Thursday 8 March 2018

The hate at the heart of identity politics

Spiked Online
Hatred, demonisation and the treatment of large swathes of society as backward are key elements of the politics of identity. It is not an accident that many identitarians hold extremely intolerant views of certain social groups. They are not going ‘off-script’ when they casually write off white people or straight people or Christians as dickheads, supremacists, ignorant, evil, etc. Rather, such a callous painting of ordinary people as ‘problematic’, as creatures to be wary of, is central to this politics that relies for its very survival on the idea that minority groups are victimised and thus require help and flattery from those in authority. For in order to sustain this beneficial status as ‘victim group’, identitarians must continually construct a fantasy army of victimisers. Their social and political status is utterly dependent on their ability to depict other people, ordinary people, you and me, as horrible, hateful, and perilous to their identity or their ‘existence’. The fuel of their worldview is fear and hatred of others, of us.  ................................Identity politics is the midwife of misanthropy. Imagine going about your daily life thinking all white people are racist, ‘white men’ are trash, most Christians are homophobic, the country is riddled with transphobic prejudice; imagine how fretful you would be, how scared of your fellow man, how consumed by disdain you would become for the citizens of your own nation. This is the identitarian mindset. This is how they view society, how they must view society: they fear it, and hate it."

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