(Against) Political Identity
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by Carl Pwccaman, Unknown News
March 28, 2006
Human beings are struggling with issues of how to deal with out-and-out sadistic sociopaths, on so many levels: how to stop enabling them; how to deal with them when they are identified; how to get better at identifying them; how to help build a wider social competence and understanding of the issues involved.
It seems to me that issues of identity, identification, and as a corollary, political identity, have all been interfering with these aims. And because those aims and issues are so basic, such issues have the potential to interfere with the understanding and the ability to deal with any number of other serious concerns.
I'm not just talking about the identities or politics in the left or the right wing, and the danger is not limited to extremist identities or politics. This issue involves many different people with many different agendas and many different axes that they are grinding. I think it goes even further: this issue involves people who consider themselves above such agendas and ax-grinding of the politically identified. It certainly involves people I have identified with myself, to some degree or other, and it also involves their opponents (some of whom I have also identified with, to some degree or other)
The following very inter-related comments should serve to illustrate a good bit of the subject matter:
*Evaluation/Observation:* Sadism is not easily dealt with by a Gay culture that is pressured by, and willing to comply with the pressures of, the S&M fetish community, with which they at least partially identify/are identified.
*Commonplace Explanations:* This is partly because many homosexuals are afraid of identifications associated with those it considers prudes and moralists. It is partly because many are afraid of any association with the sort of psychology that used to label their own sexual orientation as deviant. Those reasons exist among other reasons.
*Unexpected Comment:* One of those other reasons, is that too many people involved in the gay agenda (and the media and all kinds of other seats of politics and power) could be properly identified as Sadists or Sadist-sympathizers, Sadist-lovers, or Sadist-enablers.
Another set that is very similar:
*Evaluation/Observation:* Torture and sodomy of prisoners of war by US soldiers under the current conservative Republican administration, is not easily dealt with by a Christian Right agenda, the same Christian Right that supported the current administration in two elections, the same Christian Right that supports the Republican party because of its politically conservative associations. The Christian right identifies/is identified with Republican politics, and is willing to continue to do so.
*Commonplace Explanations:* This is partly because the Christian Right wants to stop Gay marriage which many Christians associate with its God's curses. It is partly because many of them associate America's enemies and homosexuals with its God's sentence of torture to Hell anyway. Those reasons exist among other reasons.
*Unexpected Comment:* One of those other reasons, is that too many people involved in the Christian Right agenda (and the media and all kinds of other seats of politics and power) could be properly identified as Sadists or Sadist-sympathizers, Sadist-lovers, or Sadist-enablers.
Evaluating these examples all together...
You can tell which identities am I more concerned about, and which ones are less important to me. Hard-core sadists, actually psychologically deviant people who warrant the label Sadist, are a bit more of a problem than simply Gays or Christians. A hard-core truly deviant Sadist, who identifies or is identified as either Gay or Christian, isn't someone I identify with, not personally, not socially, not politically, not religiously.
The parallel between the two sets of statements is also striking, and unexpected.
I'd like to understand what I labeled the 'unexpected' commentary, and the unexpected parallel, because the priorities and analysis it reflects is important to my thinking, and because I feel that recognition of such simple concerns is so sorely lacking that I'd be surprised if anyone admitted to me that they felt similarly after I brought the subject up myself. Even when I bring up the subject and someone agrees or notes the concern and seems to get some of the significance, I wonder why I have to be the one to put it in such terms. I want to get a sense of what's going on. I think the comments are ordinary and relevant enough and yet not so obvious as to explain their absence in not only the mainstream media, but also their absence in independent media, and even in many on-line forums and face-to-face conversations. I'm used to being idiosyncratic, but I still want to understand. And this seems to be a bit beyond mere personal idiosyncrasy. There is a blind spot of some significance. There is a resistance. There is a shift in the priorities or in the way issues are dealt with.
I want to understand why the unexpected comments seem so unexpected, so off the radar screen, when they both seem to be quite obvious comments that could be made, given the subject matter. Politeness doesn't quite explain the unexpectedness, as people in such discussions are likely to call their opponents morons or degenerate, or fascist, or other names. Why not discuss the element of sociopathy? That it is too obvious doesn't seem to explain it either, as people in such discussions are often found making rather dumb or obvious jabs like “well, what do you expect of perverted gays” or “that's republicans for you”. They could say “well, maybe some Christians/Gays are just sadistic or sympathetic to the sadists, and that distorts their view and interferes with their movement dealing with the issues”, it's easy enough to put together.
One thing that seems to explain the unexpectedness, is that the identity of torturer or sadist, the politics of torture and sadism, is a bit more disturbing for people to deal with. Identity and politics are both so easily distorted, in such discussions, to avoid the subject of torture and sadism. I think this may help to explain part of the problem of Political Identity.
Politics and Identity are both a bit too personally and socially serious for us to be content to be unconcerned or in denial about the politics or the identity of torturers or sadists, or mincing words when questioning or discussing such a subject. One's own identity and politics is a bit more important than overlooking such issues among people whom one may have identified. Enabling abuse is too serious of an issue. Isn't it?
One of the issues involved, is the way sociopaths or sadists can utilize our identifications and dis-identifications, combined with our politics, to sneak in unawares, to change the subject, to distract us, to play games.
What should we conclude?
I'm cautioning against a certain sort of phenomenon, which I could call 'Identity Politics.' But I'm also cautioning against the insufficiency of the surface level discussion of 'Identity Politics', which fails to explain the unexpectedness of such direct and relevant questions and comments, which also fails to handle unexpected parallels that cut across the ordinary lines of political enmity and associations that are dis-identified.
The problems involved are on a more basic level than the term 'Identity Politics' may imply. 'Identity Politics' implies black or Christian politics, gay or feminist politics, partisan politics, and political subcultures, whether those subcultures are liberal, conservative, mainstream, or fringe. But what of other Identity and Politics issues, and other issues of combined Politics and Identity, which do not fit that cast?
Also, the implied remedy of this sort of 'Identity Politics' is 'we' politics -- whether populist or national or global, whether or not this sort of politics itself becomes a sort of political identity -- whether or not that sort of remedy comes with a handy scapegoat or becomes problematic in some other way. The implied remedy of the Political Identity issue I am identifying, is a whole other ball of wax, as indicated above.
The usual discussion of 'Identity Politics', along with whatever remedy is implied, are parts of the phenomenon. Yes. Parts.
But I do not wish to imply a particular remedy by the label I may stick upon this phenomena. The labels 'Political' and 'Identity' highlight two areas where the problems manifest: politics and identity. The use of the labels together indicates how they are connected, and by implication, the usage indicates how the manner in which they are interwoven is part of the problem. I'm choosing the label also to indicate what is involved in the distortion or covering of the real issues.
The roots of the problems are not necessarily found in the fruit of the problems. The symptoms on the surface are not necessarily identical to the underlying core causes, nor would the underlying core causes necessarily be as obvious as we may wish them to be. Similarly, the social dynamics and relationships of the various concrete symptoms are not necessarily in and of themselves the politically underlying and more fundamental concern.
Yes, among the underlying, core, fundamental issues are: the distortions of politics and identity, each by the other. And yet, at levels deeper than these, there is more going on, in the processing of our reasons, in the questions we ask or do not ask ourselves, the questions we are or are not willing to be asked, and the sort of discussion we encourage or restrict.
The examples given above illustrate the sort of thing that ideas of 'Identity Politics' do not express adequately, but distort instead. Certain questions about Abu Ghraib are avoided. Certain discussions are not encouraged, in part because of problems that involve Politics and also Identity. This happens also in part because of the distortions brought about by certain combinations of Politics and Identity together. And in part there are yet other reasons.
*Concerning Politics... AND Identity*
We could describe Politics as a verbal and also a concrete working-out-of social relationships and issues in given cities, states, and other regions. Identity can be described in terms of how one's associations are viewed by others, or by oneself. Politics concerns facts of social interaction and transformation. Identity concerns associations regarding one's character, world view, attitudes, and behaviors. As a person dealing with others, one may identify or be identified, and one may also interact politically, these are inherent potentials. One may be political and also be identified in various ways (by self or others), without there necessarily being a problem. So what leads to an evaluation of a problem with Politics and Identity?
Politics involves people, of course, and people naturally make associations regarding themselves and others. But when such associations take over past a certain point, or when the functions of the political working-out of social problems, becomes more and more relegated to the sphere of identity, I think it could make sense to call this a distortion OF politics BY identity.
Similarly, it is true that individuals identify and are identified in a social context that involves political realities and concerns. But when such political concerns take over and dominate areas of identity in an unusually pronounced way, or begin to replace functions that ordinarily are matters of personal identity or identification of others in a more personal way, I think we could begin to speak of a distortion OF identity BY politics.
The inability to adequately identify sociopaths or sadists, the inability to adequately stop enabling them, would be the sort of indication I would start with.
There are social/political, and deeply individual and personal reasons, to wish to handle this subject adequately. Some sense of when such a subject is NOT handled adequately, therefore seems to be not only relevant, but fundamental.
With distortions (and/or pathologies) of identity and identification, as well as with distortions (and/or pathologies) of political rhetoric and social pressure, there may also be various distortions of reasoning and problem-solving ability, including (but not limited to) cognitive dissonance. When these deeper distortions become pathology is largely a matter of assessing overall functioning, which itself involves distinctions and evaluations of functions. We should not shrink from such evaluations.
At some point there is a breakdown where identity is no longer functioning in a wholesome manner for an individual or for the group or individuals doing the identifications. At some point there is a breakdown where social interaction, group functioning, culture, religion, academia, politics, are no longer relating and communicating and dealing with reality adequately and sanely enough to be considered wholesome or sufficiently functional.
But there is also something more to this overall subject. And that something is a bit elusive or difficult to express satisfactorily. And that concerns the very basic subjects of questioning and discussing.
I want to be clear about the subject, and I think some more insight is possible. I think highlighting some more of the nature of identity and some of the nature of politics, is helpful, though the issue itself is a bit more fundamental than the term 'identity politics' would imply. The subject of identity or politics themselves, even when combined, still seem to be somewhat on the surface. But that surface discussion can lead to the consideration of things that lie deeper. The discussion will point to what I feel are some of the deeper, more fundamental issues mentioned above. In some sense the most important part may be all the grappling with just what the subject really seems to be.
*Core Questions*
Before continuing, it makes sense to try to clarify some things at the beginning. It makes sense to bring up subjects that may help sort things out later, things that can hopefully catalyze some insight.
What does it mean to IDENTIFY as a Feminist or a Republican? To IDENTIFY as a Christian or a Democrat? Or as Black or Gay or White or Strait? What does it mean for one or more of these things to be a POLITICAL identity?
Does it mean that one gets to sidestep other issues that are not foreseen or not on the radar screen of the a political movement associated with such an identity? Does one get an excuse to sidestep issues that are not important to one's personal interest or philosophy (or opinion, or more to the point, an ideology), through such an identification? An IDEA, whether incipit or formally underlying certain movements, can certainly be applied towards a conclusion inherent to the logic intrinsic to the basic idea, as pervasive (and perverting) ideology. (I refer the reader to Hanna Arendt's discussion of ideology in The Origins of Totalitarianism.)
If to identify means to have a smokescreen to allow one to disregard certain questions out of hand... to ignore inconvenient evidence or inconvenient facts, to ignore inconvenient experiences... without any possibility of review, appeal, or reprieve -- then one's identification is potentially wrapped up in denial, enabling, or ignorance. That can be potentially dangerous. When reality does not comply and one is faced with the result of such evasions, what's going to give, who will pay as scapegoat?
(Here I refer the reader to Eric Voegelin's Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, which is thought provoking, even when one may disagree. Though a full critique is impossible in such a short space, I mention it because I feel it is important to consider the work's emphasis on the issue of evading questions, evading realities, whether or not one has reservations or disagreements in many areas, as I do, with Voegelin's use of terms or various conclusions he makes. The analysis, the insights, the phenomena discussed by Voegelin in this and other works, are worth serious attention, and Voegelin's conservative orientation need not prevent a liberal from trying to wrestle with the ideas he explores. And Voegelin's warnings are not only for the left; he gives a useful analysis of the pathology of the puritans in The New Science of Politics. This is particularly timely, as just recently Voegelin's student, William F. Buckley has made headlines by declaring Bush's war in Iraq a failure.)
When it comes to answering whether or not there is danger, or an evasion of reality, and other questions, how could one know if that is not the case, without asking a question or allowing a look? Identification can prevent asking or allowing a look. And yet, avoiding such identification, out of hand, similarly disabling the option of taking another look, does not obliviate all potential danger. We can formulate the same kind of problem out of dis-identification.
The out-of-hand-ness, the disabling of options, is a very serious business. Even if it is decided that out-of-hand-ness is warranted in certain conditions, on certain subjects, it is such a serious business that it would seem that one really ought to consider re-visiting the nature of this decision from time to time, especially when one is in the act of avoiding, ignoring, not questioning, not identifying. In any case, when challenged, one shouldn't expect to evade things indefinitely
In the example of the Gay movement's association with the Leather/S&M fetish community, and of the Christian right's association with Republican politics and the Bush Administration, it is easy to see how certain questions may be generally avoided or not listened to, some discussions may not be generally encouraged. And it is also easy enough to see how hard-core deviant Sadists among either movement, may have their own reasons to help to keep things in such a state, if only for a convenient distraction or cover, as may be desired at some point in time or another. It is easy to imagine how such a state of politics and identity may be used by some to play sadistic games.
It is understandably very difficult for people speak about those they may be identified with, when there are implications that are monstrous, sadistic, or otherwise corrupt and unseemly. It is difficult to feel as if you happen to share a political interest with someone that you are at the same time deeply disturbed by. Whether it is the identification or the politics expressed by such a person, this complicates things
But such difficulty is not something that we should simply shrug off. A bit of personal challenge is a quality of character we could expect of people, especially of those people who claim to have answers or who claim to be worthy leaders. We need not go along with the associations that others make, we need not identify as others presume we should. When we do to some degree identify, this may or may not have a particular political consequence. When we do happen to share a political or tactical similarity or interest, it need not require us to personally identify to one degree or another, or even identify at all.
How could we presume to know out-of-hand that personal identity and politics MUST be so inter-twined, in such-and-such a given manner? Realizing the options involved in such questions, can allow for a bit clearer strategy and personal empowerment. It certainly can avoid the traps that come with what is assumed. And the subject is particularly important, since such givens and such assumptions are no doubt often enough relied upon by sociopaths, by sadists (bringing the discussion back to the examples).
*A Problematic*
It is not immediately clear what should guide one's identifications and non-identifications, aside from a basic principle that in the interest of human justice and basic understanding and empathy for the wronged, one shouldn't dis-identify with those who are treated unjustly, or dis-identify with those subjected to abuse by sadists and sociopaths, or that one shouldn't identify with abusers while disregarding the abused.
For various reasons I would suggest that...
A GENERAL principle of either personal or political distance (dis-identification), whether out of a desire to obtain more of some kind of objectivity, or out of discomfort or some other motivation, cannot get tacit endorsement without question. It can get provisional endorsement with good reason, and questions can continue to be asked and heard and the issue can be re-opened.
A GENERAL principle of either personal or political closeness (identification), whether out of a desire to be more empathic or non-judgmental, or out of fear of making judgments or decisions, or some other motivation, cannot get tacit endorsement without question. It can get provisional endorsement with good reason, and questions can continue to be asked and heard and the issue can be re-opened.
*Decisiveness*
In order to take action of various sorts: to fight against active bullying or harassment, to attempt to disable an agenda of humiliation, to take down a dictator, to stop abuse, to question the methods of those who claim to be helping, to speak out...
Sometimes a degree of identification is quite common, perhaps inevitable. There is association with certain activities, groups, or efforts. There is empathy for certain people who are wronged. There is human understanding of the foibles of ignorance that are contributing to the problems one faces, understanding of opponents.
But to assert one's identity in a particular association, or to avoid doing so, need not necessarily dis-empower yourself or someone else, need not necessarily limit what is perceived as necessary decisiveness. Such things cannot be dismissed out-of-hand as given, assumed, without serious question, without some attempt at adequate reasoning.
*Why Over-Identify?*
Why insist upon OVER-identifying one's identity, OVER-identifying with with certain associations, to the detriment of others? That's not rhetorical, that's a real question in and of itself. There may or may not be an adequate answer.
Another sort of question is, why do so with no good reason? A yet more serious type of question is, why do so in a manner that is contrary to discussion or reasoning, or in a way that enables abuse, harassment, humiliation, or needless strife?
These issues can get minimized to some extent, by other preoccupations. For example, attempts to avoid absolute statements, or abhorrence of the appearance of relativism. Some do not wish to make an absolute moral judgment about torture or sadism or anything else. Others are so concerned about making absolute moral judgments about gay marriage that they have little time for things like torture or sadism. /
/ As soon as others are dismissed, or something is to other's detriment, one could at least ask what the reasons are. Maybe there are good reasons, maybe there are not. To avoid any discussion of that assessment is also an evasion.
Enabling abuse, harassment, or humiliation, is too common on various sides of many issues. There is such a thing as needless strife. And so questions of How need to be asked, not just questions of Why.
*How?*
If identification is viewed in terms of empathy and consideration, or perhaps of understanding -- then we might ask if the effective cost is a lack of empathy, consideration, or understanding (in some other area, or involving certain other people). To identify with someone or with an issue, need not necessarily mean an inability to identify with someone else or some other issue. At least, it need not mean an inability to consider and reflect and seek understanding on a human level, on the level of observation and experience and listening. The question of who is not identified with, may also come with a reason, and perhaps some sorts of reasons are acceptable, or at least understandable.
To refuse to identify with sadists, or with abusive people generally, can be both understandable and acceptable. Especially if one is open to consider or to understand complexities, facts, and potentially relevant considerations of principle, law, ethics, and blame.
To refuse to identify with someone who is victimized by a sadist or generally abusive person, may be a matter of an inability, or of a willful choice, or a lack of emotional energy, or it may be motivated by something else. But either way there is the added question of whether one is closed to concerns of seeking protection, redress, assistance, or whether one is merely distanced at the personal level. There are questions as to whether one is merely unhelpful, or whether one happens to also be in the way of helping someone who has been victimized.
If identification is viewed in terms of the vision of one's self, then there are other questions. The question of narcissism may need to be addressed. Whether one's identification is seen as something positive, or as a matter of morality, or as politically correct or incorrect -- whether left wing or right wing, or radical or moderate, or centrist, religious or secular, or in whatever context of movement, group, or ideology that would form as the arbiter of correctness or incorrectness -- there is a reason to be wary of an identification being merely self-serving, myopic, or inconsiderate of/harmful to others.
It takes no real moral caliber, ethics, or political insight to react against things that repulse you, make you afraid, or otherwise aren't in your realm of personal identity. All it takes is passiveness or encouragement of your own biological and psychological reactions. It takes no culture or education, though sometimes culture or education is used to reinforce or manipulate such reaction.
It takes no real moral caliber or ethics or political insight to only be concerned with things that might harm you personally. All it takes is a little concern for yourself, and your body and psyche encourage that a bit on their own. A certain culture and kind of teaching may convince you that by being selfish you are doing more than that, but that does not make it so.
*Boiling it down, Toil and Trouble*
There is also a huge problem, when people are less concerned about efforts to actually address potential problems, and more concerned about the appearance of being critical of a religion, race, gender, orientation, or group.
Some Christians are concerned about appearing critical of Christians. Some Christians are happy to criticize Christians but very concerned about appearing critical of Muslims. Some Christians are happy to criticize the state of Israel while others are afraid to appear critical. Some Christians are afraid to appear critical of the religion of Israel while afraid to appear uncritical of the state of Israel, and vice versa. There is a level of superficiality, of peer pressure, of the politics of identity, in all this.
There are conservatives, Christians, Republicans, who are afraid to appear tolerant of Gay Marriage, while they are afraid to appear intolerant of homosexual rape at Abu Ghraib prison by US soldiers, afraid to appear too critical of George Bush and the Republicans, who cater to the conservative Christian vote, while bewailing gay marriage, and at the same time rationalizing torture, minimizing abuses such as anal rape by broken thermometer, committed by US soldiers in Iraq.
There are liberals, Gays, Democrats, who are more concerned about promoting Gay Marriage than they are about condemning torture and anal rape at Abu Ghraib prison by US soldiers, or about hearing, voicing, and addressing concerns regarding sadists in the 'leather community'. They are afraid to appear tolerant of certain psychological or moral viewpoints, and afraid to appear too critical of people they feel they are supposed to identify with.
There are blacks as well as whites who are either unable or unwilling to voice judgments against gangster rap and various aspects of black culture that are enabling or permissive of sociopaths, rudeness, bullying, etc. To suggest that such things do not qualify as a culture, is taboo (sometimes in the most tribal way) among whites as well as blacks. To raise the question is troublesome. To actually discuss it is near impossible. A college administrator could get fired over it, academic freedom notwithstanding.
To find Islam to be actually wrong, and unacceptable, and lacking when compared to Western culture and religion... To find the influence of Hinduism to be harmful to Western culture, for metaphysical reasons as well as by comparison to Western mysticism and heresy which one finds more enlightened... Likewise, to find a particular Christian heresy to be actually right in a metaphysical sense, as better than other religions, and to believe it with conviction, and to find other forms of Christianity (for example, Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism) to be demonic...
** *Cultural Horizons...* *at Dusk* **
*This sort of thing breaks the CASTE of our current cultural horizons* in the West, in America, it is not on the radar screen, it is unexpected. Not only would the discussion be unexpected, but the questions that could lead to the discussion, even in theory, are out of consciousness, and taboo to some degree, on a fundamental level. This is generally true on the left, right, center, and fringes... not only of politics, but also of academia, of religion, and of culture and even of subcultures and pseudo-cultures.
When was the last time there was a decent discussion of tribalism. I mean one that went beyond patting oneself on the back for claiming to be either universal or cultured or educated or of the right religion? And why don't we hear a term like /pseudo-culture/ every now and again? Something with that sort of 'ring' to it...
To be unable to ask it to oneself, to be unable to conceive it, to be afraid to voice it to others... such inability is symptomatic, quite apart from concerns about what one might actually conclude after thinking about it, understanding it, and discussing it. Conclude what you wish, I assume disagreements will happen often. But if the conclusion comes before thinking, understanding, and discussing, I must part company if it is claimed or implied that the conclusion goes without saying. The conclusion came and went without saying, but why should it go anywhere with me?
Such symptoms suggest blind spots, but also a hostility to certain possibilities. Such symptoms suggest a refusal to see what may actually exist in reality, and also a refusal to avoid what may possibly lead to a bit of caution. Why avoid what may lead to some caution? What's behind that? There is fear of refutation, too, but this symptomatology seems to happen because there is a desire to dismantle even caution or hesitation.
** *Question: Throwing Caution to the _____ Winds?* *Answer: A) Cultural; B) Religious; C) Personal; D) Political; E) All of the Above* **
*Is it in my interest to avoid caution? Is it in the good of others to avoid caution, and is the good a general good that I can understand and affirm? Really? In what sense? In what context? Why?* What kind of interest might this be? Whose interest might this be? I can't claim to know these answers in every case automatically. It would take questions. Maybe even some questions that aren't on the radar screen. And maybe it will involve some questions that are uncomfortable.
I do not expect to know many of the answers one way or the other, without asking at least some of the questions. Who does?
I do know that mobs do not require much caution, whether they are populist, whether they appear democratic or not, or whether they are fascist or communist, or something else. Utopian types of people, reckless types, arbitrary types, authoritarian types, may not require much caution. They aren't so concerned about risking for others, they don't share that kind of caution.
But also, people who feel very threatened, vulnerable and confused, may not desire much caution. I do have a degree of sympathy and understanding for some of them, I can identify a bit. Yet I do not wish to encourage or enable what seems symptomatic of something potentially dangerous. I do not wish to recklessly encourage or enable this sort of thing, especially to the extent that I have genuine empathy, understanding, and can identify with such people, personally.
*Tea-Time in Hell*
In the mean time, I'm personally a bit sick of what I judge to be pseudo-culture (whether it is gangster rap music or the pseudo-culture of militant activism, movies that glorify sadists and rapists, movies that involve a lot of sadism, the Christian radio or cable station or book store, a Mel Gibson movie, or various New Age fads), and I'm sick of things that seem to me to be eroding the best of Western Culture or the best of what is in America. I'm sick of seeing the erosion of the things that I do prefer and value more highly than some of the things I see in other cultures, other times, other places.
And what I actually wish to say about it, is not likely to please anyone completely. And with that I can identify, because none one pleases me completely, either. Not much I can do about that, if I want to express my concerns or listen to other people at all. I empathize to a degree with the issues involved with dealing with such reactions. But in my understanding, I've found it helpful to just deal with it and try to consider questions and problems reasonably, and not to take it personally, if that's possible.
But it would be nice to get past the politics of this or that identity or assumptions about other people's identity. It might be a start. Because ultimately, so long as one's identity isn't 'sadist' or 'bully', maybe we can sort out the other stuff, or at least have a discussion, whether we get somewhere with it, or not.
© by the author.
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Some Christians are concerned about appearing critical of Christians.
Some Christians are happy to criticize Christians but very concerned about appearing critical of Muslims.
Some Christians are happy to criticize the state of Israel while others are afraid to appear critical.
Some Christians are afraid to appear critical of the religion of Israel while afraid to appear uncritical of the state of Israel, and vice versa.
There is a level of superficiality, of peer pressure, of the politics of identity, in all this.
There are conservatives, Christians, Republicans, who are afraid to appear tolerant of Gay Marriage, while they are afraid to appear intolerant of homosexual rape at Abu Ghraib prison by US soldiers, afraid to appear too critical of George Bush and the Republicans, who cater to the conservative Christian vote, while bewailing gay marriage, and at the same time rationalizing torture, minimizing abuses such as anal rape by broken thermometer, committed by US soldiers in Iraq.
There are liberals, Gays, Democrats, who are more concerned about promoting Gay Marriage than they are about condemning torture and anal rape at Abu Ghraib prison by US soldiers, or about hearing, voicing, and addressing concerns regarding sadists in the 'leather community'.
They are afraid to appear tolerant of certain psychological or moral viewpoints, and afraid to appear too critical of people they feel they are supposed to identify with.
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