explain why - and listen to any dissent or refinement or whatever.
Nice chatting with you, dan. I can see that you are seeking a humane, caring and yet intellectually reasonable path through the semantic jungle around us, and we can help each other by sharing notes like this.
As you say, no need to walk upon egg shells we are among friends in this substack; constructive (and blunt) discussion/debate is what we all want. You mention in passing that you are active in the LGBTQIA+ community, but then kinda of disparage identity politics. That is quite interesting! Can I pry? Do you count yourself a member of that community in some way? (It just informs my understanding of your perspective on the topic... no issues if that is too forward!)
You made a lot of good points... I found myself agreeing or at least having sympathy for many points you made. I won't enumerate them all. (and my head is kind of swirling with the abstraction of this thinking too.)
Not that you claimed otherwise, but I will state this: I do agree we have made a shift in how identity is formed in recent years. Agreed. But I don't think folks are strategically CHOOSING an identity in order to be bolstered with extra outrage ammunition. Still I do concede that is it all too easy to reach for that tried and true nuclear option when one is debating. So the consequence is that we are having alot more such outrage confrontations. (I think perhaps you see this the same way??)
> I do tend to treat people with courtesy. I have friends who are into anti-vax conspiracy
And I think this is the thrust of my original thought. As long as acknowledging someone's identity is restricted to words you use in addressing them, and maybe symbolic gestures like bowing when you meet, or not touching the person, etc. I would be inclined to say that everyone gets to make up the rules as applies to their own person. The world is not obliged to know about and follow these rules, but as a courtesy it seems one should try to.
This would not extend to anything beyond symbolic. e.g. changing the thermostat is not the same. So that example as you provided would not apply here.
To summarize: Each person gets to choose their identity in any silly way they want.
-- It is a FAVOR for members of society to learn about and acknowledge this identity, and perform symbolic actions as required. as a FAVOR to the individual.
-- I would reject the notion that one is ENTITLED to such behavior from others. Indeed I would frame it as an imposition that you are placing on others. But an imposition that since it matters so much to you, others considerate folks will often honor.
-- I would also want society to frame being hung up on other people's acknowledgment of ones identity as a kind of frailty. Its not that it is wrong, but one is stronger if one simply has whatever identity one has, and one is not shaken by other's acknowledgment or lack there of.
-- The failing I see in today's society is that we have elevated non-acknowledgement of ones identity to epic proportions. today it is almost a failure of your character if you are NOT outraged any misalignment with ones identity. This is just a recipe for tons and tons of angst.
(this is actually an intellectually confusing discussion for me.. as I have to keep asking myself what I really think about each of these things!)
1. You ask if I count myself as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. That's not easy to answer. Does factually being Lesbian, or Gay, or any other category make one an automatic "member" or is there some expectation of subcultural enrollment? As to the other, I am not a political "activist" in that area at present (tho I have worked against anti-gay referenda in the past); my more recent posts within such a space on discussion sites have been more like offering requested advice and commentary to some young folks seeking to find their path - more offering human to human help, than seeking political change. And also being an observer of trends and ways of thinking/framing common in such communities.
2. I suspect that consciously pre-planning an identification as a way to gain outrage cred is probably not common, but many of our motivations are not conscious. For example, I suspect that very few young folks fitting the ROGD pattern are attempting conscious deception, but their psyches can still have observed the status benefits that friends get when so identifying, and that may influence one's self-interpretation. One in that situation might "discover" that they are also trans, and gratefully receive the resulting attention, in all sincerity - at the conscious level. (This human dynamic of unconscious reward seeking is far broader than trans issues of course!). Since we don't like to think of ourselves as deceitful or false, cognitive dissonance would tend to work against *conscious* pre-planning.
And - even if a given motivation or payoff was not present in an initial move towards an identification, it could become more relevant later in sustaining or expanding it. In a different but related sphere, I don't think that most neo-progressives are seeking to have the moral high ground initially - typically they are just adopting a worldview which they see as more caring and empathetic; but nevertheless after getting in, they may be seduced by the payoffs of being able to look down at opponents from an unquestionably morally superior viewpoint. (Speaking of general trends, not about everybody of course).
3. I find your nuanced approach to discerning courtesy versus entitlement to be well considered. And I agree about the frailty of desperately needing external validation being a weakness rather than a strength.
(To be clear: We all have weaknesses so my point is not to disparage anybody who has a weakness (I well know that I have my own weaknesses); rather it's to question whether those weaknesses should be valorized and encouraged, versus aspiring to be more robust when we can. I am not hasty to judge most human weaknesses, but I do question treating them as more desirable than empowerment.)
I am reminded of the (not unchallenged) Duluth model of domestic abuse. My summary of the relevant thought: person 1 (more often but not always male) may not have the skills to self sooth or sustain their self esteem, and may become dependent on their partner, person 2 for that. They then wind up resenting the partner's 'control' over their own internal landscape, and needing to control that partner, in order to control their fix. In the domestic context, this is thought to sometimes lead to the point of emotionally or physically abusing the partner (person 2).
Similarly, in the context under consideration, if somebody excessively needs external validation of their identity, they may find themselves needing to control that fix too. That could explain some of the strong need for power-over, which is often framed as a search for "safety" but in my view clearly goes beyond obtaining safety into seeking unwarranted control over the behavior, speech and even thought processes of others. In this context, it rarely leads to physical abuse of cis friends or family, but some of the other dynamics may apply. (This is a fresh hypothesis for me, not yet integrated).
I'm glad to share with you the incremental puzzling out of pieces of this complicated puzzle - and the questions you are asking yourself are good ones.
Wow! honored at the amount of thought here. Not that this was the goal, but I think we have reached consensus in our thinking. Two things to highlight:
> I find your nuanced approach to discerning courtesy versus entitlement to be well considered.
thanks, clarity on this really evolved in this conversation. And my initial "eye-roll" reaction to all of this identity politics did not include this courtesy aspect for some number of years.
> ... rather it's to question whether those weaknesses should be valorized and encouraged
Enthusiastic agreement from me here. This valorizing weakness, only begets more weakness, and CREATES insult where there was none. This is the key thought that the left is getting very wrong. After many words I think we have pinned it down well!
Expanding on your point, there is a new idea that making generalizations is evil. As it can be, certainly, "all those gays are compulsive deviates" when it's only few obnoxious gays who seek to reinforce that impression while the rest of us are nothing like that.
But: generalization is the most powerful tool we have for making sense of the world. If an animals has fur, bears live young, and feeds them nutritious fluid from glands on its torso it's probably a mammal.
> "Anytime you make visible choice that refutes assumptions made by 95% of the population you will be identified according to that 5% group."
I understand that point. I think however that there is an underlying assumption which I find questionable.
Current neo-progressive ideology attempts to reframe individual personality traits, desires, proclivities, and aversions into intersectional group "identities". Rather than allowing each person to simply self describe their nearly unique and potentially changing personal set of traits, they are pushed to consider each of those traits as instead being "membership in a community of people who have that trait", with that membership being reified as a component of one's very "identity" as a human being.
Going a bit further for illustration purposes, if this trend were to continue, people would eventually begin considering their choice of beer or toothpaste brands part of their "identity", and consider themselves part of the Dr Pepper "community" rather than simply liking that soft drink.
I believe this reframing is tactical even if unconscious. It gains a kind of rhetorical moral leverage; one might praise or critique an individual trait, but to question somebody's "identity" is to violate them, to "erase them", to "other" them.
I've seen a similar trend in some circles where some reframe not getting their preferences met as "crossing their boundaries", because crossing somebody's boundaries is a big no-no, so people have to comply with what one wants, or be labeled as a kind of aggressor violating civilized norms. The payoff of that tactic is obvious, even though in most cases completely unconscious (we humans are often unaware the strategies our psyches adopt, whether functional or dysfunctional).
In your comment, you appear to be falling into the trait=>identity reframing habit, and I wish to challenge whether that is a productive approach to reasoning our way out of this mess.
That is, I think the conundrum you are presenting (where somebody is forced to "identify" as non-binary even if they don't internally resonate with it) is in large part a negative artifact of this common yet dysfunctional "identity" reframing, rather than being an inherent problem. That is, the quandary is created by the reframing.
Rather than directly saying the straightforward, flexible and nuanced "well, I never smoke cannabis nowadays (tho I did in High School), but I occasionally have a glass of wine and rarely hard alcohol, but I don't like most beers", you feel forced to define yourself in terms of competing and overlapping "identity groups", a clumsy and imprecise reframing which I believe is better rejected than institutionalized.
I do not consider that tactical fad to be psychologically healthy, nor intellectually robust.
Coleman Hughes said something a while back when asked if he identified as conservative or liberal; I don't have the exact wording but the gist was "we need to have the flexibility to decide issues on their merits and to change our opinions as new evidence arises, rather than fossilizing our current opinions into an essential part of our being or identity" (my paraphrase).
I get that. For most of my decades on this planet, I thought of myself as a progressive liberal leftist, and assorted myself into communities with similar proclivities. As I have come to question the current views and prescriptions of that group, it becomes difficult - there are pressures to either ideologically conform or lose one's "identity" and "community". Only the strongly independent can break away.
Reframing traits, preferences, opinions etc into parts of our "identity" has the payoff of making them "hard to criticize without boundary crossing", but it also makes changing them in the face of evolving evidence and reasoning rather more difficult - any change becomes a challenge to one's very identity and group membership. It fosters "lock-in".
Is it any surprise that adopting this rhetorical ploy has resulted in an increasingly dogmatic neoprogressive left, where even disagreement on strategy is morally stigmatized?
I think we can have more productive discussions of sex, gender, race, etc if we back away from the tendency to reframe life into membership in various intersecting identity groups. I contend that this reframing misleads us and takes us down unproductive paths.
Does that mean that there is NOTHING one can call an identity? No, we don't have to go to the opposite extreme. But we should be very careful before telling our psyches that some trait or preference is now part of our very essence, because it leads to inflexible thinking, and conundrums like the one you express, where you reason yourself into being forced to "identify as" a a member of the non-stoner, non-drinker identity grouup, even if you don't want to, rather than simply describing your individual traits or preferences.
PGBR:
Your response is well thought out, and there is a lot to like in it. But let me pick on a few key parts of it:
you wrote:
“… there is an underlying assumption which I find questionable. Current neo-progressive ideology attempts to reframe individual personality traits, desires, proclivities, and aversions into intersectional group "identities".
This mis-characterizes reality:
- All organisms with basic cognitive processing tend to group things as a way of understanding and operating in the world.
- Further, any organisms (like humans) that can gain resource/reproductive advantage via collaborative strategies will centrally focus upon, manage, and optimize their group affinities and indirectly the group affinities of others. Group affinity & identity is and always will be their single most important aspect of their social life.
So there is nothing new going on here.
I wish to challenge whether that is a productive approach to reasoning our way out of this mess.
Hehe, and if gravity didn’t always point down, we could save so much power when flying planes. Challenge either all you want, neither will change.
Steve wishes that humans would select different group identities. Identities that more closely connect with attributes that he (and I) view as more meaningful/beneficial groupings. Sure I can get behind that agenda too. Still down thru history, humans have had some pretty irrelevant/dumb identities… in broad strokes I think we are moving in a positive (meritocratic) direction.
Still it seems at both a pragmatic and moral level one must simply accept the group identities an individual puts upon themselves, and try hard not to roll your eyes at it all. For if I declare unimportant what you deem important, then I have attacked you. It has always been so, and it always will be so. Indeed if I attack a belief that you hold centrally, then it is a large attack. There is no point in debating whether this “should” be viewed as an attack.
you wrote:
Is it any surprise that this rhetorical ploy [to tie ones identity to specific definitional beliefs] has resulted in an increasingly dogmatic left, where disagreement is morally stigmatized?
I have sympathy for your view here, whether it is intended as a “ploy" or not, merely expressing ones favored definition for a term (like ‘man’) will be seen as an attack on others. In one sense this situation is not new. Protestants and Catholics would kill each other over differences in the definition of things. (e.g. is Jesus God or not, was Mary immaculate)
But this is new, in the sense that the offending definitions are those that were prevailing in the past. Thus we have a group that has changed the definitions and then said, and if you don’t accept my new definition then then you are attacking me.
But the reality is that they folks genuinely DO feel their identity is attacked anytime one uses the unqualified term ‘man’ as referring to ones sex genes. So what the F*** should we do about that? Tell them they need to change their sense of identity to be one that is less sexually tied? Pragmatically this seems a bad move, and morally it seem suspect too.
Here is my best idea:
-1- We support the idea that it IS a courtesy to acknowledge someone's identity in any manner in which that they see themselves as much as we are capable without judgement, since in general we don’t have the moral high ground required to declare their self identity as silly or such in some absolute sense.
-2- We also acknowledge that one one has the right to require another person to think a certain way, even if the thinking in question is about ourselves. We still do not own their mind. If they choose to defer to our own interpretation of ourselves we need to thank them for that favor. If they do not, we can hold an opinion that they are not very courteous, but that is it. We need to accept their incompatible way of thinking.
I am not sure about this concluding spot. I actually began my thinking about this issue being quite opposed to redefining things, and generally just against these identities which I viewed (or maybe still view) as a bit silly. But I have come around to thinking that it is courteous to try to accommodate folk in their identities whatever the heck they are.
—dan
"Steve wishes that humans would select different group identities. Identities that more closely connect with attributes that he (and I) view as more meaningful/beneficial groupings."
For the record, I wish humans would stop clinging to group identities entirely. But that may well be unrealistic. So I wish, at the very least, that people would choose better/more meaningful ones.
I think it's unrealistic. Two reasons.
1) Humans spent most of our history in small tribal groups often in violent competition for hunting grounds and The Other had to be regarded with suspicion and fear. To identify with one's group was absolutely required and those whose behavior genetics weren't strongly aligned with this got attenuated and deleted from the pool. Tribal identification is our nature.
That doesn't mean we have to accept it. Rape and murder are in our nature too. But we are up against more that bad attitudes.
I've said this before.
2) "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation" — Thoreau (I thought it was Nietzche). Most people are dissatisfied with their lives, with their status, their isolation, and they seek to create a sense of authenticity through membership. And membership with the whole of society doesn't achieve that, it has to be with some subgroup, and better if it can bring along some grievance, real or feigned. I'm gay. I'm white. I'm trans. I'm a Cubs fan.
We the Oppressed must ban together in our group identity. This reaches absurdity with white Christians when the nation is over half white and there's a church on every block.
I think changes in attitude can only come after changes in behavior and that these must come from law. Without affirmative action black men with doctorates would still be janitors.
Chris, you appear to be making the argument that it's natural for humans to have some degree of group identification, and you can rest your case because all of us understand that. We agree on that.
Some of us are making the point that the current political trend in the US has gone way beyond that natural tendency, to an unhealthy degree.
To use your example, suppose were were talking about the murder rate among a particular tribe being exceptionally high - and somebody in the conversation keeps pointing out that humans have certain proclivities which mean that we will likely never get to a completely zero murder rate. Agreed, but nobody was questioning whether it's practical to get to zero, only observing that it's abnormally high and that's not good.
One problem with substituting identity group membership for most individual traits is that group identities ALWAYS involve stereotypes. ALWAYS. Think about it.
So suppose you know that somebody is a member of the Black identity group. Or the Muslim identity group. Or the white identity group, or the bisexual identity group. What does that membership tell you? Does it tell you whether they feel oppressed? Whether they are middle class? That they are a criminal? That they are a Supreme Court Justice? That they like watermelon? That they like to dance? Other than the nominally shared trait, any other association involves pre-judging and stereotyping, and there are always such associations.
You might say that some of these things are statistically more or less common among some particular identity group, but even if that's true and you have an accurate understanding of the probabilities involved (rare), you still don't know in which facets that person is typical or atypical of the identity group. So all you have gained is a bunch of stereotypes which may or may not fit and so should be ignored until you know more about that person individually. I don't see that as a useful mental shortcut to encourage or cultivate. The pitfalls and downsides of the stereotyping shortcut as a filter to our mental models of people and the world outweigh the benefits in most cases. And doing this to ourselves rather than to others has its own problems.
An exception might be if you are in a dark alley and need to make a very important split second decision based on limited information - and thus might need to rely on statistical correlations between visible identity group information and behaviors more or less common in that group. That's a case where the shortcut of stereotyping (by perceived group identity) may be a survival positive evolutionary trait. Maybe somebody looks like a tweaker or a gang member and you don't have the luxury of getting to know them individuall.. But I submit that such situations are exceedingly rare for most of us today; we can generally afford take the time to learn about individuals rather than rely on stereotypes or group identities in our understanding of ourselves or others.
But let's put a finer point on it. As Steve says, he'd rather we abandoned group identities but if that's not realistic, that people think carefully about a few group identities which they choose to incorporate into their understanding of their very personhood, their core understanding of themselves as a being (versus just being one of many less central and less constrictive individual traits or proclivities or interests). I ratify that.
But today it's common to try to coerce other people into non-voluntarily conceiving of themselves as a member of an identity group, the characteristics of which somebody other than themselves are assigning. We adults are being taught in diversity education that we MUST develop race consciousness and consider race to be a core and essential part of our identity. If we do not, then we are either racists (if white), or self hating (if not white). And worse, in some schools, this is being imprinted on kids who are still learning to understand themselves and their relationship to society. I do not think this bodes well for the medium to long term.
We can discuss other pitfalls of excessive group identification if you wish; there are many. Like if being accepted as part of a group is framed as essential to your very identity as a human being, that group has coercive power over you and your mind (apostacy, heresy, shaming, shunning, expulsion, etc).
Just having an individual trait does not give any "community" control over your beingness or self image.
Yes we have a tribal nature so there will always be some degree of group identification, but no we don't have an innate tendency to make EVERYTHING about intersectional group identities - that's a more recent and somewhat regional political & cultural aberration from the norms.
It used to be that identity was about what makes one unique, what distinguishes an individual from the generic average. In the redefined neo-progressive space, it's about what (supposedly) makes one similar to a group's norms.
If sincerely asked about the components of my self-perceived "identity", I would tend to focus on things like my flavor of integrating head and heart, balancing and seeking synergy between caring and thinking. Not with my skin color or sex, which typically consist of bundles of population group stereotypes of which I may be typical or atypical. Where a group stereotype more or less fits me, it's being attributed to the group rather than to me, and where it doesn't fit I'm not being seen at all.
So I agree.
>"For if I declare unimportant what you deem important, then I have attacked you. It has always been so, and it always will be so"
No, that is untrue. A large number of personal and political decisions have to do with differing priorities (or importance), about which we can disagree; and that happens around the world throughout history. THAT is not new.
However, I believe that the current level of reframing any disagreement as an attack one one's personhood is a new dysfunction in our politics.
In regard to group affinities, of course we have always had group affinities, that's not in question. My assertion is that there is a new (to our culture) tendency to reframe individual traits into an unbounded set of group identities - a fairly dramatic expansion of group identities accompanied by corresponding reduction in use of individual personality traits, proclivities, etc. This is a significant shift in emphasis, but not a toggling between binary alternatives.
As an example, I am on LGBTQIA+ Medium groups where young people are constantly trying to understand themselves by finding some new identity group to identify with, even if they have to invent a new "orientation" or "gender". The most recent new "gender" I've seen explained to the uninformed is "cake" gender, which is described as an identity group which feels light and fluffy, perhaps with many layers. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Others are being invented every day, literally. That is not "just what we've been doing forever". And the kids trying to find themselves in this morass are not sounding healthy, but fragile and anxious. (I sometimes try to give advice or reassurance, but I never attack such young people or tell them they are wrong; they didn't create this problem, they inherited it).
When I say that I wish to challenge an intellectual assumption or framing in a subjective interpretation of today's politics (and then proceed to do so), that is not analogous to challenging gravity - such a reframing is not a well evidenced scientific theory and has not earned equivalent respect.
Let me be clear that when I assert that the framing of some trait or desire as an unquestionable "identity" can be a tactic, it need not be a fully *conscious* deception. That is entirely compatible with somebody, as you say, "genuinely" feeling their identity is under attack; after all, their political cohort normalizes and models that interpretation as the morally correct one. So I am not much swayed in my own analysis of the situation, by the supposed "genuineness" of their subjective "feelings".
Consider a related context. If somebody insists that not setting the office thermostat to the level they want is "crossing their boundaries", I don't place a lot of weight on that strategic reframing, no matter how genuinely they "feel" it to be boundary crossing. I need a more substantial argument than that to be persuaded. Otherwise they are on a level playing field with others in the same office in finding a compromise setting for all.
You phrase this as: should we "tell them they need to change their sense of identity...?" and say we don't have the moral high ground to do so. Fine, but I never said anything about telling them what to think; I'm talking about my not accepting their asserted reframing as definitive for myself or as controlling my own actions, and I don't need "moral high ground" for that. If somebody wants to identify as a pumpkin, that's fine, so long as they don't require me to agree - (or else...). I do not find this position "morally suspect", in your terms.
I do tend to treat people with courtesy. I have friends who are into anti-vax conspiracy theories; I treat them with courtesy and kindness. I have friends who really believe in astrology, or in "DNA level healing practices" with aromatherapy; I can even be emotionally close to them. In general in these personal interactions, I'm usually pretty high on the agreeability scale and try to be tactful and to find positive common ground whenever possible. I don't get into shouting matches with conservative relatives. So I also don't go in telling people how they must self-identify either. But that doesn't mean I must agree with the vaccination conspiracies, astrology, or people's reframing of personality traits as memberships in identity groups. Such issues may not come up unless (1) they seem amenable to a constructive discussion, or (2) they want to control me based on their belief system.
I think I may need you to rephrase your point #2, as I'm not parsing it with any confidence and I'd rather not respond to a low confidence interpretation of it.
Please do not assume that I speak the same to people in my daily life, as I feel able to speak in the space that Steve has created here, where I feel I can (politely) speak what I really think and receive similar in return, without having to walk on eggshells to avoid triggering somebody with a dissenting view. It's like being able to talk or even argue real science with colleagues, rather than having to be circumspect about things when talking to a friend who is deeply into astrology. Different modes of communication depending on the co-participants. Here I can openly say that I don't buy astrology, and I have deep reservations about woke reframings and explain why - and listen to any dissent or refinement or whatever.
Nice chatting with you, dan. I can see that you are seeking a humane, caring and yet intellectually reasonable path through the semantic jungle around us, and we can help each other by sharing notes like this.
As you say, no need to walk upon egg shells we are among friends in this substack; constructive (and blunt) discussion/debate is what we all want. You mention in passing that you are active in the LGBTQIA+ community, but then kinda of disparage identity politics. That is quite interesting! Can I pry? Do you count yourself a member of that community in some way? (It just informs my understanding of your perspective on the topic... no issues if that is too forward!)
You made a lot of good points... I found myself agreeing or at least having sympathy for many points you made. I won't enumerate them all. (and my head is kind of swirling with the abstraction of this thinking too.)
Not that you claimed otherwise, but I will state this: I do agree we have made a shift in how identity is formed in recent years. Agreed. But I don't think folks are strategically CHOOSING an identity in order to be bolstered with extra outrage ammunition. Still I do concede that is it all too easy to reach for that tried and true nuclear option when one is debating. So the consequence is that we are having alot more such outrage confrontations. (I think perhaps you see this the same way??)
> I do tend to treat people with courtesy. I have friends who are into anti-vax conspiracy
And I think this is the thrust of my original thought. As long as acknowledging someone's identity is restricted to words you use in addressing them, and maybe symbolic gestures like bowing when you meet, or not touching the person, etc. I would be inclined to say that everyone gets to make up the rules as applies to their own person. The world is not obliged to know about and follow these rules, but as a courtesy it seems one should try to.
This would not extend to anything beyond symbolic. e.g. changing the thermostat is not the same. So that example as you provided would not apply here.
To summarize: Each person gets to choose their identity in any silly way they want.
-- It is a FAVOR for members of society to learn about and acknowledge this identity, and perform symbolic actions as required. as a FAVOR to the individual.
-- I would reject the notion that one is ENTITLED to such behavior from others. Indeed I would frame it as an imposition that you are placing on others. But an imposition that since it matters so much to you, others considerate folks will often honor.
-- I would also want society to frame being hung up on other people's acknowledgment of ones identity as a kind of frailty. Its not that it is wrong, but one is stronger if one simply has whatever identity one has, and one is not shaken by other's acknowledgment or lack there of.
-- The failing I see in today's society is that we have elevated non-acknowledgement of ones identity to epic proportions. today it is almost a failure of your character if you are NOT outraged any misalignment with ones identity. This is just a recipe for tons and tons of angst.
(this is actually an intellectually confusing discussion for me.. as I have to keep asking myself what I really think about each of these things!)
all good stuff!
--dan
In rough order:
1. You ask if I count myself as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. That's not easy to answer. Does factually being Lesbian, or Gay, or any other category make one an automatic "member" or is there some expectation of subcultural enrollment? As to the other, I am not a political "activist" in that area at present (tho I have worked against anti-gay referenda in the past); my more recent posts within such a space on discussion sites have been more like offering requested advice and commentary to some young folks seeking to find their path - more offering human to human help, than seeking political change. And also being an observer of trends and ways of thinking/framing common in such communities.
2. I suspect that consciously pre-planning an identification as a way to gain outrage cred is probably not common, but many of our motivations are not conscious. For example, I suspect that very few young folks fitting the ROGD pattern are attempting conscious deception, but their psyches can still have observed the status benefits that friends get when so identifying, and that may influence one's self-interpretation. One in that situation might "discover" that they are also trans, and gratefully receive the resulting attention, in all sincerity - at the conscious level. (This human dynamic of unconscious reward seeking is far broader than trans issues of course!). Since we don't like to think of ourselves as deceitful or false, cognitive dissonance would tend to work against *conscious* pre-planning.
And - even if a given motivation or payoff was not present in an initial move towards an identification, it could become more relevant later in sustaining or expanding it. In a different but related sphere, I don't think that most neo-progressives are seeking to have the moral high ground initially - typically they are just adopting a worldview which they see as more caring and empathetic; but nevertheless after getting in, they may be seduced by the payoffs of being able to look down at opponents from an unquestionably morally superior viewpoint. (Speaking of general trends, not about everybody of course).
3. I find your nuanced approach to discerning courtesy versus entitlement to be well considered. And I agree about the frailty of desperately needing external validation being a weakness rather than a strength.
(To be clear: We all have weaknesses so my point is not to disparage anybody who has a weakness (I well know that I have my own weaknesses); rather it's to question whether those weaknesses should be valorized and encouraged, versus aspiring to be more robust when we can. I am not hasty to judge most human weaknesses, but I do question treating them as more desirable than empowerment.)
I am reminded of the (not unchallenged) Duluth model of domestic abuse. My summary of the relevant thought: person 1 (more often but not always male) may not have the skills to self sooth or sustain their self esteem, and may become dependent on their partner, person 2 for that. They then wind up resenting the partner's 'control' over their own internal landscape, and needing to control that partner, in order to control their fix. In the domestic context, this is thought to sometimes lead to the point of emotionally or physically abusing the partner (person 2).
Similarly, in the context under consideration, if somebody excessively needs external validation of their identity, they may find themselves needing to control that fix too. That could explain some of the strong need for power-over, which is often framed as a search for "safety" but in my view clearly goes beyond obtaining safety into seeking unwarranted control over the behavior, speech and even thought processes of others. In this context, it rarely leads to physical abuse of cis friends or family, but some of the other dynamics may apply. (This is a fresh hypothesis for me, not yet integrated).
I'm glad to share with you the incremental puzzling out of pieces of this complicated puzzle - and the questions you are asking yourself are good ones.
Cheers
Wow! honored at the amount of thought here. Not that this was the goal, but I think we have reached consensus in our thinking. Two things to highlight:
> I find your nuanced approach to discerning courtesy versus entitlement to be well considered.
thanks, clarity on this really evolved in this conversation. And my initial "eye-roll" reaction to all of this identity politics did not include this courtesy aspect for some number of years.
> ... rather it's to question whether those weaknesses should be valorized and encouraged
Enthusiastic agreement from me here. This valorizing weakness, only begets more weakness, and CREATES insult where there was none. This is the key thought that the left is getting very wrong. After many words I think we have pinned it down well!
I enjoyed the nuanced discussion!
Expanding on your point, there is a new idea that making generalizations is evil. As it can be, certainly, "all those gays are compulsive deviates" when it's only few obnoxious gays who seek to reinforce that impression while the rest of us are nothing like that.
But: generalization is the most powerful tool we have for making sense of the world. If an animals has fur, bears live young, and feeds them nutritious fluid from glands on its torso it's probably a mammal.