Category: Identity Politics and Tribalism
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Tribalism and Diversity
Tribalism is on the rise while classical liberalism is on the wane. Given this fact, does it make sense to admit into one's country ever more different tribes? A piety oft-intoned by leftists is that diversity is our strength. An Orwellianism, that, if tribal diversity is at issue.* For that would amount to the absurdity…
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Victor Davis Hanson on Tribalism
I was planning to upload a batch of quotations from Chapter Three, Tribes, in Victor Davis Hanson's latest, The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization are Destroying the Idea of America, Basic Books, 2021. But my effort was stymied when the book was recalled. For now, there is this: The reversion to tribalism…
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Identity Politics as a Deformation of Christianity
This First Things article by Joshua Mitchell is well worth reading. Excerpts: Marxism could never take hold in America because Americans believed in private property. Because property is the cornerstone of our republic, and cannot be removed, Marxism failed. Postmodernism could never really take hold in America because Americans believe that history has a meaning—and…
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More on Tribalism and the Identity-Political Right
A re-post from 2 November 2017 emended and supplemented. …………………………….. This entry continues a discussion with a Right-identitarian interlocutor. My current position is one of rejection of both Left- and Right-identitarianism. I am open, however, to a change of position. That is part of what makes me a philosopher as opposed to an ideologue. I…
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Identity Politics: Is it Possible to Remain Classically Liberal?
Cross-posted at my FB page. Good discussion there. ……………………………. There is an identity politics of the Left and an identity politics of the Right. The second kind became obvious to me when, after objecting to the tribalism of blacks, Hispanics, and other racial or ethnic groups, and after calling for a transcending of tribalism, I…
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A Comment Thread on Tribalism and Identity Politics from December, 2015
Part of an uncommonly good thread. Here is the entry to which the thread attaches. …………………………………………………. Anon, My point was that many short comments are better than one long one. One problem here is that I tossed out a word, 'tribalism,' but did not define it. What's worse is that I used it very loosely.…
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Elizabeth Warren: “That’s not Who We Are!”
This stock leftist exclamation, silly as it is, is sillier still coming from the mouth of the Cherokee Maiden, Fauxcahontas herself, who doesn't know who she is!
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Rachel Dolezal Up Against the Limits of Self-Construction
Is there anything about a person that lies beyond his power to self-identify, self-interpret, self-construe? Well, obviously, yes: that one is a person and a self in the first place with the power to identify as this or that is not a matter of self-identification. I cannot identify myself into existence or into selfhood. I…
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Identity-Political Infiltration of the Hard Sciences
More proof that leftists are destructive: A scientist at UCLA reports: “All across the country the big question now in STEM is: how can we promote more women and minorities by ‘changing’ (i.e., lowering) the requirements we had previously set for graduate level study?” Mathematical problem-solving is being de-emphasized in favor of more qualitative group projects;…
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Is Leftist Politics Anti-Identity Politics?
S. J. writes, Reading your posts lately, the following thought struck me. I wonder if it's struck you, and if you'd agree: Identity politics is a misleading name for the recent catastrophic turn in so-called progressive politics. For what it actually aims at primarily is the *destruction* of traditional modes of identity, which are, loosely…