Fukuyama is Wrong About "Identity Politics"

[Recursion]

Another great, great piece by Chris Ladd

https://www.politicalorphans.com/fukuyama-is-wrong-about-identity-politics/

Francis Fukuyama has waded into the fray, producing the most cogent and complete argument yet against what he calls “identity politics.” He urges Democrats to return to redistributive, industrial-era class appeals instead of pressing for “multiculturalism.” Fukuyama is no leftist. Like David Frum, he is a former neo-conservative who at one point supported GW Bush Administration. Like everyone else with a brain and a conscience, he finds himself increasingly aligned with the left by default. Like Frum, he sees the rise of so-called identity politics as a threat, and would advocate compromise on civil rights issues and immigration to protect a singular national identity.

Fukuyama, Frum, and the growing chorus of identity alarmists could not be more wrong about our present dilemma and our future needs. If we could ask that political genie for one wish it should be this: immediately tear down every Confederate statue. The nation that unlocks the power of authentic pluralism will dominate the 21st century. Our greatest single obstacle to achieving that future is our racial legacy.

...

First, he defines identity politics as a creation of the left, dating to the post- civil rights era. Thus, the racism that has engulfed the right is merely a predictable response to the rise of multiculturalism on the left. “Assimilation of foreigners” into a “mainstream culture” is an essential element of any immigration program. And “inconsistent enforcement of immigration laws” is the center of our present immigrant panic, the point at which he thinks any response to this outbreak of xenophobia should begin.

This framing is problematic not just because these unsupported claims are false. By starting with these assumptions, he drives past the most important forces rocking liberal democracies globally. Pluralism, civil rights, and multiculturalism did not land at the center of our political world out of expediency or a failure of ambition. Thanks to powerful incentives unleashed by the post-Cold War economy, cultural diversity has become a wealth engine. Fukuyama’s unsupported assumptions, which are established truisms of a dead industrial era, are not merely false, they are disastrous. There is money in diversity and money always wins.

[malaise]

1. Let me put it this way

His history ended for me with The End of History and the Last Man.
People still listen to that discredited idiot?.

[Recursion]

15. Oh yeah. At least the 2nd edition of that book made fun of itself

I find Fukuyama an interesting read, if only to see how drastically wrong a smart person with awful assumptions can wind up being.

[malaise]

19. LOL

I like how you think.

[underpants]

2. God Guns and Gays

Identity politics were the foundation of the rebirth of the conservative movement and the Republicans.

[IluvPitties]

3. Lee Atwater...

[underpants]

4. Yep and Rev. Moon

He was a cash machine going back to putting on marches supporting Nixon. For that kind of money he wanted a voice and that was anti-gay. Moon also basically bailed Falwell so they could have a white "Christian" face to appear on TV news shows.

[Garrett78]

5. The "economic anxiety/white working class/anti-identity politics" narrative is...

...a right wing lie (a racist one at that), which was, sadly, peddled by some on the left. The primary goal is to dismiss the reality of systemic racism and sexism, while pushing the idea that right wing or libertarian economic policy is not only best but also hugely popular.

[Recursion]

6. Yep. Hillary Clinton won voters making $50K or less by 12 points

And won voters who listed "jobs" or "the economy" as their primary concern by 8.

She lost voters who listed "immigration" or "culture change" by 36 points.

[PETRUS]

21. I wouldn't exactly call it (as the other poster did) a "right wing lie."

I'll be lazy and link to another person's words on this topic:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/04/the-racism-v-economics-debate-again

[joshcryer]

9. The left swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

To the point that actual Sanders supporters went on to vote for Trump. Just imagine the kind of mental gymnastics it takes for someone to be for redistribution and vote for Trump, someone decidedly not for redistribution.

[Garrett78]

10. Some on the left did anyway.

I'm on the left. Senator Harris is on the left. Many of us on the left didn't buy that garbage.

[joshcryer]

14. Fair enough.

But I mean, it's just so irrational. I don't know why this keeps happening.

[Recursion]

16. It's what Krugman calls a zombie

An argument that just keeps coming back, over and over again, because it's politically important to someone that it does.

[Garrett78]

17. Yeah, it's pretty infuriating to hear people such as Sanders be dismissive of the fact...

...that Donald Trump's rise was fueled almost entirely by racism and sexism. In spite of there being numerous studies (not to mention common sense observation) that back up that reality.

I was depressed enough following the 2016 election. That bogus narrative only made matters worse.

[JHan]

20. I think it's based on the presumption of innocence..

That there is no way there could possibly be voters whose political choices are motivated by hate. They must have been "duped" or "led astray" or "brainwashed". This delicate handling of white working class people was bizarrely transposed onto racist well-off suburbanites who voted Trump as well. While tribalism and other cognitive flaws are factors which should not be minimized, Sanders and others have not explained the appeal of Trump's raw and bigoted rhetoric without it coming across as an apologia. Right after the election you had people like Bill Maher criticizing Identity Politics because non-white political activism is seen to be too alienating, in the same breath - in that show - he said Hillary should stfu and stay in the woods because she lost - One of the clearest examples of the blindness to sexism and racism on the left.

The "class is everything" narrative is also weird to me because it just ignores History. It's hooked at the hip of FDR mythology and edits out ugly realities at the time. Again, why did WWC even need a special message, separate to working-class PoC? The possible answer to that is revealing.

[JHan]

7. Good critique, thanks Recursion.

[Hortensis]

8. :) Yes. Wish he hadn't used that term, all right.

Our grand alliance representing almost all groups of Americans -- including both liberals and conservatives from many minority groups -- arises only partly from shared values and also from external pressures -- the need for protection from the right. Of course we all identify by our own interests within our alliance in order to see they are protected. That's inevitable, but its' hardly the whole truth about our magnificent democratic alliance.

Unfortunately, whatever validity the term "identity politics" might have once had for discussion is completely overshadowed by its weaponization by foes on both the right and the far left to deny the greatness of our diversity and unity.

I'm an admirer of Mr. Fukuyama and have even read most, or good parts, of two of his wonderfully thick books. We can always improve, and if we do not bind ourselves together strongly through shared ideals, eventually our alliance will come apart as external pressures weaken. That that will happen as conditions improve is an inevitable evolution anyway, though.

But itm I think he should have maybe created a new term and avoided use of this hyper-loaded hostile one that is now almost entirely used as a weapon to twist and deny reality. It was guaranteed to get him quoted in all the wrong places.

[Scurrilous]

11. K&R

[joshcryer]

12. The pictures on that page speak a thousand words.

White House interns:

?w=680&ssl=1

Google 2017 PHDs fellows:

?w=1069&ssl=1

Great article, well written.

[Recursion]

13. Yep. Which group do you think represents America's future?

I know which one I want to be counted with

[joshcryer]

18. Indeed, and ironically, which group actually reflects merit?

I mean, let's dispense with the whole "merit based" future as an ideal for a second.

Which ones are people who are damn hard working, innovative, smart? And which one is just a shallow representation of a pointless cultural ideal?

I've been looking at the growth of Africa lately (the continent as a whole). There are, right now, young African children in a little mud roofed school who will go on to be freaking champions, from doctors, to scientists, to athletes. Some of them are going to freaking Mars, creating brilliant architecture, and changing the world. And it can't be stopped.

There's a quote that really resonates with me today:

The most important unchangeable reality about human societies heretofore is the every human society since the beginning, whenever that was, has wasted almost all the brains it possessed.

...

And so we forget – as we tend to forget every day when the newspaper isn’t headlined with the 50.000 children who starved to death yesterday – we forget that one of the fundamental characteristics of human societies heretofore has been their wastage of human brains. And I go around, and I say to people “How many of the Einsteins who ever existed were permitted to learn physics?”. And people think “Well, maybe one, maybe two – maybe Isaac Newton was another Einstein…” but of course the answer is “Almost none”; so few, in fact, that we know the names of them.

Which, had we educated all the Einsteins in the world, in physics, since the beginning, we couldn’t do, because there would be so many of them. And what we think of as the extraordinary characteristics of genius are primarily merely the selection function applied to human diversity, through radical injustice in access to the ability to learn. Which means, of course, that we know that – smart guys as we all are – we are really only the fraction of the smart guys in the world who’ve been allowed to learn anything, in a world where there are six billion people, most of whom will never be able to go to school. And their brains will starve to death.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Free_and_Open_Software:_Paradigm_for_a_New_Intellectual_Commons

And it terrifies them. It fucking terrifies them. Because we are starting to do it.

Highly recommend the talk, you can see a video of it here: