"The fixation with your identity limits your identity." ~ Ayishat Akanbi

The problem with identitarianism is that it dehumanizes by treating people as categories instead of individuals. It’s a form of bigotry.

In terms of morality, it becomes increasingly difficult to have compassion for one another if we feel fundamentally different from one another. Those who perpetuate evil and injustice tend to justify their actions to themselves by pretending that other people are 'different' and thus the same set of moral precepts which would normally apply no longer apply. This is exactly what the demons and despots of the past have used as justification for their actions and if we no longer fight for equality, understanding and compassion for all, then the people of the world will always be at war with one another, never seeing the truth--namely that we all are fundamentally the same, with the same propensity to feel pain, same propensity to desire happiness in life, and same potential for intelligence, magnanimity and truth

I also see a lot of "appeal to identity" being done lately. Just like someone might do an appeal to authority by saying "well, I am a foremost expert who teaches at Harvard and has written 3 books about this topic" instead of actually giving you an argument that you can engage with intellectually, a lot of people lately say "I'm Black so I know more than you about racism" or "I'm gay so I would know more than you about homophobia". The issue here is the same as with an appeal to authority: Sure, one would hope that a Harvard professor who has written 3 books about a particular topic would know about said topic and be right in the conversation taking place, but just appealing to said authority doesn't make your argument right. You need to actually still prove that you are right on this one. Same goes for identity: Sure, I would hope that based on your identity you would be more familiar than others about certain topics, but you still need to make an argument rather than just repeat what your identity is and say "I don't need to explain anything to you", "It's not my job to educate you", or complain that "We always have to explain ourselves to everybody!" (hoping perhaps that people will feel ashamed that they are being asked to explain themselves "because" of their identity, when in fact they are just being asked to explain their argument so we don't blindly take their world for it based on their identity alone).

The saddest thing that happened on the left is being unable to hear and listen to criticism from already left-leaning people, or anyone for that matter.

While "Identity politics" in it's extreme form is definitely problematic, I find that the seperate issue of lack of acceptance of diversity of viewpoints on the left even more disturbing. Perhaps it is the same on the right, but it seemed like the left in previous decades was very much about freedom of speech. But now speech is equated with "violence" if it happens to offend someone. The problem with this, is that there many people who could be "offended" by just about anything. I'm not talking about the obviously harmful stuff like threats, and vicious bigoted attacks that would be considered fine back in the 1800s but are no longer accepted as acceptable discourse today. I'm talking about simple opinions about what is and isn't racist, what policies are good or bad, etc. On the left it seems that politics has become so tribal that having an alternative view on anything brands you as "impure" and many people have been "kicked out of the club for this." Maybe this exists on the far right as well, I don't know, since I've always been liberal, but yeah, it's gotten to the point that I no longer want to be involved in politics, or at least not partisan politics, and consider myself an independent, even though based on many political test I take I'm much more towards the left of center on most issues.

As a non-US viewer his points tend to showcasenvery much what I find weird about US left wing politics. So much identity so little class struggle, but hey you do you

Identity Politics can be tricky. The more you dig deep into it, the more you kinda realize everyone takes every situation by face-value.

Personally I see zero value in glorifying (or demonizing) groups of people based on arbitrary attributes. I think Martin Luther King Jr said something about that once.

Thank you for this very lucid discussion. As someone who is close to 70 years old and been in higher education since the 1980s and have been an out gay activist for all that time, I really disliked the emergence of identity politics over anything else. In my own world, my very dear friend, Gilbert Baker, who invented the now Universal rainbow flag - the gift of gay people to the world - was a symbol for everyone on earth because every stripe represented a universal human value. Then came the identitarians, and one little smarmy dick who decided that Gilbert's flag needed editing. Gilbert never copyrighted the rainbow flag, but Mr. Quasar, author of the so-called "progress flag", did exactly that! He copyrighted that very ugly piece of failed vexillography with the identititarian chevron of race and trans identity. This infuriated me. Interestingly, it's a classic case of cultural appropriation by a profiteer. It's not his art to piss on. And now that ugly flag is everywhere and Mr. Quasar makes money every time it's printed. I'm glad that Gilbert did not live to see what the postmodernists did to our social movement. More generally, I'm also an activist in the Democratic Socialist of America. I joined them because I'm a socialist. But our meetings are now heavily lathered with identarian politics- from the pronouns to the land acknowledgment, Karl Marx has gone out the window, and Judith Butler has taken his place. Identity politics has essentially killed the left in the United States, and, because United States is an all too powerful cultural entity on the planet, it has spread its little cancer all over the world.

Yes, these are despicable people playing on the fears or "strangeness" of other people. So, I don't know anything about "transgender" or other ethnicities or similar fringe groups but what I am aware of are certain groups of people and low brow politicians who will exploit these differences for political or other gain. Essentially it is picking on fringe marginalized groups who make up a tiny fraction of the population. This is by design because these groups can't "fight back." So, while I don't necessarily completely understand them, I support them simply because of this systemic, targeted bullying. As a former military man, I'm not fond of bullies and will challenge them at any chance. That's just me.

I think a poignant phrase is “historically oppressed and marginalized people”. We should be focusing on avoiding any CURRENT oppression and marginalization, less so on the marginalization because that’s mostly got to do with the amount of people in a certain group which doesn’t necessarily imply anything wrong or unfair happening to them. We should strive towards recognizing the ways we as individuals are actively treating people unfairly and unjustly in the current moment rather than reserve moral judgment for certain groups or types of people based on history or arbitrary traits.

Who would have thought that the most revolutionary thing in this time and age would be reject any label, tag, or identity.

The accompanying music to this interview slaps

For anyone interested, a great organization that promotes fighting racism without indentity politics (and calling out the identity politics that actually harm the cause of racial justice) is Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR).

"There hasnt been much attempt to explain where these ideas come from". This guys spent basically zero time online for the past decade I see. Well done on catching up to 2015.

A few good things here. I always say If your ideas and theories are as solid as you claim, they should stand up to scrutiny! So why is "identity" only a problem when it is viewed as an asset, but not when it is used as a weapon to deny basic human rights? Thank you for your insights! You can support the counter argument and answer your own questions by looking up and reading easily researched statistics!

Help me understand the gist of what he’s saying. Is it that we have to establish clear identities within our social groups but not in political discourses?

I'm glad I'm not the only democrat who noticed how quickly identity politics skyrocketed when Trump was elected. It took less that six hours for someone to cuss me out for being white and male, even though I voted for Clinton. It also happened after Roe v. Wade was overturned. I've been taking a good long look at my party ever since.

Can a man speak about feminism? According to some, he should be unauthorized to do so because of his "man-fragility". This reasoning could be applied to all identities and it's a big mistake not to accept the views of an outsider

Okay I was more on board with the first half of this video than the second half. "The founders of CRT explicity saw themselves as attacking the mainstream of black American thought." Not all these founders agree with each other! I studied CRT in University after the media firestorm about it, and that only lead me to learn just how horribly misrepresented it had been. It was founded on the observation that after progress was made granting equal rights under the law, black Americans and other minority groups were still struggling because of systemic unfairness that was not explicit. Some was accidental, some was very deliberate Southern Strategy-esque tactics for disenfranchisement. CRT is basically "how does this occur and how can it be helped?" Shitty claims from Derrick Bell aside, the goal shouldn't be to get rid of universal values, it is that universal values are insufficient. I agree with one premise of this video, that identity politics are often abused and misused superficially. But anyone who thinks the takeaway from that is that identity should never come up at all in discussion is over-adjusting. The anti-identity politics crowd feels absolutely no need to refer to identity when it suits their ends.

A great history lesson and compelling story. The causes you assume and conclusions you make, absolutely absurd.

Wait a minute - did anybody here have classrooms sorted by race? 4:40 Or is this sensationalized from this guy reading a couple of headlines of edge cases from his feed?

very well articulated and eye-opening. one of the best videos i’ve seen from bt 👏🏻

I'm glad he sheds light on DiAngelo's and Kendi's stances.

The only issue with his examples is towards the end. Capitalism is in fact based on classism and racism. The whole premise of capitalism is exponential growth and the strongest cost in capitalist is labor. The chattel slavery issue was used to incur cheap labor. The domestication and limited rights of women historically is used to save on childcare and childrearing for men. I do understand the polarized witch hunting he is trying to lay out as people attack the person and not the argument (a professor habitually said this) but his content was a poor execution.

I just can't imagine living my whole live as a victim. I can't imagine multiple generations of my family living as victims. The idea of victimhood is so ridiculous because it tells people that nothing is their fault and that it is always someone else's fault. The fact that rampant anti white racism exists and is accepted is very damaging. White millennials raised the least racist white children in history but modern people completely messed that up by telling them they are racist anyway. And now there is no turning back. You can see that in the political divide between the genders in Gen Z and Alpha. White women embraced the fact they were evil colonizers. Young white men did not and now we have the most political separation between the genders in history.

11:04 is a pretty slick morph cut or a weird glitch. I wonder if the editor of these videos reads the comments

It is very deep and serious statement : "all people are equal" / - "should be Equal" /in political and economic... opportunities..., provided by political and social regulation, controlled by the state. ...bacaurse, from the point of biological diversity - it is very important, so all people are various - means, all people are not same... And even having equal access to political and ecomonic rights, being at a different level of intellectual capacities, Different people will perform different results... How are you going "to equalize" that?

Seems to me you're describing, through other terms (identity synthesis), a phenomenon called "political polarization" and the repercussions thereof. One of those repercussions is that hypocrisy and human nature have more recently taken the place of living up to our ideals as you mentioned near the end. All of these pendulum swings from generation to generation will continue ad nauseum through the endless cycle of history. But it is admirable to call out those fringe ideas that threaten to weaken or discredit otherwise worthwhile causes. Keep on doing your work, and go easy on Foucault--those Postmodernists get dragged on the regular in academic circles, as you likely know.

There are good, kind, caring people, and there are @ssholes, and both can be found in every race, gender, sex, color, religion, etc etc, all over the world. It's not about how we label ourselves it's about how we treat others. Plain and simple!

8:07 I love your channel and your audience, I'm gonna comment on ALL your videos for years until I reach your level of subscribers.

As always happens, some of the worst ideas originate in academia. Lacking real-life experiences (such as manual labor or business for example), academics often think of themselves as morally and intellectually superior to those outside their academic safe space. Consequently, they believe they can represent groups of people instead of allowing individuals to represent themselves

Anyone who wants to emphasize our differences instead of our commonalities should be summarily dismissed. It appears that the diversity apostles are mostly about abrogation of power.

I personally think identity politics is a propagandistic product of democracy. When we only speak for our own small groups based on whatever arbitrary and isolated characteristics, the society itself is divided and weakened, but whatever political parties who push for these agendas benefit greatly. Is this truly what democracy stands for?

What there really are is a series of overlapping ideas. And one thread of ideas that's very important, that I think gets left out because it might be a little frightening to talk about, is the direct line of ideas that goes from Lenin's 'Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism' to Mao's 'Little Red Book' to J. Sakai's 'Settlers: The Myth of The White Proletariat' (from whence we get terminology like "Settler Colonialism"). Lenin's basic thesis is in the title really, where Mao (and others like Ho Chi Minh) took that idea was into the context of nations fighting against capitalist imperialism in Asia. Now, as much as I admire The Black Panthers, I'm not going to pretend Bobby Seale wasn't bulk importing Mao's Little Red Book.. because he absolutely was. Mao's ideas appealed to people influenced by black nationalism. Now what J Sakai (a self described Maoist) did was take those simultaneously nationalist and anti-colonialist ideas and port them onto the context of communities of colour (particularly black and indigenous people) in predominently white countries, positioning marginalized groups as nations being colonized by the white supremacist system and "whiteness" in a broader sense. Under this view, all white people become "colonizers" and all people of colour become "marginalized communities" fighting against encroachment from things like "Cultural Appropriation", "gentrification" and later concepts like "Micro Aggressions". This is part of why you get groups like The Movement for Black Lives literally talking about separate black political power in the wake of the George Floyd riots. Obviously these ideas are incredibly reductive and potentially very divisive. Nonetheless, they are considered de rigueur amongst the various groups that get referred to as Antifa, for example.

It’s extremely narrow minded to believe this is something new. Humans are tribal, for many the politics of the day is a way to express this natural tendency.

I was looking forward to listening to his argument because I have issues with identity politics myself, but he didn’t really say anything and doesn’t seem to have a very holistic understanding of why people resort to identity politics

there's just something about trying to paint everything (or everyone) as either black or white that comes off as, at best, disingenuous. there are spectrums all over the place so why wouldn't racism also be one..?

Psychedelics definitely have potential to deal with mental health symptoms like anxiety and depression, I would like to try them again but it's just so hard to source out here

The problem with identity politics is the hypocrisy of having identity. A truly unracist society would have no identity, we would simply look at one another as humans. Even then, injustice would still be a problem.

“Cultural question “ is euphemism for the same old “White supremacy problem.”

Really? I would have never have guessed that..... not like this channel has been platforming the proponents of this extreme ideology or anything and giving it credibility it never earned. Oh wait yeah that's exactly what Big Think has been doing for several years now. I'm still BIg Mad with Big Think for playing it's role in all of this but credit where it is due having this chap on Is a step in the correct direction.

And this is why I don’t fuck with politics anymore. It’s either that or being in the center

I'm on the internet a lot, and it's very easy to get kicked out of a leftist server if you have a different opinion. Their views are also VERY difficult to understand. I didn't want to put up with the drama and mental gymnastics, so I went right, and I'll probably stay there until the left becomes sensible again. Personally, I want to be able to make money because it can lead to upward social mobility, so I do not consider capitalism evil, and I think identity politics is dividing people and that should be blatantly obvious. I can understand why parents are removing their children from public school and encouraging them not to go to college. The professors and teachers have gone crazy, if I'm to believe all of the online videos. Plus, most of the people I see championing leftism are like really rich people. Yeah, maybe you don't know the value of money if you've always had it, so maybe a cashless society sounds awesome, and maybe you don't know how hard it is to make and keep friends if you've always had something they want, so identity politics never made your friends shun and distrust you, but to the rest of us, this is insufferable.

looks like john hopkins will hire any one these days, no habla engli ?

Anti -male supremacy and anti-white supremacy are not “identity “ politics . That’s a misnomer.

I'm not americana*zi, so it's always crazy to me to hear americana*zi describe literal f-ism, "treating groups of people based on which group they belong to" as "left wing" and then by extension they often attribute that to "communism" - what? no, communism is about class, class is 99% vs 1%, it's not identity as you can't become rich as identifying as rich. and then they call people who speak against vvar, against animal cruelty, and pro doing evidence based science, they call them "right wing" - again, no, people with such takes are the closest thing in lamerica to left wing. they don't have left wing as such in lamerica, cause no politician would give you basic human rights that rest of the world enjoys, and working class people fight amongst themselves about which billionaire is the best, those who self identify as "right" but are more left in reality, they prefer musk, and those f-ists, who self identify as left wing (just offensive) they prefer dr mengele aka gates - us actual communists would strip both of them of their rights, and wealth, and redistribute it to the population. their money, if any, would go into rebuilding the collapsing infrastructure, paving roads, fixing and building bridges, electrical grid, drinking water to every house, and so on, the lands of gates would probably be turned into state owned (therefore you owned cause communist state is the opposite of cra*pitalist state) where food would be produced for entire nation, with least amounts of pesticides, antibiotics, gmos and so on, or, it would be redistributed directly into the hands of young couples, willing to start their married life "in the village". if either of them has any tech worth salvaging - probably not, it would be provided to use and develop for free, tho most of it would probably just be binned, like, who the hell needs spyware?

It's so funny how in USA you are slowly preparing a new secession war. Good luck!

Divide and conquer. That's it. 😅

Someone better tell the BBC and Disney. Whenever I hear the phrase "made for a modern audience" or "strong female character" I just switch off and avoid the show. Rey from Star Wars was a perfect example. Good at everything with no training. How did she know how to sail a boat in Episode 9 when she grew up on a desert planet?

Absolutely nothing to say about the issues with the right, eh? The left always needs to move further right to join hands with the oppressive right? I expect better, BT.

All identities should be questioned except one identity that we are not allowed to question.

Nailed it.

It is suspicious that a german man is arguing about this theme haha

The irony of those who promote diversity is that diversity is inheritly unequal. For diversity to exist, there must be differences or more precisely, variation. Diversity is variation. Variation means not the same, not the same means not equal, not equal means inequality. The state of the human species is diversity aka inequality hence why not all humans, within a racial group and between groupe are the same not only in genetic inheritance but genetic expression. Not all people are talk dark and handsome, some are small, dark and handsome, some are small, light and handsome ad homen. I agree diverisity of thought and opinion should be welcome just like diversity of shape and colour makes a painting beautiful. Beauty is the unification, not uniformity, of diversity. There is beauty in diversity, but also beauty in the same, although limiting. Difference, or rather, variation isn't necesarily a bad or good thing. The proponents of diversity don't fully understand what they are actually mean by diveristy. They want a specific type of definition that is not true. A loud few of them don't even care about diversity and just want to so what they want without no consequence. They want uniformity, echo chambers and bubbles of sameness because it means safety, comfort, security, certainty and CONTROL. Reactionary, hyper sensitive due to trauma and essentially mental instability. They want to be heard but shout and scream after years of being shamed and guilt into shutting up. And the culture is to partly blame. The culture pushes short term symptom relief resulting in vices and addiction. Rather than tackle the cause/the system which means long term investment and work, you give out pills and apps to profit from to essentially dissmiss and avoid the problem. Consumerism, the commodification of society is killing us slowly and a few are profiting from this who live comfortable lives to the point of far removed lives. They cause their own echo chambers. True captilism is meant to empower the individual. To offer the individual means to thrive. Instead it's been perverted by short-terminism. Growing too fast and quick. Thats exactly what cancer does. It has no breaks, a mutation in the gene dysfunctioning. Modern society is dying from comsumerism, a form of capitalism that has no breaks (morals amd ethics) and grows and grows in a short time disregarding, neglecting, dissmissing and avoiding the long-term. Old folks who grew up in a different era who won't be here deciding for a younger generation who will have to deal with the consequences of short term thinking by them. Humans are natural born gamblers, we want maxium gain/reward for minimal investment/work. Consumerism does this but only for a few. Captilism, true captialism, would do this for most people with patience, tolerance and care. We have not actually seen true capitalism yet. In the future I hope to see this. Productivity was a necessity during the war effort during war that span across the world. Desperate times require desperate measures. We are not at war anymore, but we market/work/live like we are? Scarcity mindset pushing productivity like we're in war. So much negativity, get and take more because its "limited and there won't be anymore later" mentality. Such madness! Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and wondering where did it go wrong, then do it again only to repeat things again. We do this is relationships, politics and in life. Diversity is good, but rarely understand what it means. It means inherit inequality. Some things are better than other things only when compared. What it means is that there is no absolute superiority, only relative superiority. 100 years ago productivity was a matter of literal life or death. In war, those with the bigger amount of force wins. We are not in a global war anymore, but we are being pushed like we are? Everything is forced, including diversity. Only big cities in London know and live with diversity, the rest of the 80% of UK only see diversity through second hand experience like the tv, radio and maybe when they go visit. Nobody wants to be pushed and shoved. Time is our friend, its not our enemy yet we are rushing as if a bomb is going to blow us all up. History is important yes, and I understand that we, as a species, old and young have never been in this position before so we have no clue when what will happen in the future but if we look at the past, we don't want that. But we know what has happened in the past, and because we know this, the past is more certain than the future so might as well look to the past for guidance which is virtually suicidal. The past is full of death, but also much of life. If we take anything from the past it is life remained, we adapted and survived. But we want to thrive. Let go of older ways, not evrything in the past is good. Not everything new is good. The present is build on the past, but the future is built on the present, lets not try to live the present like we're in the past. We don't have to live like before, live in the present, with patience. Pushing leads to shoving, shoving leads to stampedes, stampedes lead to trampling and trampling leads to death. Only those who are the quickest survive to only realise they are virtually alone. Nobody wants to be alone, becauase isolation means death. A great man once said, and I paraphrase, "What good is it if man gains the world, but looses his soul." If you were to own the whole world, be the last one standing after fighting and defeating everyone and there was nobody on your side, you will be the loneliest man. The soul is within community, connection, family and if your "enemies" were still around, and you left them blind and wounded. You will be lonely, outnumbered, lost, have no connection or loyalty, you'll be souless.

Yes, what a lovely sentiment. Men are created equal. Let’s live up to that. When men and women are no longer seen as different, but instead as human beings, I’ll be happy. In the meantime, the reality is very different.

You say 'keep fighting' but you didn't know what you're fighting. It seems he didn't go back far enough to get the perspective he needed.

You are not a person but a group and you have no internal locus of control, take no personal responsibility, blame “oppression” (society) for all your problems and you are therefore miserable…if you buy into identity politics.

Think of the symbol for justice as embodied in statues at courthouses: A blindfold representing impartiality. A very high scientific ideal, we fall horribly short on due to partiality. The core/essence thorn OF politics and political discourse IS bias/impartiality. If we could merely allow the facts to speak for themselves, we would not be seeking power, but truth, and “politics” would be no more. We would still disagree, but it would be from a lack of solid information, or a lack of rational capacity. We would respect tenure, expertise, experience, training. We would have no “parties”, or sides, because we would all be working together towards a common goal: truth. But we’re not. We’re interested in power, which is winning for ourselves and our sides. Our identities. Politics IS, always has been, always will be, at its core, about our identity and the groups represented. Politics is the struggle for power. There are those looking to win, aka for a group and its identity which grants privilege, and those looking for justice and a redress of true grievances. It’s absurdly clear just who’s involved in identity politics. There is the oppressor and the oppressed and the historical record is replete with examples, IF you’re not hell bent on dismissing and ignoring them. On the one hand, I’m deeply dismayed we haven’t grasped these fundamentals of reality, and betray them so consistently. If we’re going to bring our collective heads out of the chaos/mayhem, we’re going to have to slow down and think very hard about these fundamentals. And be better human beings-the real problem, one that religion has been tasked to solve. “Identity Politics” as a term, is a redundancy, and therefore absurd. Politics IS about identity, and true to form, the rights war on truth and devolvement into chaos, has taken their own grand strategy and flipped the script. Like so much else invented on the right fashioned to confuse. “Fake news” is propaganda, and wasn’t an invention of the left, but has been part of the rights well funded culture war for over 70 years. “Cancel culture” was created when WASP, White, Anglo Saxon Protestants, MADE any other culture as fringe/foreign. “Political Correctness” is nothing more than cultures and norms evolving and changing as they always have and always will. Every cultural norm we have is a consequence of our discourse. A discourse that becomes contentious, NATURALLY. NOT some insidious, misguided, “leftist” plot. These terms are codes by the right. A new language that creates our fundamental divide. Non scientific and illogical, as I hope you can see. Welcome to reality. Some of us have been studying it long before 2016, Rush Limbaugh and Barry Goldwater. Please, for everyone’s sake, TRULY think yourself, TRULY be independent before all words and the most critical components to our language is destroyed-and the soul/spirit of anything sacred is wiped from our collective memory. Liberty is based on the rule of law, and its fundamental task is the protection of ALL citizens from unnecessary limitations so that we may ALL have a reasonably equal chance of living a good life. Basic, basic stuff, warped by the right in a war, with literal casualties/fatalities. For those who have slept through the last 70 years, PLEASE try to educate yourselves and stop outsourcing your mind to others and just parroting their lines-no one wants to be a useful idiot, but sadly, were awash. Liberty is NOT doing whatever we choose to do, but whatever is true and correct, given the entire body of citizens AND the historical record of unnecessary advantages and disadvantages. Liberty/freedom has limitations because “no man is an island” unto themselves. Biblically speaking, transgressions. Freedom comes with limits, we call laws that must be honored. Rules, edges, boundaries. In the same way we cannot abuse our biological limits, we cannot abuse the social limitations that we’re all, ultimately, deeply dependent on. The only way we can ever be truly free is to think for ourselves and to submit to the needs of the greater good. Those OUTSIDE our tribe/click/culture. To share. We are an experiment, it is true, but that’s something religion has recognized now for millennia. The true test is in the quality of the soul/spirit, it’s reverence for the sacred, and the resistance to its corruption

This was a seriously comforting video because it's one of the few times I've seen someone explain my beliefs in such a critical way. I'm glad to see that there are people in academia that recognize the problems with the left. I've not seen the problem laid out any clearer than the anti-Israel protestors. The attempts to create intersectional struggles create an ideological purity that no one will be able to stand up to.

This is a wonderful rendition of "image driven, academic neo-pretentious pontificating". This performance would be a perfect comedy act and I would love to be your manager.

I think hes wrong and its bigger issue than this good but narrow analysis Identity politics comes from someones brand of injustice becoming more important than class struggle . The criticism of capitalism and the fight for socialism or communism has ended . I think its a place were political parties standing in elections have all become right wing capitalist supporting parties and will only reform it and the more right wing want to take us back to 1920s lassez-faire capitalism. Basically its arguing over economic nuances and concentrating on social problems . This is the lazy period before empires collapse when you revere entertainers instead of warriors or good thinkers/ideas and new ways. The usa is an empire and the head of capitalism (seen as a empire and system).

The Divide and Conquer tactic is as old as time. And there's a reason it's so effective. We are so drawn to tribalism. Prob our biggest flaw

I knew there was a reason why I never got into politics

Am i wrong but i dont think he answered the question ? from 12.44. he explained identity synthesis reasoning and what we should do but not why it doesnt fight injustice or do we have to read between the lines and guess ? Least he didnt do the stupid right wing conspiracy thing and blame Marxism

Identity politics hits a brick wall as soon as it is performative in the slightest. Performative wokeness just leads to a further narrowing of identities. In theory, yes, it SHOULD work. But to say that identity politics were not necessary is to simply ignore that there were ideas written into law that explicitly and subtly were purposed with ostracizing people because of parts of their identity.

He would be even more convincing without that accent 😅

No serious attempt to explain the origins of this ideology? Heard of James Lindsay? And others.

I would agree with some of the psychological aspects, but being antiracist means AT THE MINIMUM the ability to identify it. Nobody is perfect. One MUST indeed be antirascist or defaults in complicity. I liked this theory, but some of it is giving red flags. Am I now just woke privilaged?

There are 488 comments at the time of my response, so I'm sure someone has commented something similar to what I'm about to. That being said, I know this channel is called Big Think thus many theories are shared. I personally think the value of thinking big is that it precedes real world actions. My problem with identity-less theories like this & Colemans is that gloss over the reality that identity is baked into our American society. So both overtly and covertly its intertwined with social structures and laws to be abided by. Theorizing how leaning on and into what will never be with out is harm is just intellectual masturbation. Which I guess is fine, if it is being presented as such, but presenting it as solution isn't helpful as its dismissive of many's lived reality. It isn't with out conscious effort that we will achieve an equitable society, part of that effort is recognizing our differences and adjusting as appropriate to create equity. Unfortunately in America that means giving up something so someone else has an equal opportunity and means. All shared with love, as I have hope we as a collective global society will realize our ability to flourish is dependent on more harmonious existence between us all.

Some people are in a permanent underclass because of their "identity". He didn't delve into who created the American and global notion of race, who weaponized it, and who benefits in this culture from it. In a world where basic civil rights protections are being rolled back, we simultaneously have intellectuals advocating for the "content of my character" approach to addressing unfairness designed and baked into all of our national systems. People are intensely devoted to maintaining a racial hierarchy (and class inequity based on racism) by deliberately discouraging people from talking honestly about this system set up to benefit white, cis, men. Let's make the structure more equitable all identities then we'll not have a need for this concept of "identity politics".

All bald males are equal 👨🏻‍🦲

seems to hit all the notes cons like. Hard pass. Just a polite version of Charlie Kirk going after DEI. This guy is not on the left.

Is Big Think coming around to the side of sanity?

I'm independent

I'm not a US citizen but I observe with growing fear what is happenenig on the other side of the Atlantic. And I don't mean the rise of vocal and organized identity-based groups - I rather envy that. I mean the course the critical rhetoric around these groups is taking. In this video I hear a lot of big scary words like "ideology", "destruction", "politically pure" but I don't hear why these words have been used by a scolar to describe a socio-political situation. There are, however, some parts of the political agenda of "the left" like eradication of any form of racism or social injustice. If more institutions are being accused of racism, it does not necessarily mean that the word loses its meaning but rather that people started to take this meaning seriously. Some people for sure are overreacting but statistically it must be a small minority since all the discriminated groups (except women) are social minorities. But in this clever rhetoric these separate and scarce groups seem to form an invasive horde capable of abolishing constitution. The thing is: even if they do, they're not a horde, they are citizens, and that' how democratic politics work - people think, want a change, organize, and try to implement the change.

The rich and wealthy have no identity.

You mean calling everyone a bigot dilutes what it means to be a bigot and means claims of bigotry won't be taken seriously? No no, that's Nazi talk. NAZZZZZZZZIIIIIIII, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. ...I'm taking the piss y'all, relax.

It’s class warfare not identity warfare.

Thank you for sharing this

They build injustice.

A powerful and well communicated analysis.

idk how people can think identity is that important. I'm always changing constantly. one minute I'm a nascar driver on I-95 and the next I'm a guitarist in a band playing for an audience all alone in my room, but never will I ever need validation for what's in my head externally cause I know we all daydream together. we all love pretending to be someone else so it's stupid to base your life on identity. thank you for coming to my ted talk

Why limit the discussion to the left? Trump is a master of identity politics, and if he wins the election it will have disastrous consequences.

I want to be treated as a voter, that's it

No more tokenism trophies

Nobody ever talks about South Africa, America is nothing compared to that place when it comes to racism and identity politics.

How did I ended up in a Jordan Peterson vídeo?

Us blue eyed persons have to stick together so that those green eyes don't overrun us!😛

Great stuff.

It's a sign of American decadence and its refusal to temper the inhuman consequences of its its economic model that such utterly stupid ideas managed to dominate so many minds. What's sad is that identity politics has replaced class politics and left the poor as abandoned as ever as well-off fanatics argue over speech codes and play dress up in dumb ideas that most living French intellectuals long left behind.

If your "identity" has never been illegal, never been outlawed, never been demonized... don't tell those who have this experience they should not organize around it's defense, and proper valuation.

Appreciate you ❤

In November, ask yourself, “Who would Hitler vote for?”

“People on both sides, especially on the right” bud, it’s across the board. To frame it that way you show bias. We all need to stop unquestionably “cheerleading for our team and vilifying the other side”

The moment anyone starts to play identity, they're practicing right wing politics.

I am a non-racist non-fragile white person. I know I am--100 %. Deamgelo and Kendi definitions and re-definitions will not define me. Period. Be well all. Declare the truth about yourself boldly.

The problems here are about the fixation and focus to the exclusion of the universal principles. The notion that you can't really understand what a given group is going through without reference to that group's identity is valid. the circumstances of that group's categorical identity do actually matter, because they are actually treated as a categorical grouping. You can't really understand country folk unless you understand their life from that categorical perspective. that's 'identity politics' and the basic notions underpinning the practices. The problems arise when that is taken out of the context of aiming for the universal principles.

This woke stuff has done nothing but turn my brother into a hard-core right-winger. Thanks for destroying the little respect we had from people.