Against the New Politics of Identity
How the Left’s Dogmas on Race and Equity Harm Liberal Democracy—and Invigorate Christian Nationalism
How the Left’s Dogmas on Race and Equity Harm Liberal Democracy—and Invigorate Christian Nationalism
A far-reaching cultural transformation is occurring across much of the West that is threatening the very foundations of democracy. Individuals are no longer judged by their deeds, actions, and behavior but rather are defined by their race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Driven largely by the political Left, this transformation has led to the wholesale division of individuals into oppressed and oppressor classes. Where the Left once organized around liberal principles to ensure that all groups had an equal seat at the proverbial table, much of the Left today demands not only that those categorized as oppressed receive priority seating, but also that those categorized as oppressor are excluded from the table altogether. Government bodies, corporations, universities, and the mainstream media regularly submit to these illiberal commands and explicitly favor certain identity groups over others in the name of "allyship," "antiracism," or "equity." As philosopher Ronald A. Lindsay argues in Against the New Politics of Identity, this radical cultural shift by which all policies and practices must be seen through the lens of identity rests on three dogmatic tenets: those who are alleged to be oppressed or marginalized have special insight based on their "lived experience"; racism is embedded in all Western laws, regulations, policies, and institutions; and equity, understood as the elimination of all group disparities in all areas of life, must take precedence over all other criteria, such as individual merit, achievement, and need. Lindsay demonstrates that these tenets are based on a series of fallacies and warns that the push for identity politics on the Left predictably elicits a parallel reaction from the Right, including the Right's own version of identity politics in the form of Christian nationalism. As he makes clear, the symbiotic relationship that has formed between these two political poles risks producing even deeper threats to Enlightenment values and Western democracy. If we are to preserve a liberal democracy in which the rights of individuals are respected, he concludes, the dogmas of identity politics must be challenged and refuted. Against the New Politics of Identity offers a principled path for doing so.
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This book examines the intellectual foundations of identity theory. Lindsay is the former CEO of the Center for Inquiry and of its affiliates, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. These projects reject religion, often with great hostility, which would tend to place them on the left in American politics. Since identity theory is a leftwing project, one might think that Lindsay would be sympathetic to identity politics.
However, Lindsay identifies himself as a “classical liberal.” He is a critic of identity politics. This underscores a fissure on the left between traditional liberals and leftists. Classical liberals adhere to one of the core tenets of liberalism, i.e., individualism. [1] Leftists go all in on collectivism in the form of racial/sexual/gender identities, subsuming the individual in the group identity. Having been canceled by their homeland, many classical liberals have taken refuge with conservatives, who share the core foundation of Enlightenment presuppositions, such as individualism and liberty.[2]
Lindsay steers clear of using the phrase “woke,” which he feels is as meaningless as the term “racist.” Instead, he speaks of “identity theory” or “critical race theory,” which he characterizes as being predicated on the following:
The new trinity of standpoint theory, the doctrine of systemic racism, and the equity mandate is bringing about radical and extensive changes in education, healthcare, employment, entertainment, law enforcement, and government policy.
Lindsay, Ronald A., Against the New Politics of Identity (p. 8).
Lindsay's discussion of “standpoint theory” is extremely informative. Lindsay explains standpoint theory as follows:
In a nutshell, standpoint theory holds that knowledge is rooted in and derives from a person's social circumstances and that those who are oppressed (by some criteria) are in a better position to acquire knowledge than those who are not. To use the standard jargon, all knowledge is “situated” and the oppressed are “epistemically privileged.”
Lindsay, Ronald A., Against the New Politics of Identity (p. 20).
Standpoint theory is Marxist in orientation. It is also responsible for much of the Woke nonsense....excuse me, “CRT nonsense”.....that posits that racial minorities and the oppressed have greater insights into scientific knowledge and/or scientific knowledge is not to be trusted to the extent that it says something that CRT theorists disagree with:
Sandra Harding, a leading and frequently cited proponent of a modified version of standpoint theory, has argued at length that the findings of natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology) are affected by bias, which cannot be recognized by the (male) scientists themselves, but only by the oppressed, and in this view she is definitely not alone: “Scientific knowledge, like other forms of knowledge is gendered. Science cannot produce cultural or gender-neutral knowledge.”4 As with sex, so too with race. There is no race-neutral knowledge. Even some aspects of physics are adversely affected by “white empiricism,” which is defined as the “specific practice of epistemic oppression paired with a willingness to ignore empirical data.”5 Moreover, “the presence of white empiricism involves a refusal to acknowledge that white supremacy has limited the scientific community's capacity for knowledge production.”
Lindsay, Ronald A.. Against the New Politics of Identity (pp. 21–22).
As with scientific knowledge, so it goes with sociology, psychology, or common sense. “Knowledge” is context-dependent. The context that controls is that of the “oppressed.” The “oppressed” is a group identity; therefore, the vanguard of the oppressed defines reality. The technical idea in CRT theory is that oppressed minorities have an “epistemic advantage,” which is why white people should just shut up and listen.
This permits a totalization of power on the part of Leftist leadership. It also gives a formula for Leftist proles to avoid the difficult project of thinking and responding to arguments:
Among the immediate consequences of accepting standpoint theory are that one can dismiss the positions and arguments of persons in the alleged dominant group (again, typically white men) as being based on an inadequate and distorted perspective. Moreover, one can dismiss their positions and arguments without engaging at any length with them. In other words, such individuals can be dismissed out of hand because they literally do not know what they are talking about. For adherents of standpoint theory, were a white man to address a conference focused on discussing best policies for securing women's rights, the first reaction from attendees should be, “Why is a white man talking to us?” One doesn't need to ponder at length the dynamics of this relationship to see how attractive it is - to the self-appointed advocates for the allegedly oppressed. Just as Marxists dismissed arguments questioning their economics or politics by labeling their opponents “bourgeois,” so the views of anyone who might demur from some claim put forth by one of today's spokespersons for the oppressed can be dismissed as “patriarchal,” “white supremacist,” or “heteronormative,” depending on the situation.
Lindsay, Ronald A.. Against the New Politics of Identity (pp. 26–27).
“Racist,” they shouted.
And that's why they do it.
A person's upbringing and social context can substantially influence what a person thinks is true. It is more than a bit of a fallacy to confuse what a person thinks is true with what is true. Likewise, it may well be the case that marginalized voices can bring a useful perspective to a subject. But it is fallacious to think that the “oppressed” are automatically more informed - that they have an epistemic advantage - because of their oppression. Their oppression may have nothing to do with the subject at hand. Further, it may well be the case that the “oppressed” form the wrong conclusions simply because they are too close to the issue. The fact that the aristocracy oppressed peasants did not mean that they had an epistemic advantage when they blamed the Jews for their problems.[3]
For the rest, go to https://medium.com/@peterseanEsq/race-matters-you-dont-need-to-think-critically-about-race-because-we-ve-don-t-that-for-you-463fa74002d5
