Message-Id: <199401142215.PAA00695@csf.Colorado.EDU>
Date:         Fri, 14 Jan 94 16:55:50 EST
From: Sean Purdy <PURDYR@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA>
Subject:      Re: IDENTITY POLITICS
To: Progressive Sociologists <psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU>
In-Reply-To:  Your message of Fri, 14 Jan 1994 14:44:41 -0700
Status: RO
Martha: I agree that the discussion should begin with a focus on the
limitations of identity politics; they're a dead end strategy in the struggle
against oppression. But I'm not sure what you're getting at with this notion of
"victim" construction by the victims themselves. The point of contention is not
that there are no legitimate concerns which many identity politicians identify
or that these people are not in reality victims, but that the problematic
politics of identity lead them to believe that they are *only* victims and
that a politics of difference is the only way forward.

I think the rise of identity politics must also be placed in the context
of the 1980s long after affirmative action was already under attack. The
political defeats of the 1980s are important as are the economic restructuring
of the capitalist class. One must also look at the political vacuum: in the
absence of a workers' movement and a class politics left, the way was open for
a politics of difference not unity, victimhood rather than fightback, form
rather than content, style rather than substance.

But what is heartening is that identity politics has faltered recently. My
sense of the current terrain is that there are a lot of young people who
are turned off by many of the more problematic formulations of identity
politics (or PC). If only the politics of unity and class struggle can fill
the vacuum.


Has anybody noticed that attacks on political correctness have recently
been revived?

Sean Purdy, Queen's University