Stigma on steroids

[imomus]

In yesterday's entry I argued that the current Republican party sees itself -- and is trying to encourage America to see itself -- as The Other in a grotesque development from identity politics, which I described as 'narcissistic'. Someone posted the following comment:

You certainly love to use heteronormative references and structure in your arguments. You label blacks, gays and women as narcissistic when they are struggling for issues that are deeply personal to them. Why don't you shed your white male privilege for long enough to imagine yourself being the target of a national campaign to label you as "other" and to codify this status into law, and then imagine that this issue is validated, not only by the ones who really hate you, but also by the ones struggling to find a narrative that doesn't require any sacrifices of them. Then imagine what kind of mischief you can create when you refuse to conform to the heteronormative script so well developed by our media and start writing your own script with no clear ending...

Of course I abhor injustice and prejudice, and I'm sympathetic to the motives behind identity politics. I like the idea that we can re-write our social scripts and renegotiate our social roles. But there are big problems with identity politics.

Identity politics has been linked with deconstruction, because both are concerned with renegotiation of the 'repressed' terms of semantic binaries. In feminism, for instance, the 'repressed term' in the male/female binary is detached from its social semantics and renegotiated.



Now, society is syntagmatic, not paradigmatic -- that is, it works like a sentence rather than a list of nouns, or like a family rather than a barracks. Social power is the result of social elements working with elements unlike themselves. The basis of social power is the promise to work on behalf of others. Those who have social power are those who manage to convince many types of people with different interests that they will represent everybody's interests, not just their own. In other words, social power tends to go to those who at least pose as The Universal rather than The Other. Identity politics, though, is based on single-issues, and on self-identity as The Other. Historically it's a product of 'The Me Generation' of the 1970s. It consists in a narcissistic withdrawal from the social syntagm, the 'sentence' of society, and an alignment with the 'paradigm' of other similar elements. 'People don't like me, so I want to be with people like me.'

The obvious limitation of this strategy is that, although it can allow for a renegotiation of one's social value -- the third phase in deconstruction is re-insertion of the renegotiated binary back into the social sentence, just as the third phase in feminism is a fully-integrated superwoman -- the narcissism involved actually diminishes the social power of the actor. When I become The Other and act on my own behalf, according to the narrow interests of my category, it's hard to claim to act on behalf of a broader 'we' again. The best I can hope for is that my narcissism will be indulged with celebratory (and patronising) acknowledgements, symbolic reparations, token awards, policed language.

The fact is, one cannot renegotiate a social role based only on 'What we'll do for people like ourselves'. One can only renegotiate it based on 'What we'll do for everyone'. To some extent identity politics has succeeded in this 're-inscription'. But the problem for groups who self-identify as The Other is the same as the problem the US faces in Iraq: legitimacy. You need to persuade people whose interests are not your own that you have their interests at heart too, and to do that you have to pose as The Universal, not The Other.



There is nothing outside of society. Those who try to break off from it altogether wallow in disillusionment and neglect. Narcissism is an attempt to substitute with pumped-up self-love the love which can only come from others. Narcissism can also become a vicious circle. Trying to escape the stigma of our social roles, we become a parody of them, 'stigma on steroids'. It's fine to 'go on strike' to renegotiate one's social value, but one shouldn't turn a strike into unemployment. One must go back to work eventually within the social syntagm, not stay in one's paradigm with isolated social elements like oneself. Isolation and narcissism are the way to become disempowered, not empowered.

There are two further problems with identity politics. The first is that as social groups withdraw one by one from the mainstream to renegotiate their value based on single identity-related issues, everyone is encouraged to see themselves as a minority, even the powerful. The effect is a narcissized and fragmented society of single-interest groups. And at that point, it seems clear that the richest and most powerful single interest group will win. It's a truly terrible scenario when the conservative white male sees himself as an embattled minority, a victim, and starts basing his actions only on his own narcissistic interests. This is what has happened with the US right. The powerful have taken on the mantle of the ultimate victims, and their power seems to them to be 'empowerment'. They act for no-one but themselves, and if they speak for anyone else, it's a half-hearted lie. This appalling situation is a perversion of identity politics (call it 'steroids on stigma' rather than 'stigma on steroids'), but it's a logical progression from it; the final stage, the death rattle.



There's another problem with identity politics. Let's call it 'the azza problem'. It's not just society itself that's fragmented, we also have increasingly fragmented personal identities. Do I react to something as a white man, as a person with a visual handicap, as a Marxist, as an exile, as a musician, as a non-motorist, as a person in a cross-racial relationship, as a poor person with no savings, as a Japan-lover? I have many possible hats, and many possible -- and possibly conflicting -- interests. How many clubs and organisations do I have to join? How many political parties campaigning on single issues can I vote for? What does 'identity' mean if I can switch roles and alliances so quickly? The closer I get to a single-issue, identity-based group, the more I feel I'm neglecting all the other identities within myself.

Comments

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

The classic marxist argument is that the ruling class seeks to pit various oppressed classes against one another: divide, conquer and preserve one's power.

That was never too convincing until I saw a note from a woman who had consciously voted against her own interest in order to make sure that gay marriage remained illegal in the US within her lifetime.

The good news is that I've come to see the accuracy of this marxist critique. The bad news is that so has everyone else, and they are perfectly okay with its implications. Oops!

[bugpowered.livejournal.com]

Le premier fait historique n'est pas, comme l'écrit scandaleusement Marx en 1846, la production de moyens permettant de satisfaire les besoins de manger, boire, habiter, se vêtir - quel est l'animal qui ne les satisfait pas sinon l'animal mort - mais l'utilisation de ces besoins animaux et des moyens de les satisfaire à des fins de communication. Ce qui distingue l'homme de l'animal est justement que manger, boire, se vêtir, habiter n'ont plus eux-mêmes comme fin, mais la communication, ne sont que des prétextes à la communication. Le premier fait historique n'est pas la production de la vie prétendument matérielle mais de la communication.

La présupposition première de toute existence humaine n'est pas, comme l'écrit scandaleusement Marx, que les hommes doivent être à même de vivre pour pouvoir faire l'histoire, et que pour cela il faut avant tout - le « avant tout » est bien de Marx - boire, manger, se loger, s'habiller et quelques autres choses encore. Cela tous les animaux le font et ne sont pas pour autant des hommes, ils ne font pas pour autant leur histoire. C'est simplement la présupposition de la vie de n'importe quel animal : il faut qu'un animal mange, boive, dorme s'il veut vivre, il faut qu'un animal vive s'il veut vivre. Voilà le genre de tautologie qui a cours pompeusement depuis 100 ans chez les savants social-démocrates qui veulent éduquer le peuple, cet ignorant. Au contraire, la présupposition première de toute existence humaine, partant de toute histoire, est que certains animaux utilisent leur vie d'animal, utilisent ce qui était un but et en fassent donc un simple moyen - en un mot suppriment l'indépendance de ce but - pour communiquer. Evidemment, seuls des animaux vivants peuvent s'aviser de faire cela, mais ce n'est pas le fait qu'ils soient vivants, qu'ils mangent, qu'ils boivent, qui permet de dire qu'ils sont des hommes, mais seulement qu'ils utilisent cela pour communiquer. Les hommes pour être à même de vivre, et de vivre comme des hommes et non seulement comme des animaux, doivent être justement capables - c'est cette capacité qui est refusée aux esclaves salariés ou non, aux assujettis, aux pauvres de tous les temps - d'utiliser leurs besoins animaux, la satisfaction de leurs besoins de manger, de boire, de se loger, de s'habiller à des fins de communication, comme matière à communication.

Pour que les hommes soient à même de vivre comme des hommes, il faut avant tout qu'ils communiquent et ce faisant seulement, ils font l'histoire : l'histoire est l'histoire de la communication.

En toutes sociétés, la première tâche des hommes n'est pas de produire leurs moyens d'existence, les relations qui s'établissent entre eux ne s'établissant pas pour assurer cette production, sinon en apparence dans la pensée dominante. Et ces relations ne constituent pas la structure économique [ economy ] de la société, la base concrète sur laquelle s'élève une superstructure juridique et politique et à laquelle correspondraient des formes de conscience sociale déterminées, sinon en apparence dans la pensée dominante. En toute société, la première tâche des hommes est de communiquer et les relations qui s'établissent entre eux ont pour but les relations qui s'établissent entre eux. Contrairement à ce que dit scandaleusement Marx en 1859, les hommes n'ont pas pour but de produire socialement leur existence. Les hommes ont pour but de produire leur existence sociale. Cette existence sociale est la seule production réelle des hommes, la communication est la seule chose réelle réellement produite par les hommes et la production de cette communication - production qui est la communication elle-même - est la seule production réelle dans le monde, la production du monde lui-même. La structure de la société est la structure de la communication. La base concrète sur laquelle s'élève tout ce qui existe dans la société est la communication. Et l'on ose soutenir que c'est dans la pensée de Hegel que le monde est à l'envers !

( http://perso.wanadoo.fr/leuven/rapport.htm )

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Je ne peux pas prendre ces paroles au serieux, ils font partie, sans doute, d'une parodie et reflettent ni ce que je dis ici, ni mon attitude generale a envers la production et la communication. Je n'accepte pas le modele classique d'un superstructure culturelle determine par la basse economique, ni son inverse. Il y a un relation toujours complexe entre les deux. Et la distinction entre animaux et etres humains m'interesse peu. Mais c'est amusant de causer ici en francais, en tout cas -- pour ca, merci!

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that I would enjoy this response much more if I spoke French.