The higher skepticism
Identity politics warriors-if you want people to stop judging individuals as members of a group then stop identifying people by their group!
— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) December 3, 2016
Identity politics warriors-if you want people to stop judging individuals as members of a group then stop identifying people by their group!
Who knew it was that easy?! If I don’t want people to judge me as a woman, all I have to do is stop identifying women as women.
Wait, what? What does that even mean? Stop using the word “women” at all? Like Planned Parenthood and the National Network of Abortion Funds? But if I did that, how would it make other people stop judging women as women?
And if that’s Shermer’s belief and practice, then why did he say “It’s more of a guy thing”?
If it’s his belief and practice, why did he start that tweet with “Identity politics warriors”? He’s certainly “identifying people as a group” there, so how can he claim that ceasing to identify people by their group will cause [all] people to stop judging individuals as members of a group? Suppose all women stopped identifying women as members of the group “women” – that wouldn’t stop Michael Shermer from continuing to do so, and it wouldn’t stop all the other men either. So what can he mean?
I suppose we can puzzle out what he means, if we don’t mind ignoring what he actually said for the sake of extracting some sort of reasonable claim from it. I suppose he means something like don’t obsess endlessly over your group membership, don’t constantly remind the rest of the world of your group membership, don’t ask people to stop judging you in ways you don’t want to be judged. Something like that.
Well, anything can be overdone. It’s the hot thing this week to complain about “identity politics,” and identity politics is for sure one of those things that can be overdone. But it’s simpleminded (to put it kindly) to just dismiss the whole thing, and its worse than simpleminded for people whose identities or group memberships aren’t generally considered a mistake to just dismiss the whole thing. Michael Shermer is male, and white, and prosperous, so it’s not really a great look for him to be dismissing the rabble because we don’t like being judged as rabble.
See, this sort of incisiveness* is what makes him such a great thinky king.
*glibness
I suspect that, deep down, what that means is to accept the status quo, get back where we belong, and quit insisting on having our inequality noticed. Still, I doubt he (or any other anti-SJW outside of MRAs and Neo-Nazis) would be quite so blunt. And might not even recognize what he really means.
After all, people pointing out mistreatment of a group you are not in by a group you are in can make you feel very uncomfortable (even if you yourself are not participating, like all the times I have to explain patiently that I am not responsible for Donald Trump even if half of white women did vote for him). And when you feel uncomfortable, you can choose to do something constructive about it, or you can blame the people who make you feel uncomfortable. Shermer has clearly chosen the second.
I want to say many things Michael Shermer should do, but I don’t want to use foul language here…
I read the ‘lead’ before clicking to the full version. Ophelia has covered my original cringing reaction better than I could have.
The piling up of self-contradiction and sleazy deepity made me think of a vortex. Trouble is, a vortex INCREASES in depth, and Shermer just keeps getting shallower.
There is a point to be made about obsessive labeling. The transpolice are certainly the poster children for that one. But Shermer seems to be the very last person on Earth to have anything coherent to say about the problem.
Anyone else notice that it’s a bunch of white guys saying this? It seems to me that they are just trying to re-frame things by changing the name of civil and human rights movements to ‘identity politics.’ It’s flipping the script. Instead of disadvantaged groups fighting for equality it becomes minorities and women using their disadvantage to cudgel the poor, put upon white men. Now who’s being oppressed?!?!?! All of us evil women and scary brown/black people are being unfair the the men!
I certainly have. That’s what I was getting at with “its worse than simpleminded for people whose identities or group memberships aren’t generally considered a mistake to just dismiss the whole thing. Michael Shermer is male, and white, and prosperous, so it’s not really a great look for him to be dismissing the rabble because we don’t like being judged as rabble.”
I assume what he means is if you don’t want to be judged all the time by a group identity (she’s just a woman, what can she know about physics?) stop constantly referring to the group identity of the people you are dealing with (typical opinion from a straight white man!). It would help.
It isn’t at all. I assume you have simply edited out all the black, Jewish, Asian and other men and women making the argument because they are the wrong kind of women or black people or just through the usual confirmation bias, but you kind of make Shermer’s point for him.
For more of Michael Shermer’s insights on why you should not identify yourself with a group, join the Skeptics Society, and subscribe to Skeptic Magazine! You can also attend skeptical conferences where skeptics socialize with each other while listening to famous skeptics explain why skeptics are better than non-skeptics.
Pinkeen @ 7 – how does that differ from what I said in the penultimate paragraph?
You suggested that Shermer and people like him are asking that don’t you don’t ‘constantly remind the rest of the world of your group membership, don’t ask people to stop judging you in ways you don’t want to be judged’, but I don’t think that is what he is saying. Rather I take it that he means if you don’t want to be judged as a member of a group it is a good idea not to use others’ group identity (or perceived group identity) as a stick to beat them with. Fine to say ‘don’t dismiss me for being a woman’ so long as you don’t dismiss a counter argument because it is made by a man. I think that is right and should be uncontroversial but isn’t. Straightaway on this thread someone jumped in to (wrongly) ‘notice’ the race and sex of the people making Shermer’s point with the clear implication that that invalidates their arguments in some way. It’s just the same as Trumpers (wrongly) ‘noticing’ the fact that most journalists who oppose Trump tend to be Jewish. But it is much more difficult to attack those Trumpers if you want to use the same tactic against them, and in fact you encourage that level of discourse from them if you do.
I said I suppose he means X, you think he means X. That clears things up…
In other words your rewording seems to be merely a rewording, not a different interpretation.
So, I already said in the post that I suppose he means X, yet you feel the need to correct me that no no, he means X.
I don’t see the point.