Identity politics done right
NationalPost.com – Full Comment
October 4, 2016. LAUREN HEUSER
I felt like I’d lost a friend last month when I read that Mireille Silcoff, one of my favourite Canadian columnists, would no longer be writing her weekly column for the National Post. Admittedly, I would not count Silcoff as a close friend — a statement with which I can only imagine she’d agree, as we have never spoken or met. But Silcoff’s columns, which revolved around her experiences as a mother, an invalid, a writer and a Jew, were so personable, funny and touching that I felt as though I understood her, even though I did not share her exact identity traits.
Importantly, while Silcoff’s stories were told through the lens of the person she is (a mother of two young children; someone suffering from a rare cerebrospinal condition; etc.), her pieces were not about these traits or the disadvantages she may suffer as a result of them. Rather, her stories always led to some nugget about human experience that transcends class lines, like The women who won’t let me hang up, a column on the perils of taking a call from one’s mother, or The importance of finding your place and clearing slates, a piece about learning to appreciate the small things after recovering from an illness.
The tone and content of this type of writing — and the feelings it arouses in a reader — stand in stark contrast to the rhetoric of identity politics. It is difficult to relate to writing that is about an author’s identity and the oppression suffered as a result of it unless the reader hails from the exact same camp. As David Brooks of the New York Times observed, identity politics treats people who don’t share one’s identity traits as opponents; it cleanly divides the world into “forces of light and darkness.” You are male or female; black or white; elite or poor. The Manichaean list goes on and on.
If the aim of identity discourse is to provide therapeutic value to those who fall within the same gender, ethnic, sexual orientation, disability or economic class, this rhetoric may well achieve its goals. Just as groups like Alcoholics Anonymous or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission link people of shared backgrounds to help them understand and recover from difficult experiences, the written word can provide support to people who might otherwise feel quite alone in their skins.
But as I understand it, this is not the only goal of identity politics. In her famed 1969 essay The Personal is Political, feminist Carol Hanisch weighed in on the debate over whether identity groups are about therapy or politics. As she noted: “I believe (…) these analytical sessions are a form of political action. I do not go to these sessions because I need or want to talk about my ‘personal problems.’ (…) There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution.”
According to Hanisch and others, identity politics is not simply about therapy. It is also about spurring collective action, not only by those who feel oppressed, but also by those who are seen as being part of the problem. To use one example, feminists might want men to appreciate their perspective as women, so men will change the patterns of thinking and behaviours that are so vexatious to them. To the extent that this is the goal, I have never understood articles that treat men as brutes incapable of understanding women’s experience. What man would be inclined to spend his time reading something that treats his sex so simplistically and disparagingly?
People do not owe it to writers to read their work. It falls to writers to give people reason to read them. Certain rhetorical strategies are bound to be more effective at this than others. Writing that enlightens, amuses or delights is far more likely to capture the interest and sympathies of a broad audience than writing that is mournful, accusatory, disparaging or strident.
To be clear, it is far from me to suggest that there is only one way to get a message across. As I have quickly learned in this business, it’s not easy to convince readers to give you their time, and I make no claims of mastery at this. But I do know what it takes for me to remain engaged in something as a reader. It is, in short, not much different from what it takes to keep me engaged in a conversation. I want to be treated as though I am in the company of a friend.
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Tags: disabilities, featured, ideology, multiculturalism, participation, rights
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