Identity Politics, the Ideology of Reverse RAcism

[JimBowie1958]

Identity Politics says that a person is defined by what category they fall into, and so a black female heterosexual is fundamentally different than a black female bisexual. It sets up a dichotomy of 'us vrs them' regarding all of its categorizations, and the more acceptable categories of other people are those who share more intersections of key word labels to their groups. So a white homosexual male has more in common with the black homosexual male bringing him his dinner than he has in common with his fellow white heterosexual male CEO's across the country.

Identity politics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self-interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, gender, ethnicity, ideology, nation, sexual orientation, culture, currency, information preference, history, musical and/or literary genre, medical conditions, profession, hobby, or any other loosely correlated yet simple to intuit social organizations. Not all members of any given group are necessarily involved in identity politics. The practice has probably a long existence; but the explicit term and movements linked to it really came into being during the latter part of the 20th century. It can most notably be found in class movements, feminist movements, gay and lesbian movements, disability movements, ethnic movements and post colonial movements. But wherever it is found it is also open to wide debate and critique.[1] Minority influence is a central component of identity politics. Minority influence is a form of social influence which takes place when a majority is being influenced to accept the beliefs or behavior of a minority. Unlike other forms of influence this usually involves a personal shift in private opinion. This personal shift in opinion is called conversion....

One aim of identity politics has been to empower those feeling oppressed to articulate their felt oppression in terms of their own experience—a process of consciousness-raising that distinguishes identity politics from the liberal conception of politics as driven by individual self-interest.

Identity politics is a phenomenon that arose first at the radical margins of liberal democratic societies in which human rights are recognized, and the term is not usually used to refer to dissident movements within single-party or authoritarian states. The elements of identity politics can be seen to be present in many of the earliest statement of feminists, ethnic movements and gay and lesbian liberation. Formally, it may even be taken back to Marx's earliest statements about a class becoming conscious of itself and developing a class identity. Class Identity politics were first described briefly in an article by L. A. Kauffman, who traced its origins to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an organization of the civil-rights movement in the USA in the early and mid-1960s.[2] Although SNCC invented many of the fundamental practices, and various black power groups extended them, they apparently found no need to apply a term. Rather, the term emerged when others outside the black freedom movements—particularly, the race- and ethnic-specific women's liberation movements, such as Black feminism— began to adopt the practice in the late 1960s. Traces of identity politics can also be found in the early writings of the modern gay movement such as Dennis Altman's Homosexual: Liberation/Oppression ...

The term identity politics has been applied retroactively to varying movements that long predate its coinage. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his book The Disuniting of America. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of liberal conceptions of civil rights, argues that a liberal democracy requires a common basis for culture and society to function.

In his view, basing politics on group marginalization fractures the civil polity, and therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization. Schlesinger believes that "movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, rather than...perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference."....

The rise of the right-wing in Europe, particularly following the European Parliament election, 2009, was seen as an establishment of identity as reflected against the "other" minorities. A Le Monde/IFOP poll in January 2011 conducted in France and Germany found that a majority felt Muslims have "not integrated properly," something the paper called "Islam and integration: French and Germans admit failure." An analyst for IFOP said the results indicated something "beyond linking immigration with security or immigration with unemployment, to linking Islam with a threat to identity."

And so the common good is ignored in favor of the categorical identities good, and the voiceless suffer the most, like the unborn and the silenced soldiers out fighting our wars defending freedom.

The final out come is a society divided against itself, and the majority eventually adopting the mentality of the minority as they draw on the collective experiences of getting the short end of the stick. Then we will have the same fascism for the majority that we have seen for the minorities, but in a democracy this is certainly a bad outcome for minorities.

 

[JimBowie1958]

This is a critique from a Marxist socialist site and it is sympathetic in highlighting the differences between the liberation ideology of working class warriors and those of the bath houses.

International Socialist Review

Possessing a personal “identity,” or awareness of oneself as a member of an oppressed group—and the anger associated with that awareness—is a legitimate response to experiencing oppression. Racism is, of course, experienced on a very personal level—whether it takes the form of institutional discrimination (racist hiring practices, police brutality) or social interaction (racist jokes, violence from an acknowledged racist). Personal experience, furthermore, helps to shape one’s political awareness of oppression. It makes perfect sense that experiencing sexism on a personal level precedes most women’s political consciousness of sexism as a form of oppression that degrades all women.

Indeed, no white person can ever understand what it is like to experience racism. No straight person can understand what it is like to experience homophobia....

During the late 1960s, the powerful civil rights movement inspired the rise of movements for women’s and gay liberation, while the struggle for Black Power emerged from the civil rights movement itself. All of these new movements were, in turn, inspired by the armed struggle of the North Vietnamese resistance against the forces of U.S. imperialism. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) chose its name as a formal identification with the National Liberation Front (NLF)—the Vietnamese resistance.....

Yet the central premise of the theory of identity politics is based on precisely the opposite conclusion: Only those who actually experience a particular form of oppression are capable of fighting against it. Everyone else is considered to be part of the problem and cannot become part of the solution by joining the fight against oppression. The underlying assumption is that all men benefit from women’s oppression, all straight people benefit from the oppression of the LGBT6 community, and all whites benefit from racism.....

But identity politics does not acknowledge the potential for mass consciousness to change. For this reason, the theory of identity politics can only be accepted at the highest level of abstraction. Ernesto LaClau and Chantal Mouffe, the originators of identity politics, do not seem the least bit concerned with any practical application of the theory .....

There are two key components to LaClau and Mouffe’s theory, both of which become problematic the moment the theory is put into practice. The first component is their definition of oppression. In contrast to Marx—who defined oppression and exploitation as objective and therefore unchanging, but consciousness as subjective and therefore ever-changing—LaClau and Mouffe regard oppression itself as entirely subjective.

This is a fundamental, not semantic, difference. Since oppression is an entirely subjective matter, according to LaClau and Mouffe, anyone who believes that they are oppressed is therefore ....

If LaClau and Mouffe are correct, and the main divisions in society exist between those who face a particular form of oppression and those who don’t, then the likelihood of ever actually ending oppression is just about nil....

The second key problem with LaClau and Mouffe flows from the concept of autonomy that is so central to their theory. Most importantly from a theoretical standpoint, Laclau and Mouffe go to great lengths to refute the Marxist analysis of the state, or the government. Marxist theory is based upon an understanding that the government is not a neutral body, but serves to represent the interests of the class in power....

But Laclau and Mouffe insist that the state is neutral and autonomous. Even the different branches of government are autonomous from each other. ...

Identity Politics is the ideology of not simply representing a minority point of view, but to segregate minority category populations from other non-Identity groups. Those not in the category cannot understand or empathize with the plight of those in the category, and therefore are not only not to be trusted, but also must 'convert' to the oppressed point of view by denouncing others not in the oppressed category if they do not fully agree with the oppressed. And so the presumption that those who have not made such a conversion are still in favor of the oppression because the benefit from it.

Therefore all white heterosexual men are at best suspect and mostly the enemy and subject to being put into a subordinate role in terms of legal and social considerations to minimize the damage that the white heterosexual male could inflict on the oppressed given the chance.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Identity politics is killing college life | Education | spiked

The New Sectarianism is the divisive categorisation of people by race, gender and sexual preference. Both the individuality of humans and their membership in the universal category of humanity are rejected or downplayed in favour of these specific categories of identity. These are felt to divide human experience so radically that a person from one category should not or cannot speak about the experience of a person from another category. These ‘categories’ are the modern equivalent of the ‘estates’ of pre-revolutionary France, or the ‘classes’ of traditional Marxism. Each individual belongs to three: white or non-white, male or female, heterosexual or homosexual. The first category in each case is perceived as dominant, the second as oppressed. ...

The phrase ‘white male’ is reminiscent of a police description or a zoological classification, and in New Sectarian discourse is almost always the prelude to abuse and denigration. The New Sectarianism does not create equality, but merely reverses previous inequalities of respect. It perpetuates an atmosphere where certain kinds of people are preferred to certain others – all that changes are the actual preferences. To see a person primarily as a ‘white male’ or a ‘black female’ is to diminish both their humanity and their individuality. It suggests that their experience is contained within the group category, and is fundamentally (not just partially) distinct from the experience of those in other categories. It also minimises the differences within the category between individuals. Categories are seen as essentially different from each other, even though theorists consider ‘essentialism’ to be a heresy in other contexts.

The New Sectarianism uses the liberal rhetoric of justice and fairness when it is strategically convenient. There is a tendency in contemporary activism to start with equality claims appealing to the liberal conscience, but then move on to an explicit or implicit claim of superiority. This claim can sometimes sound like the original prejudice in reverse. For example, it was once held that women were unsuited to university education because they were less intellectual and more emotional. Feminism first rightly denied this ‘difference’ in a claim for equal access to higher education, only to reassert it in another form: the claim that women are essentially more cooperative, more supportive, more related, less competitive, less hierarchical and so on, and that institutions should be ‘feminised’ to reflect the superiority of feminine values. In fact, what universities need is to be humanised, rather than further divided by gender and other categories....

So the white heterosexual male is the 'odd man out' in this scenario, and because he has been politically neutered by not being allowed to represent his own interests (since he is intrinsically racist, sexist and a homophobe) he becomes the target of reverse racism, and that reverse racism is based on the ideology of Identity Politics and it has only one mathematical outcome: the eventual destruction of minority rights by an ascendant majority.


The preferable response would be to fight against and defeat the very notion that a person is defined by their race, sex, or preferred means of achieving orgasm, but by our common humanity that Identity Politics theory completely destroys as irrelevant and a tool of the oppressor.

 

[Mac1958]

.

In my goofy little world, I include Identity Politics under the larger umbrella of Political Correctness, because it's used as a political weapon.

The age-old "divide & conquer" technique, Identity Politics has been very successful for the Left, as they divide us into smaller pieces and then cater to each little group as "victims".

I'm hopeful that, as PC continues its decline in effectiveness, people will concurrently see what the Left has been doing in this area as well. By all means, let's celebrate who we are, where we come from. That's one of the best parts of our country. But when it's purposely and specifically used to turn us against each other, for nothing more than political gain, then it's clearly a net negative and intellectually dishonest.

.

 

[JimBowie1958]

.

In my goofy little world, I include Identity Politics under the larger umbrella of Political Correctness, because it's used as a political weapon.

The age-old "divide & conquer" technique, Identity Politics has been very successful for the Left, as they divide us into smaller pieces and then cater to each little group as "victims".

I'm hopeful that, as PC continues its decline in effectiveness, people will concurrently see what the Left has been doing in this area as well. By all means, let's celebrate who we are, where we come from. That's one of the best parts of our country. But when it's purposely and specifically used to turn us against each other, for nothing more than political gain, then it's clearly a net negative and intellectually dishonest.

.

I completely agree, but it is the fear of a return of a much harsher reigning Normalacy that will have no humane sympathetic ear for the harmlessly abnormal, as I am abnormal in various ways (we all are to some degree) this haunts me. I even have occasional nightmares about it. But this is where the ball will bounce to if these fascists are not reigned in by a dominating reason and tolerance among us all.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Jesse Jackson: 'Duck Dynasty' star 'white privilege' - Hadas Gold - POLITICO.com

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. has stepped into the “Duck Dynasty” uproar, using the case of civil rights hero Rosa Parks to make his case against show star Phil Robertson.

“At least the bus driver, who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat to a white person, was following state law,” Jackson said in a statement, according to the Chicago Tribune. “Robertson’s statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was ‘white privilege.’”

What Jackson doesn't get, other than integrity and the need for honesty in speaking, is that Robertson doesn't think in the politicized terms that Jackson does. When Robertson grew up people found happiness in many ways that did not require race hustlers like Jackson to do anything for them, and to Jackson that is an attack on the modern mythology of Identity Politics. From that narrative no minority was ever happy or lived in contentment and happiness as long as there was a white person around to remind them of who was superior to them.

Of course there were millions of black people in the South during segregation and even in slavery that were happy. Not because of those institutions but in spite of them. The human spirit is a wonderful thing and the physical of metaphorical chains of ideologues and politicians were not needed to give them that happiness.

 

[martybegan]

Identity politics is killing college life | Education | spiked

The New Sectarianism is the divisive categorisation of people by race, gender and sexual preference. Both the individuality of humans and their membership in the universal category of humanity are rejected or downplayed in favour of these specific categories of identity. These are felt to divide human experience so radically that a person from one category should not or cannot speak about the experience of a person from another category. These ‘categories’ are the modern equivalent of the ‘estates’ of pre-revolutionary France, or the ‘classes’ of traditional Marxism. Each individual belongs to three: white or non-white, male or female, heterosexual or homosexual. The first category in each case is perceived as dominant, the second as oppressed. ...

The phrase ‘white male’ is reminiscent of a police description or a zoological classification, and in New Sectarian discourse is almost always the prelude to abuse and denigration. The New Sectarianism does not create equality, but merely reverses previous inequalities of respect. It perpetuates an atmosphere where certain kinds of people are preferred to certain others – all that changes are the actual preferences. To see a person primarily as a ‘white male’ or a ‘black female’ is to diminish both their humanity and their individuality. It suggests that their experience is contained within the group category, and is fundamentally (not just partially) distinct from the experience of those in other categories. It also minimises the differences within the category between individuals. Categories are seen as essentially different from each other, even though theorists consider ‘essentialism’ to be a heresy in other contexts.

The New Sectarianism uses the liberal rhetoric of justice and fairness when it is strategically convenient. There is a tendency in contemporary activism to start with equality claims appealing to the liberal conscience, but then move on to an explicit or implicit claim of superiority. This claim can sometimes sound like the original prejudice in reverse. For example, it was once held that women were unsuited to university education because they were less intellectual and more emotional. Feminism first rightly denied this ‘difference’ in a claim for equal access to higher education, only to reassert it in another form: the claim that women are essentially more cooperative, more supportive, more related, less competitive, less hierarchical and so on, and that institutions should be ‘feminised’ to reflect the superiority of feminine values. In fact, what universities need is to be humanised, rather than further divided by gender and other categories....

So the white heterosexual male is the 'odd man out' in this scenario, and because he has been politically neutered by not being allowed to represent his own interests (since he is intrinsically racist, sexist and a homophobe) he becomes the target of reverse racism, and that reverse racism is based on the ideology of Identity Politics and it has only one mathematical outcome: the eventual destruction of minority rights by an ascendant majority.


The preferable response would be to fight against and defeat the very notion that a person is defined by their race, sex, or preferred means of achieving orgasm, but by our common humanity that Identity Politics theory completely destroys as irrelevant and a tool of the oppressor.

Identity politics always requires a "bad guy." The problem is that as you keep increasing the number of identities, the number of "bad guys" goes down. At that point the groups then have to compete against each other, to see who is the most offended.

So now the bad guy is limited to white, heterosexual, theistic, conservative/libertarian meat eating men. And we probably can't include balding dudes because sooner or later they will be a protected class as well.

 

[martybegan]

.

In my goofy little world, I include Identity Politics under the larger umbrella of Political Correctness, because it's used as a political weapon.

The age-old "divide & conquer" technique, Identity Politics has been very successful for the Left, as they divide us into smaller pieces and then cater to each little group as "victims".

I'm hopeful that, as PC continues its decline in effectiveness, people will concurrently see what the Left has been doing in this area as well. By all means, let's celebrate who we are, where we come from. That's one of the best parts of our country. But when it's purposely and specifically used to turn us against each other, for nothing more than political gain, then it's clearly a net negative and intellectually dishonest.

.

I celebrate my Irishness by getting drunk on Saint Patricks day, and buying my girlfriend (who is Bengali) a claddagh necklace and Celtic Knot earrings. I celebrate my Italian-ness but cooking massive pots of meat sauce (not gravy you Sicilian gavones). I celebrate my American-ness by summer barbecues and watching baseball.

In none of these cases do I expect special protection for my heritage or lifestlye choices.

 

[JimBowie1958]

See only whites can be racists, according to the new racism.

Federal authorities charge white 'knockout' suspect with hate crime - Washington Times

The Obama administration filed a federal hate-crimes charge Thursday against a man whom authorities accused of using the “knockout game” to target a black man, videotaping it, and then bragging about the assault to strangers.

The charge marks the first time the administration has taken action on a “knockout” case after the game became an Internet and media phenomenon. It chose a case in which the person accused is white, even though most other cases reported in the news have involved black assailants.

Yep, the Just-us Department.

Don't expect to see any hate crimes charges on this case any time soon:
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/201...alking-with-young-daughter-midwood-police-say

 

[JimBowie1958]

MSNBC?s Dyson: ?Phil Robertson and Duck Dynasty Part of Majority White Supremacist Culture? | NewsBusters

 

[Mac1958]

.

In my goofy little world, I include Identity Politics under the larger umbrella of Political Correctness, because it's used as a political weapon.

The age-old "divide & conquer" technique, Identity Politics has been very successful for the Left, as they divide us into smaller pieces and then cater to each little group as "victims".

I'm hopeful that, as PC continues its decline in effectiveness, people will concurrently see what the Left has been doing in this area as well. By all means, let's celebrate who we are, where we come from. That's one of the best parts of our country. But when it's purposely and specifically used to turn us against each other, for nothing more than political gain, then it's clearly a net negative and intellectually dishonest.

.

I celebrate my Irishness by getting drunk on Saint Patricks day....

[MENTION=23094]martybegan[/MENTION],

Hey, what a coincidence! I celebrate your Irishness by getting drunk on St. Patrick's Day too!

.

 

[Pennywise]

Does no one see the irony of using the term Reverse Racism? It's always used when discussing black or otherwise minority racists, as though Racism is inherently the domain of whites.

Using the term merely feeds into the lying narrative of the left. Stop it.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Does no one see the irony of using the term Reverse Racism? It's always used when discussing black or otherwise minority racists, as though Racism is inherently the domain of whites.

Using the term merely feeds into the lying narrative of the left. Stop it.

It is not the narrative of the left any more; it is now establishment process, like it or not. The corporation that you or your children/grandchildren may work for will take their policies from the Identity Politics process, and your son will not get to confront his accusers of sexual harassment since they are assumed to be right, since being offended is solely determined in the mind of the offended and the intent of the offender is irrelevant. That is because every corporate policy on sexual harassment has ultimately come from the Identity Politics establishment not English Common Law or any democratic process.

You can insist that you are not part of a smaller group identified by your race, sexual preference, religion, etc, but all that really means is that you will continue to get bullied, ripped off and exploited by those who do play the game effectively.

Why simply choose to lose repeatedly?

To say this is a narrative of the left and therefore you will not play is like saying 'I don't like taxes, that is a leftwing game I refuse to play', and then you don't take you deductions. What sense would that make?

 

[Intense]

As limited as we are, to establish and build on, to serve and preserve Justice, without partiality, wherever it leads us, overcomes this "Us and Them" derail. We are All related. There is Clarity of Purpose, there is the attempted corruption of it. Value for Value.

 

[Pennywise]

Does no one see the irony of using the term Reverse Racism? It's always used when discussing black or otherwise minority racists, as though Racism is inherently the domain of whites.

Using the term merely feeds into the lying narrative of the left. Stop it.

It is not the narrative of the left any more; it is now establishment process, like it or not. The corporation that you or your children/grandchildren may work for will take their policies from the Identity Politics process, and your son will not get to confront his accusers of sexual harassment since they are assumed to be right, since being offended is solely determined in the mind of the offended and the intent of the offender is irrelevant. That is because every corporate policy on sexual harassment has ultimately come from the Identity Politics establishment not English Common Law or any democratic process.

You can insist that you are not part of a smaller group identified by your race, sexual preference, religion, etc, but all that really means is that you will continue to get bullied, ripped off and exploited by those who do play the game effectively.

Why simply choose to lose repeatedly?

To say this is a narrative of the left and therefore you will not play is like saying 'I don't like taxes, that is a leftwing game I refuse to play', and then you don't take you deductions. What sense would that make?

I like ya Jim, most of your posts are enjoyable reading, but not this. You can say the term Reverse Racism is now part of public record across the board, but that's only because we have allowed it to take hold, and there is nothing stopping your or I from refusing to play that game. Winning the issues is all about language. The democrats have no qualms lying and spewing about War on Women, War on The Poor, War on The Elderly, etc. they are all lies, but they repeat them ad nauseum and before long the low information voter is sold.

Racism is racism, there is no such thing as reverse racism. Take a stand in everything important to your life, and when enough people do that, the public discussion changes.

 

[JimBowie1958]

As limited as we are, to establish and build on, to serve and preserve Justice, without partiality, wherever it leads us, overcomes this "Us and Them" derail. We are All related. There is Clarity of Purpose, there is the attempted corruption of it. Value for Value.

I agree, but this ideology of Identity Politics divides us into racial groups, among other divisions, and so it justifies racial discrimination as long as it is in favor of the minority.

The recent rash of 'knockout game' incidents proves to be an example where dozens of cases of black thugs knocked out white people and the Justus department did JNOTHING AT ALL. Then one white kid does the exact same thing and the Justus Department swoops in like a flock of racist vultures.

For a justice system to be truly just it must be impartial and Identity Political ideology justifies the establishment being completely one sided against whites.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Does no one see the irony of using the term Reverse Racism? It's always used when discussing black or otherwise minority racists, as though Racism is inherently the domain of whites.

Using the term merely feeds into the lying narrative of the left. Stop it.

It is not the narrative of the left any more; it is now establishment process, like it or not. The corporation that you or your children/grandchildren may work for will take their policies from the Identity Politics process, and your son will not get to confront his accusers of sexual harassment since they are assumed to be right, since being offended is solely determined in the mind of the offended and the intent of the offender is irrelevant. That is because every corporate policy on sexual harassment has ultimately come from the Identity Politics establishment not English Common Law or any democratic process.

You can insist that you are not part of a smaller group identified by your race, sexual preference, religion, etc, but all that really means is that you will continue to get bullied, ripped off and exploited by those who do play the game effectively.

Why simply choose to lose repeatedly?

To say this is a narrative of the left and therefore you will not play is like saying 'I don't like taxes, that is a leftwing game I refuse to play', and then you don't take you deductions. What sense would that make?

I like ya Jim, most of your posts are enjoyable reading, but not this. You can say the term Reverse Racism is now part of public record across the board, but that's only because we have allowed it to take hold, and there is nothing stopping your or I from refusing to play that game. Winning the issues is all about language. The democrats have no qualms lying and spewing about War on Women, War on The Poor, War on The Elderly, etc. they are all lies, but they repeat them ad nauseum and before long the low information voter is sold.

Racism is racism, there is no such thing as reverse racism. Take a stand in everything important to your life, and when enough people do that, the public discussion changes.

Well you can sit in your ivory tower and not play all you like, but your kids and grand-kids will and they will have no choice. They will get pushed aside for minority set asides in contract processes, be bumped for promotion to meet minority promotion 'goals', get denied admission to 'better' colleges so they can fill their minority slots, etc, whether you play or not.

And the fact that you don't play means you leave them undefended in this regard.

But you can feel good in your heart knowing that your progeny suffer for a good cause, I guess.

 

[Bfgrn]

Reason occurs mostly through the medium of language, and so the destruction of reason requires the destruction of language. An underlying notion of conservative politics is that words and phrases of language are like territory in warfare: owned and controlled by one side or the other. One of the central goals of conservatism, as for example with Newt Gingrich's lists of words, is to take control of every word and phrase in the English language.

A simple example is the term "race-baiting". In the Nexis database, uses of "race-baiting" undergo a sudden switch in the early 1990's. Before then, "race-baiting" referred to racists. Afterward, it referred in twisted way to people who oppose racism. What happened is simple: conservative rhetors, tired of the political advantage that liberals had been getting from their use of that word, took it away from them.

A more complicated example is the word "racist". Conservative rhetors have tried to take this word away as well by constantly coming up with new ways to stick the word onto liberals and their policies. For example they have referred to affirmative action as "racist". This is false; it is an attempt to destroy language. Racism is the notion that one race is intrinsically better than another. Affirmative action is arguably discriminatory, as a means of partially offsetting discrimination in other places and times, but it is not racist. Many conservative rhetors have even stuck the word "racist" on people just because they oppose racism. The notion seems to be that these people addressed themselves to the topic of race, and the word "racist" is sort of an adjective relating somehow to race. In any event this too is an attack on language.

A recent example is the word "hate". The civil rights movement had used the word "hate" to refer to terrorism and stereotyping against black people, and during the 1990's some in the press had identified as "Clinton-haters" people who had made vast numbers of bizarre claims that the Clintons had participated in murder and drug-dealing. Beginning around 2003, conservative rhetors took control of this word as well by labeling a variety of perfectly ordinary types of democratic opposition to George Bush as "hate". In addition, they have constructed a large number of messages of the form "liberals hate X" (e.g., X=America) and established within their media apparatus a sophistical pipeline of "facts" to support each one. This is also an example of the systematic breaking of associations.

The word "partisan" entered into its current political circulation in the early 1990's when some liberals identified people like Newt Gingrich as "partisan" for doing things like the memo on language that I mentioned earlier. To the conservative way of politics, there is nothing either true or false about the liberal claim. It is simply that liberals had taken control of some rhetorical territory: the word "partisan". Conservative rhetors then set about taking control of the word themselves. They did this in a way that has become mechanical. They first claimed, falsely, that liberals were identifying as "partisan" any views other than their own. They thus inflated the word while projecting this inflation onto the liberals and disconnecting the word from the particular facts that the liberals had associated with it. Next, they started using the word "partisan" in the inflated, dishonest way that they had ascribed to their opponents. This is, very importantly, a way of attacking people simply for having a different opinion. In twisting language this way, conservatives tell themselves that they are simply turning liberal unfairness back against the liberals. This too is projection.

Another common theme of conservative strategy is that liberals are themselves an aristocracy. (For those who are really keeping score, the sophisticated version of this is called the "new class strategy", the message being that liberals are the American version of the Soviet nomenklatura.) Thus, for example, the constant pelting of liberals as "elites", sticking this word and a mass of others semantically related to it onto liberals on every possible occasion. A pipeline of "facts" has been established to underwrite this message as well. Thus, for example, constant false conservative claims that the rich vote Democratic. When Al Franken recently referred to his new radio network as "the media elite and proud of it", he demonstrated his oblivion to the workings of the conservative discourse that he claims to contest.

Further examples of this are endless. When a Republican senator referred to "the few liberals", hardly any liberals gave any sign of getting what he meant: as all conservatives got just fine, he was appropriating the phrase "the few", referring to the aristocracy as opposed to "the many", and sticking this phrase in a false and mechanical way onto liberals. Rush Limbaugh asserts that "they [liberals] think they are better than you", this of course being a phrase that had historically been applied (and applied correctly) to the aristocracy. Conservative rhetors constantly make false or exaggerated claims that liberals are engaged in stereotyping -- the criticism of stereotyping having been one of history's most important rhetorical devices of democrats. And so on. The goal here is to make it impossible to criticize aristocracy.

For an especially sorry example of this pattern, consider the word "hierarchy". Conservatism is a hierarchical social system: a system of ranked orders and classes. Yet in recent years conservatives have managed to stick this word onto liberals, the notion being that "government" (which liberals supposedly endorse and conservatives supposedly oppose) is hierarchical (whereas corporations, the military, and the church are somehow vaguely not). Liberals are losing because it does not even occur to them to refute this kind of mechanical antireason.

It is often claimed in the media that snooty elitists on the coasts refer to states in the middle of the country as "flyover country". Yet I, who have lived in liberal areas of the coasts for most of my life, have never once heard this usage. In fact, as far as I can tell, the Nexis database does not contain a single example of anyone using the phrase "flyover country" to disparage the non-coastal areas of the United States. Instead, it contains hundreds of examples of people disparaging residents of the coasts by claiming that they use the phrase to describe the interior. The phrase is a special favorite of newspapers in Minneapolis and Denver. This is projection. Likewise, I have never heard the phrase "political correctness" used except to disparage the people who supposedly use it.

Conservative remapping of the language of aristocracy and democracy has been incredibly thorough. Consider, for example, the terms "entitlement" and "dependency". The term "entitlement" originally referred to aristocrats. Aristocrats had titles, and they thought that they were thereby entitled to various things, particularly the deference of the common people. Everyone else, by contrast, was dependent on the aristocrats. This is conservatism. Yet in the 1990's, conservative rhetors decided that the people who actually claim entitlement are people on welfare. They furthermore created an empirically false association between welfare and dependency. But, as I have mentioned, welfare is precisely a way of eliminating dependency on the aristocracy and the cultural authorities that serve it. I do not recall anyone ever noting this inversion of meaning.

Conservative strategists have also been remapping the language that has historically been applied to conservative religious authorities, sticking words such as "orthodoxy", "pious", "dogma", and "sanctimonious" to liberals at every turn.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Reason occurs mostly through the medium of language, and so the destruction of reason requires the destruction of language. An underlying notion of conservative politics is that words and phrases of language are like territory in warfare: owned and controlled by one side or the other. One of the central goals of conservatism, as for example with Newt Gingrich's lists of words, is to take control of every word and phrase in the English language.

A simple example is the term "race-baiting". In the Nexis database, uses of "race-baiting" undergo a sudden switch in the early 1990's. Before then, "race-baiting" referred to racists. Afterward, it referred in twisted way to people who oppose racism. What happened is simple: conservative rhetors, tired of the political advantage that liberals had been getting from their use of that word, took it away from them.

A more complicated example is the word "racist". Conservative rhetors have tried to take this word away as well by constantly coming up with new ways to stick the word onto liberals and their policies. For example they have referred to affirmative action as "racist". This is false; it is an attempt to destroy language. Racism is the notion that one race is intrinsically better than another. Affirmative action is arguably discriminatory, as a means of partially offsetting discrimination in other places and times, but it is not racist. Many conservative rhetors have even stuck the word "racist" on people just because they oppose racism. The notion seems to be that these people addressed themselves to the topic of race, and the word "racist" is sort of an adjective relating somehow to race. In any event this too is an attack on language.

A recent example is the word "hate". The civil rights movement had used the word "hate" to refer to terrorism and stereotyping against black people, and during the 1990's some in the press had identified as "Clinton-haters" people who had made vast numbers of bizarre claims that the Clintons had participated in murder and drug-dealing. Beginning around 2003, conservative rhetors took control of this word as well by labeling a variety of perfectly ordinary types of democratic opposition to George Bush as "hate". In addition, they have constructed a large number of messages of the form "liberals hate X" (e.g., X=America) and established within their media apparatus a sophistical pipeline of "facts" to support each one. This is also an example of the systematic breaking of associations.

The word "partisan" entered into its current political circulation in the early 1990's when some liberals identified people like Newt Gingrich as "partisan" for doing things like the memo on language that I mentioned earlier. To the conservative way of politics, there is nothing either true or false about the liberal claim. It is simply that liberals had taken control of some rhetorical territory: the word "partisan". Conservative rhetors then set about taking control of the word themselves. They did this in a way that has become mechanical. They first claimed, falsely, that liberals were identifying as "partisan" any views other than their own. They thus inflated the word while projecting this inflation onto the liberals and disconnecting the word from the particular facts that the liberals had associated with it. Next, they started using the word "partisan" in the inflated, dishonest way that they had ascribed to their opponents. This is, very importantly, a way of attacking people simply for having a different opinion. In twisting language this way, conservatives tell themselves that they are simply turning liberal unfairness back against the liberals. This too is projection.

Another common theme of conservative strategy is that liberals are themselves an aristocracy. (For those who are really keeping score, the sophisticated version of this is called the "new class strategy", the message being that liberals are the American version of the Soviet nomenklatura.) Thus, for example, the constant pelting of liberals as "elites", sticking this word and a mass of others semantically related to it onto liberals on every possible occasion. A pipeline of "facts" has been established to underwrite this message as well. Thus, for example, constant false conservative claims that the rich vote Democratic. When Al Franken recently referred to his new radio network as "the media elite and proud of it", he demonstrated his oblivion to the workings of the conservative discourse that he claims to contest.

Further examples of this are endless. When a Republican senator referred to "the few liberals", hardly any liberals gave any sign of getting what he meant: as all conservatives got just fine, he was appropriating the phrase "the few", referring to the aristocracy as opposed to "the many", and sticking this phrase in a false and mechanical way onto liberals. Rush Limbaugh asserts that "they [liberals] think they are better than you", this of course being a phrase that had historically been applied (and applied correctly) to the aristocracy. Conservative rhetors constantly make false or exaggerated claims that liberals are engaged in stereotyping -- the criticism of stereotyping having been one of history's most important rhetorical devices of democrats. And so on. The goal here is to make it impossible to criticize aristocracy.

For an especially sorry example of this pattern, consider the word "hierarchy". Conservatism is a hierarchical social system: a system of ranked orders and classes. Yet in recent years conservatives have managed to stick this word onto liberals, the notion being that "government" (which liberals supposedly endorse and conservatives supposedly oppose) is hierarchical (whereas corporations, the military, and the church are somehow vaguely not). Liberals are losing because it does not even occur to them to refute this kind of mechanical antireason.

It is often claimed in the media that snooty elitists on the coasts refer to states in the middle of the country as "flyover country". Yet I, who have lived in liberal areas of the coasts for most of my life, have never once heard this usage. In fact, as far as I can tell, the Nexis database does not contain a single example of anyone using the phrase "flyover country" to disparage the non-coastal areas of the United States. Instead, it contains hundreds of examples of people disparaging residents of the coasts by claiming that they use the phrase to describe the interior. The phrase is a special favorite of newspapers in Minneapolis and Denver. This is projection. Likewise, I have never heard the phrase "political correctness" used except to disparage the people who supposedly use it.

Conservative remapping of the language of aristocracy and democracy has been incredibly thorough. Consider, for example, the terms "entitlement" and "dependency". The term "entitlement" originally referred to aristocrats. Aristocrats had titles, and they thought that they were thereby entitled to various things, particularly the deference of the common people. Everyone else, by contrast, was dependent on the aristocrats. This is conservatism. Yet in the 1990's, conservative rhetors decided that the people who actually claim entitlement are people on welfare. They furthermore created an empirically false association between welfare and dependency. But, as I have mentioned, welfare is precisely a way of eliminating dependency on the aristocracy and the cultural authorities that serve it. I do not recall anyone ever noting this inversion of meaning.

Conservative strategists have also been remapping the language that has historically been applied to conservative religious authorities, sticking words such as "orthodoxy", "pious", "dogma", and "sanctimonious" to liberals at every turn.

Lol, and the liberal talking points are cut and pasted in at last.

The change in meaning you refer to in you cut and paste job, is due to the liberals changing their ideology to include Identity Politics.

People stopped referring to 'conservative' (ie Southern Democrats) as racists so much in the 1960s and more using it in reference to IP liberals (again, Democrats) as time went on because Identity Politics is racist by its very nature as it categorizes people by race, which is the root meaning of the word 'racism'.

Decry it all you want and twist it all you want, but as long as liberals or anyone else categorizes people by race and make laws/policies that treat different races in different ways they engage in racism and are racists.

roflmao