There is an identity politics of the Left and an identity politics of the Right. The second kind became obvious to me when, after objecting to the tribalism of blacks, Hispanics, and other racial/ethnic groups, and after calling for a transcending of tribalism, I was countered by certain alt-rightists/neo-reactionaries who reject any such transcending and think that what is needed is a white tribalism to oppose tribalisms 'of color.'
While I reject the destructive falsehoods of left-wing tribalists, and understand the urge of 'alties' to oppose them with vigor, I don't want to go into reactionary mode if I can avoid it. The reactionary is defined by what he reacts against. I want to move in a positive direction. I want to reject identity politics of both the Left and the Right by transcending them both. To be identity-political is to take one's primary self-identification to be a tribal or group identification, an identification in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, socio-economic class, or some combination of these.
That is not how I self-identify, and I believe that no one should self-identify in that way. I identify as a person, as a rational being, as a free agent, as a truth-seeker, as a lover of the good and the beautiful, as a conscious and self-conscious subject. I do not primarily self-identify as an object in nature, a two-legged land mammal, or in any such way. Of course, I am an animal, a genetically human animal, essentially (not accidentally) Caucasian, and essentially (not accidentally) male, whence it follows, contrary to current leftist lore, that I cannot change my race or my sex. But while I am an animal, I am also a person, a spirit.
Here is one problem we face. Our enemies on the 'woke' and thus tribalist Left reject this scheme which ultimately rests on a personalist and theistic foundation. They are an existential threat to us, where an existential threat is not merely a threat to one's physical existence, but also, and more importantly, a threat to one's way of life as a spiritual, cultural, and historical being as opposed to a mere biological system for whom biological survival is the only value. There is no reaching these 'woke' folk with talk of persons and rights and the equality of persons and of rights. That is to them just bourgeois ideology that serves only to legitimate the extant social order. They are tribalists who refuse to transcend their tribal identifications and see themselves as persons, as rational beings, as autonomous agents. But not only that, they are also race realists despite their obfuscatory and logically inconsistent talk of race as a social construct. The inconsistency doesn't bother them because truth is not a leftist value, and logical consistency can count as a value only to those for whom truth is a value. This is because truth enters into the definition of logical consistency.
The problem, then, is that it is probably not possible to defeat our enemies -- who, nota bene, do not want peaceful coexistence -- except by going tribal ourselves, and engaging them in the way they apparently want to be engaged, with blood and iron. Either that, or we accept political dhimmitude. And so a certain amount of pro tempore white tribalism may be needed to counteract the tribalists 'of color.'
I would like it not to be true, but I fear that it is.
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