#Identarianism

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Matt Johnson

Published: Jan 27, 2023

“Christopher Hitchens: From socialist to neocon.” It was an irresistible headline because it’s a story that has been told over and over again. The novelist Julian Barnes called this phenomenon the “ritual shuffle to the right.” Richard Seymour, who wrote a book-length attack on Hitchens, says his subject belongs to a “recognisable type: a left-wing defector with a soft spot for empire.” By presenting Hitchens as a tedious archetype, hobbling away from radicalism and toward some inevitable reactionary terminus, his opponents didn’t have to contend with his arguments or confront the potentially destabilizing fact that some of his principles called their own into question.

Hitchens, who died in 2011, didn’t make it easy on the apostate hunters. To many, he was a “coarser version of [conservative commentator] Norman Podhoretz” when he talked about Iraq, and a radical humanist truth-teller when he went on Fox News to lambaste the Christian right: “If you gave Falwell an enema,” he told Sean Hannity the day after Jerry Falwell’s death, “he could be buried in a matchbox.” Then he gave Islam the same treatment, and he was suddenly a drooling neocon again. He defied easy categorization: a socialist who spurned ideology, an internationalist who became a patriot, a man of the left who was reviled by the left.

The left isn’t a single amorphous entity—it’s a vast constellation of (often conflicting) ideas and principles. Hitchens’s style of left-wing radicalism is now out of fashion, but it has a long and venerable history: George Orwell’s unwavering opposition to totalitarianism and censorship, Bayard Rustin’s advocacy for universal civil rights without appealing to tribalism and identity politics, the post-communist anti-totalitarianism that emerged on the European left in the second half of the twentieth century.

Hitchens described himself as a “First Amendment absolutist,” an echo of historic left-wing struggles for free expression—from Eugene V. Debs’s assertion of his right to dissent during World War I to the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Hitchens argued that unfettered free speech and inquiry would always make civil society stronger. When he wrote the introduction to his collection of essays For the Sake of Argument in 1993, he had a specific left-wing tradition in mind: the left of Orwell and Victor Serge and C.L.R. James, which simultaneously opposed Stalinism, fascism, and imperialism in the twentieth century, and which stood for “individual and collective emancipation, self-determination and internationalism.”

Hitchens’ most fundamental political and moral conviction was universalism. He loathed nationalism and argued that the international system should be built around a “common standard for justice and ethics”—a standard that should apply to Henry Kissinger just as it should apply to Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein. He believed in the concept of global citizenship, which is why he firmly supported international institutions like the European Union. He didn’t just despise religion because he regarded it as a form of totalitarianism—he also recognized that it’s an infinitely replenishable wellspring of tribal hatred.

He also opposed identity politics, because he didn’t think our social and civic lives should be reduced to rigid categories based on melanin, X chromosomes, and sexuality. He recognized that the Enlightenment values of individual rights, freedom of expression and conscience, humanism, pluralism, and democracy are universal—they provide the most stable, just, and rational foundation for any civil society, whether they’re observed in America or Europe or Iraq.

And yes, he argued that these values are for export. Hitchens believed in universal human rights. This is why, at a time when his comrades were still manning the barricades against the “imperial” West after the Cold War, he argued that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should intervene to stop a genocidal assault on Bosnia. It’s why he argued that American power could be used to defend human rights and promote democracy. As many on the Western left built their politics around incessant condemnations of their own societies as racist, exploitative, oligarchic, and imperialistic, Hitchens recognized the difference between self-criticism and self-flagellation.

-

One of the reasons Orwell accumulated many left-wing enemies in his time was the fact that his criticisms of his own “side” were grounded in authentic left-wing principles. When he argued that many socialists had no connection to or understanding of the actual working class in Britain, the observation stung because it was true. Orwell’s arguments continue to sting today. In his 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism,” he criticized the left-wing intellectuals who enjoy “seeing their own country humiliated” and “follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong.” Among some of these intellectuals, Orwell wrote: “One finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of the Western countries.”

Hitchens observed that many on today’s left are motivated by the same principle: “Nothing will make us fight against an evil if that fight forces us to go to the same corner as our own government.” This is a predictable manifestation of what the American political theorist Michael Walzer calls the “default position” of the left: a purportedly “anti-imperialist and anti-militarist” position inclined toward the view that “everything that goes wrong in the world is America’s fault.”

Indeed, the tendency to ignore and rationalize even the most egregious violence and authoritarianism abroad in favor of an obsessive emphasis on the crimes and blunders of Western governments has become a reflex. Much of the left has been captured by a strange mix of sectarian and authoritarian impulses: a myopic emphasis on identitarianism and group rights over the individual; an orientation toward subjectivity and tribalism over objectivity and universalism; and demands for political orthodoxy enforced by repressive tactics like the suppression of speech.

These left-wing pathologies are particularly corrosive today because they give right-wing nationalists and populists on both sides of the Atlantic—whose rise over the past several years has been characterized by hostility to democratic norms and institutions, rampant xenophobia, and other forms of illiberalism—an opportunity to claim that those who oppose them are the true authoritarians. Hitchens was prescient about the ascendance of right-wing populism in the West, from the emergence of demagogues who exploit cultural grievances and racial resentments to the bitter parochialism of “America First” nationalism. He understood that the left could only defeat these noxious political forces by rediscovering its best traditions: support for free expression, pluralism, and universalism—the values of the Enlightenment.

Hitchens closes his book Why Orwell Matters with the following observation: “What he [Orwell] illustrates, by his commitment to language as the partner of truth, is that ‘views’ do not really count; that it matters not what you think, but how you think; and that politics are relatively unimportant, while principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them.” Despite the pervasive idea that Hitchens exchanged one set of convictions for another by the end of his life, his commitment to his core principles never wavered. They are principles that today’s left must rediscover.

Matt Johnson is a journalist and the author of the forthcoming book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment, from which this piece is excerpted.

[inqilabi]

Apparently Tumblr was also possibly a CIA project. If true, then it was a successful one. Because much of the social justice stuff that came out of here that wasn't rooted in materialism, ie was rooted in identarianism, is specifically what causes strife in much of the left and leftist organizing spaces. Which eventually led to the twitter activism. Leaving the left fully ineffectual. Because they were squabling over words and offences and "words are violence".

[hillbillyoracle]

So I saw this screencap earlier

And I thought it was a great chance to talk about something.

A lot of progressive folks are familiar with the fact that right wing circles use feminine as a derogatory term and that there's a real cost to that for women.

What people are less familiar with is how it hurts men - queer and straight, cis and trans.

And I'm not shocked given how common it is in left leaning spaces to be reactionary (read: dismissive or outright harass) when men try to talk about these what these issues look like for them.

When men talk about how they've experienced toxic masculinity and anti-feminine bias, in addition to the usual right wing responses, I'm starting to see a bunch of supposed feminists and trans/queer allies harass them as well - saying they're hurting women/feminine presenting folks by "centering men", dismissing their concerns as made up (even when there's research to back it up), "why aren't you talking about what this is like for cis and trans women instead??".

I've seen trans men accused of being TERFs or being liars (by other trans people even - wtf) when they talk about their experiences of allies actively excluding them from trans spaces or harassing them for using T4T tags. I've seen men be accused of lying about publicly accessible clinical research that shows men make up 75%-77% of suicide cases - or worse suggest they deserve it. I see posts about how men's complaints "aren't unique to them" and dismiss them because women also suffer things those authors assume are the same (even when the research contradicts this).

And here's the thing:

When you assume feminine=good/safe/gentle and masculine=bad/unsafe/enemy - you're parroting a conservative talking point.

There is no way around this fact.

A big part of what underpins child rearing being "the woman's domain" in conservatism, is the idea that men are inherently dangerous and therefore shouldn't really be around children without women present.

The reason why they blame women for abuse and rape - because they believe men are inherently dangerous and if a woman trusted them then it's her fault.

Part of why women have been effectively banned from many trades and careers for so long is the assumption that being around that many men presents an inherent danger to a woman.

"But!" you might be saying, "This person is clearly talking about men engaging in open conflict as good here!"

Yeah because conservatives see politics as an inherently male/dangerous/toxic sphere and uphold it as such.

I could go on and on really.

All of this is to say - please be more thoughtful in what you consume, comment, and reblog.

There are experiences specific to being masculine. Erasing that is one, a dick move, but two, particularly violent toward those talking about trans masculine, minority masculine, disabled masculine, and queer masculine experiences.

All privilege comes at a cost. Listening when people talk about that cost is key building a new more fair reality. Seeing the privilege is not worth the cost makes fervent allies. Want more allies? Don't be a dick to people having that realization.

Push back against the assumption of woman=good and man=bad when you see it - especially in community spaces. The amount of times I've seen domestic violence services only available to women is insane...

Do not let identarian politics blind you to the fact we're all human and working toward our own liberation should not come at the oppression of another. Believe me, those with real power would much rather you stay raging out at men in a similar class with you than directing your efforts at them.

The right wing wants you to believe it's either/or. Fuck that - it's both/and.

[kunosoura]

my japanese professor says that one mistake people make applying for the more credible ALT programs is to be like. over enthusiastic about japanese culture and dismissive of your own. that its meant to be a cultural exchange, and the last thing japan needs is another american otaku with nothing to offer but an obsession with japanese culture, and that's a pretty general principle too. I wonder how I should navigate that given my much more principled hatred of US identarianism. I'm not going to japan for an ALT, i'll be studying on scholarship, but I'm not trying to be the stick in the mud self loathing american

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

The details of this are horrendous. And obviously it's not just Asian people doing it, it's men in general.

Working class girls have been abandoned by services, parts of society and the gov. This stereotype of slutty council estate chav with fake eyelashes is powerful, and contributes a lot. They're not seen as worthy victims.

Police, services & council need some training on this, on working class stereotypes, it'd be clunky to bolt it on to the mandatory LGBTQ training but their internal class prejudices need challenging - cos some of them, like the police, thought these slutty chavs were asking for it - 'it's just what they do'

It's fucking mad

And of course the left don't want anything to do with it cos they removed and abandoned working class people a long time ago, and the media always bill it as Asians so they hide from the racial element. They're not up for nuance other than the odd tweet. Identarians have no answer cos to them only white men can do anything wrong so this bends their head.

So it's manor from heaven for the far right - who themselves are basically grooming gangs for young men to become fascist and to sexually exploit young women and nonce children ffs - to give it the big un, defend our communities etc

It's just a fucking state. And it's being replicated all over the country.

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

I promise USAmerican communist organizers no amount of cringe identarian liberal-influenced idpol bullshit will be half as damaging as deliberately excluding and silencing marginalized workers because you're so fucking concerned about what the Platonic ideal of a midwestern white factory worker that you think stands in for the entire working class will think

[beardedmrbean]

Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was met with massive crowds of protesters Saturday, after a report revealed it had discussed deporting millions of immigrants, including German citizens, late last year. 

Investigative journalism group Correctiv published a report Wednesday on the meeting between AfD and the Identitarian Movement (IM) in November, claiming IM member Martin Sellner presented a plan for "re-migration" of immigrants out of Germany, including those who already have citizenship, but have failed to integrate.

AfD has confirmed the meeting, which was allegedly captured on hidden cameras, took place but rejected assertions that it reflects their party policy.

"The AfD won't change its position on immigration policy because of a single opinion at a non-AfD meeting," a spokesperson told Reuters.

Protesters across Germany held signs on Saturday that read "Never Again is Now," "Defend Democracy" and "Against Hate" as the meeting garners comparisons with the Nazis. 

A protest in Frankfurt on Saturday had around 35,000 people and one in Hamburg had around 50,000, police said. Others took place in cities like Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Hannover. 

Hamburg’s demonstration ended early over crowd size safety concerns. 

Large protests in cities like Berlin and Munich are also planned for Sunday. 

The report and subsequent protests have also renewed calls for a ban on the AfD in the country. 

The AfD was founded in 2013 and polling suggests it has around 23% support in the country. 

AfD was the first right-wing party since the Nazis to win a mayoral and district council election when it did last year. It has also made significant gains in state elections in Bavaria and Hesse. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the AfD and Identarian Movement in a statement on social media last week, comparing them to the Third Reich.

"We protect everyone — regardless of origin, skin color or how uncomfortable someone is for fanatics with assimilation fantasies," said Scholz. 

Although immigration is a top issue in the country, Scholz himself previously admitted "too many are coming." 

[baravaggio]

as cathartic as the "straight man in a lesbian bar" tiktok discourse was for like 5 minutes, it's been amusing and bizarre to see so many people feigning familiarity with a bar they have zero personal connection to in order to make clear that if they actually bothered to be an active participant in the queer cultural institutions they hold such reverence for, they would be staunchly on one side of a hypothetical identarian etiquette war...for the record and btw if you even care

[jambeast]

One thing I realised recently is that the main problem with sexists and racists - including the woke ones is that they are insane.

Like they do this thing where they blob people together basing on some arbitrary characteristics and then create some delusional worldview from it.

And often for example expecting this blob to make some kind of decision.

For example the Charlestone church shooter (diagnosed with schizophrenia) considering all people with dark skin colour responsible for violence committed by violent criminals with dark skin colour and expecting people with dark skin colour to somehow stop these crimes from happening - including somehow stopping being victims of these crimes I guess?

That's not just prejudice or anything like that, it's absolute insanity.

Or femi-nazis saying stuff like "men doing conscription to themselves". Yeah one person enslaving another person is somehow that person doing it to themselves. Complete insane.

The worst thing about this kind of views being propagated is that they are basically spreading insanity.

Yeah there's just a very *fundamental* kind of moral reasoning that's just so deeply ingrained into people in every culture despite being, in of itself, complete nonsense; where Identity Groups are first-class entities that carry moral weight.

It's the same logic that says that a decline in white birthrates and an increase in mixed-race marriages is a kind of genocide, a harm inflicted against The White Race. And the logic is completely unchallenged; nobody actually has any issue with the logic, they just think that in this particular case they deserve it (and therefore that it isn't happening, the same way people doubt any genocide that they think is justified).

Which is really fucking annoying, because the logic is completely bananas! Like there really -isn't- a genocide, because the definition being used is pure identarian nonsense.

It feels like there are some really important baseline... liberal values, that everyone has flown right past. Shit that I thought we already figured out and was drilled into people as kids. Y'know, 'Just because they're different to us doesn't mean you should be mean to them', 'Just because they share x trait with someone who was mean to you don't mean you should be mean to people with x trait". Really really basic shit, that it turns out nobody actually believed when they were being taught it, and the people teaching it never believed it in the first place either. None of the people telling me that racism was bad *actually* though racism was bad. They were just saying that because it scored them points.

Which sucks! Because racism really IS bad! Everyone around me was lying through their teeth by saying something completely true that they didn't believe for a second.

Well I do! I actually *do* believe it.

[artbyblastweave]

Have you paid any attention to modern X-Men/the “Krakoan” age stuff in Marvel?

I read.... like the first House of X maxiseries about a year ago? I had a lot of respect for the project in the abstract because it seemed like it was taking a coordinated, considered look at the logistics, realpolitik, and troubling philosophical implications of actually establishing a mutant nation; I’ve always had this sense that getting the X-men meaningfully off of their permanent back foot would probably engender some decidedly non-heroic behaviors because that’s what happens when reach the point of organizing as an identarian state, never mind an identarian state where everyone is a superpowered immortal. And Hickman’s love of map-and-chart based supplemental storytelling (put to great effect in East of West, to my recollection) I thought was a good fit; if you did a Worm comic, I feel like you’d want to use a similar technique to deliver supplemental materials about the setting. Now I just need to read all. All of the tie ins. All of em. Hm.

[dhaaruni]

Like much else in our politics, the shift comes down to Trump. A familiar figure to New Yorkers, his election inspired a mass migration away from the GOP in upscale suburban areas where the party was once strong, while the Democratic Party was seized by a youthful newfound urgency. Democrats regathered as an unwieldy coalition of economic elites and fervent liberals, forging a tighter bond through the chaos of the Trump years. But as Trump’s time in office faded, those ties frayed. Covid shut down much of New York City, the region was roiled by the George Floyd protests, and the state government followed Democratic primary voters to the left. That turned out to be a problem for the party: Despite the city’s national image as home to a bunch of far-left Democratic Socialists run amok, New York has a long history of stubbornly moderate Democratic voters. After all, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg reigned as broadly popular mayors, and despite Bill de Blasio winning two terms, the progressive left Gracie Mansion with an abysmal approval rating. But rather than take the rebuke of de Blasio to heart and capitalizing on general revulsion to Trump to broaden the party’s coalition, the state Democrats have spent the past several years becoming more identarian, imposing progressive purity tests that ended up alienating people otherwise inclined to support the party in the edges of the city and its suburbs. [...] But Trump gave people license, and Covid frayed the social bonds that held together neighborhoods where people literally live on top of one another. Regularly now, when he is out in the district, constituents will come up to Brannan — not to ask for something, or to complain, but to yell at him as if he were Joe Biden, Bill de Blasio and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez all in one, just another Democrat who stepped out of the little boxes on Newsmax or Fox News, but now is here on their corner. “Trump made people feel like it was OK to be an asshole,” he said.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Robyn E. Blumner

Published: Jun/Jul 2022

Identitarian: A person or ideology that espouses that group identity is the most important thing about a person, and that justice and power must be viewed primarily on the basis of group identity rather than individual merit. (Source: Urban Dictionary)

“The Affirmations of Humanism”: We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity and strive to work together for the common good of humanity. (Paul Kurtz, Free Inquiry, Spring 1987)

The humanist project is at a dangerous crossroads. I fear that our cohesion as fellow humanists is being torn apart by a strain of identitarianism that is making enemies of long-standing friends and opponents of natural allies.

Just at a time when it is essential for all of us to come together to work arm-in-arm against Christian Nationalism and the rise of religious privilege in law, humanism is facing a schism within its own movement. It is heartbreaking to watch and even more disheartening to know that the continued breach seems destined to grow.

The division has to do with a fundamental precept of humanism, that enriching human individuality and celebrating the individual is the basis upon which humanism is built. Humanism valorizes the individual—and with good reason; we are each the hero of our own story. Not only is one’s individual sovereignty more essential to the humanist project than one’s group affiliation, but fighting for individual freedom—which includes freedom of conscience, speech, and inquiry—is part of the writ-large agenda of humanism. It unleashes creativity and grants us the breathing space to be agents in our own lives.

Or at least that idea used to be at the core of humanism.

Today, there is a subpart of humanists, identitarians, who are suspicious of individuals and their freedoms. They do not want a free society if it means some people will use their freedom to express ideas with which they disagree. They see everything through a narrow affiliative lens of race, gender, ethnicity, or other demographic category and seek to shield groups that they see as marginalized by ostensible psychic harms inflicted by the speech of others.

This has given rise to a corrosive cultural environment awash in controversial speakers being shouted down on college campuses; even liberal professors and newspaper editors losing their jobs for tiny, one-off slights; the cancellation of great historical figures for being men of their time; and a range of outlandish claims of microaggressions, cultural appropriation, and other crimes against current orthodoxy.

It has pitted humanists who stand for foundational civil liberties principles such as free speech and equal protection under the law against others on the political Left who think individual freedoms should give way when they fail to serve the interests of select identity groups. The most important feature of the symbol of justice is not her sword or scales; it is her blindfold. Identitarians would pull it off so she could benefit certain groups over others.

Good people with humanist hearts have been pilloried if they don’t subscribe to every jot and tittle of the identitarian gospel. A prime example is the decision last year by the American Humanist Association (AHA) to retract its 1996 award to Richard Dawkins as Humanist of the Year. The man who has done more than anyone alive to advance evolutionary biology and the public’s understanding of that science, who has brought the light of atheism to millions of people, and whose vociferous opposition to Donald Trump and Brexit certainly must have burnished his liberal cred became radioactive because of one tweet on transgender issues that the AHA didn’t like.

Apparently decades of past good works are erased by 280 characters. Just poof. No wonder a New York Times poll1 recently found that 84 percent of adults say it is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem that some Americans do not speak freely because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.

This is what identitarians have wrought. Rather than lifting up individuals and imbuing them with autonomy and all the extraordinary uniqueness that flows from it, identitarians would divide us all into racial,  ethnic,  and  gender-based groups and make that group affiliation our defining characteristic. This has the distorting effect of obliterating personal agency, rewarding group victimhood, and incentivizing competition to be seen as the most oppressed.

In addition to being inherently divisive, this is self-reinforcing defeatism. It results in extreme examples, such as a draft plan in California to deemphasize calculus as a response to persistent racial gaps in math achievement.2 Suddenly a subject as racially neutral as math has become a flashpoint for identitarians set on ensuring equality of outcomes for certain groups rather than the far-more just standard of equality of opportunity. In this freighted environment, reducing the need for rigor and eliminating challenging standards becomes a feasible solution. The notion of individual merit or recognition that some students are better at math than others becomes racially tinged and suspect.

Not only does the truth suffer under this assault on common sense, but we start to live in a Harrison Bergeron world where one’s natural skills are necessarily sacrificed on the altar of equality or, in today’s parlance, equity.

Of course, the identitarians’ focus is not just on racial issues. Gender divisions also play out on center stage. I was at a secular conference recently when a humanist leader expressed the view that if you don’t have a uterus, you have no business speaking about abortion.

Really? Only people with female reproductive organs should be heard on one of the most consequential issues of the day? Such a call, itself, is a form of lamentable sexism. And it seems purposely to ignore the fact that plenty of people with a uterus are actively opposed to the right to choose, while plenty of people without a uterus are among our greatest allies for abortion rights. Why should those of us who care about reproductive freedom cut fully half of all humanity from our roster of potential vocal supporters and activists?

As has been said by others perplexed and disturbed by such a narrow-minded view, you don’t have to be poor to have a valid opinion on ways to alleviate poverty. You don’t have to be a police officer to have a valid opinion on policing. And, similarly, you don’t have to be a woman to have a valid opinion on abortion rights.

If the Affirmation quoted at the beginning of this article that rejects “divisive parochial loyalties” based on facile group affiliations isn’t a rejection of identitarianism, I don’t know what is. In his 1968 essay “Humanism and the Freedom of the Individual,” Kurtz stated bluntly:

Any humanism that does not cherish the individual, I am prepared to argue, is neither humanistic nor humanitarian. … Any humanism worthy of the name should be concerned with the preservation of the individual personality with all of its unique idiosyncrasies and peculiarities. We need a society in which the full and free development of every individual is the ruling principle. The existence of individual freedom thus is an essential condition for the social good and a necessary end of humanitarianism.

The individual is the most important unit in humanism. When our individuality is stripped away so we can be fitted into prescribed identity groups instead, something essential to the humanist project is lost. Those pushing for this conception of society are misconstruing humanism, diminishing human potential and self-actualization, and driving a wedge between good people everywhere.

--

Notes

1. The New York Times/Siena College Research Institute February 9–22, 2022 1,507 United States Residents Age 18+. Available online at https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/free-speech-poll-nyt-and-siena-college/ef971d5e78e1d2f9/full.pdf.

2. Jacey Fortin, “California Tries to Close the Gap in Math, but Sets Off a Backlash,” New York Times, November 4, 2021. Available online at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curriculum-guidelines.html.

[andrewtverylegitimateblog]

Go (2001)

I'd only ever heard sparingly about the Zainichi Korean population at times, mostly in passing. I knew a bit about the North Korean transplant population throughout certain areas of Japan. It's also not uncommon for me to see discussions surrounding xenophobia in Japan and I know a bit about the legacy of empire. Isao Yukisada's GO explores each of these topics intimately. What really invested me in this film though was the bare knuckle smack downs and the explorations of self and masculinity.

One of the most compelling aspects of this film was its main character. Sugihara is the child of Chosen-Jin (North Korean) parents, wherever he goes and and whoever he interacts with attempts to define him on whatever terms are convenient to him: criminal, traitor, impure. It's Sugihara's constant personal revolution to defy definition that characterizes his struggle. When his name gains notoriety and delinquents from nearby schools come to challenge him he swiftly defeats each in succession but ultimately remains disinterested in any acclaim attributed to violence and sees it purely as self-defense. When he choses to transfer from a North Korean transplant school to a Japanese school its not some larger formation in what others might contend as some betrayal or transformation of his ethnic identity but simply what he sees as an opportunity to explore a larger world.

In a society that seems at times obsessed with typifying and categorizing identity Sugihara's commitment to fluidity is an act of major rebellion. This isn't to say that's all he is. Sugihara is still a teenage boy and the film frequently reminds us of that. He spends time embarrassing his friend in front of a waitress. He lies to a cute girl because he doesn't want to admit that he was listening to Rakugo so he tells her it was rap.

One of the integral aspects of GO is the constant barrage of punches and generally the absurd amount of ass kicking. Sugihara's relationship with violence however is as multifaceted as he is. Japanese stories of male adolescence and alienation embroiled in violence at some point feels as if they take a path where the characters sets down a path towards self-destruction from where they can never return, in fact I feel this is also a trend in many American films surrounding the experience of immigrant men. I waited with baited breath throughout the entire film waiting for Sugihara to set down that road. He never did.

Even when his dearest compatriot and fellow rebel of fluidity Song Il was murdered by a Japanese individual he refused to participate in the revenge drawn across such identarian lines which they both so profusely despised. When he exposes himself in front of the girl he loves at a place of extreme fragility after the death of his nearest friend and laying out his trust in the name of their intimacy is ultimately rejected he simply walks away. He never is what others have already decided he was.

The absurd brawls that take place between Sugihara and his father in their own way aren't even necessarily about violence. Boxing is one of the things that are integral to Sugihara's relationship with his father and for them seems to be the most effective means of communication. Sugihara's paternal punch outs are less about who gets the most hits in and are more the conflict between a generation in which identity and regional and ethnic boundaries were all consuming and another in which individual self was prized above all things. After each encounter Sugihara's feelings seem to reach his father more and more and with time he seems just a touch more receptive to them.

I loved GO. Throughout the early 2000s Japan seemed to be revisiting the delinquent genre in manga, anime, and film. GO in a lot of ways especially in its fight scene reminded me Clover, one of my favorite delinquent manga from this period of time. I will likely be watching this many more times.

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

25% of Tumblr users have an annual income of $80K to $100K, and 15% have less than $30K in the United States. 

Less than $30K- 15%

$30K to $60K- 22%

$60K to $70K- 15%

$70K to $80K- 24%

$80K to $100K- 25%

More than $100K- 27%

So it still seems to be attracting well off / middle income types which in the UK are powerful socially, politically, and dominate everything. It's been this way since tumblrs inception - the middle class / aloof alternative to the proles on twitter and your mam & grandma on Facebook

Tumblr doesn't seem as unbearable now though. 10 years ago it was a window into a right bunch of wrong uns the like of which I would never come into contact on my estate, cleaning bogs for a living.

Some of it is probably down cultural changes in the last decade or so. A lot of the political blogs have left, or people have left politics - probably cos the identity stuff that was the law here has been absorbed into the capitalist state and bolstered racism, homophobia and bigotry.

No doubt others just went on and got jobs, had kids, and can't find time to post. I don't really scroll much anymore, too busy, I just post, shit stir then fuck off lol

And let's be honest, Tumblr fucked a lot of people up like tiktok is doing now. Identarians, wokescold, loads of toxic behaviour, cutting people out, stating their own experiences as discourse, as well as just peddling pure shite. A lot of this came from hugely empowered middle class shitblokes which were fascinating to observe in their own environment, running wild & free through the fields of wheat.

Interesting though. Tumblr won't die. As I've always said, if these stats are right, these demographics have a lot of coin and clout so companies are always gonna be chasing them.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

People will convince themselves that the only solution to past oppression is present and future oppression. This is the notion pushed by a CRT proponent, Ibram X. Kendi. My frustrations with this comes from the insane notion that discrimination is perfectly fine based on Immutable traits. What made me make this post? This video.

Now I'm sure several different types of people will comment on this post assuming it makes the rounds. So let me break down some points.

The video that prompted this one to be made is pretty disgusting, and shows that whites are probably the MOST self hating group in history. So much so they'd bow down and (literally) kiss the jack boots of black men just to prove how much of an "ally" they are. (Yes that is a real video floating around.)

The bearded man in the snow, attempts to make a valid point, but literally shoots himself in the foot claiming white people have never been oppressed or seen as less of a person. I'd like to introduce you to every single war in Europe; slavery and peasantry, and what's happened to the Armenians, Jews, Irish, and other countries during British conquest.

The trans woman in the video goes on a tangent about how easy and comfortable it was being a "hetero cis strait male". Because no white men are homeless. No white men are poor. No white men are abused. No men are harassed. No white men are passed up for jobs because of affirmative action.

To make a point towards the last point here is another video that goes over it a little bit.

Now if you want an interesting conclusion to that video, this experience actually led in part to her in committing suicide. As the experience itself caused her to become depressed. Though don't take my word for it. Watch the video.

My point is this. If you tell me that discrimination based on immutable traits is ever ok, I'm going to pick a fight. If you tell me that white people, or white men, have never suffered, I will pick a fight. History of the human race is long. We love to hate so much that we have regional hate. People from Texas hate California. People from Dallas hate people from Ft Worth. People from Shanghai hate people from Hong Kong. People from Osaka hate people from Tokyo. This phenomenon is more often referred to as Xenophobia. Though that's kind of a overplayed term. And I also partly disagree with use of most words with "Phobia" at the end because the word phobia is, "An irrational fear of". And I'm sure that most people don't have an irrational fear of other cultures so much as sometimes they misunderstand them.

Last thing I will say is this though. I try to be as fair as I can to everyone. Contrary to how people might try to portray me, I try to be fair to everyone. I either love everyone or hate everyone equally. My biggest issue with videos like this is it proves that Westerners, and specifically often White Americans, are the MOST self hating group on earth. You will not find this kind of self hate in almost any other country on earth. With is insane because there is slavery alive and well in our world. There are groups suffering and dying, or being sexually assaulted daily. There are countries with a history significantly longer than that of the US whom have hands DRENCHED in blood, conquest, and oppression. It's every country on earth. Asian nations. African nations. South American nations, Even Australia. It's insane to me how this is a thing that we even have to discuss. We need to end the demonization and end the hate. For everyone. Because this is why:

Want to know what happened between 2013 and 2015? The Radical feminism movements, followed by the Racial identarian movement, followed by the Social Justice movement. and has been slowly but surely going down more and more. If that's not enough for you to realize we are all going about this wrong, we will get to a point where these percentages are low enough we are waging war on one another based on race (And certainly there have been plenty of race based attacks/killings by all ethnicities on other groups more and more for the last 7-8 years). We did not need to end up here. We just needed to NOT hyper fixate on race the way we started to in 2015. And sure as hell not like we do now. So this new trend of "White", "Cis" or "Males" as slurs, or acceptable targetable groups for demonization needs to stop. Lest you find out what happens when people have had enough. And that's not a threat. That's a, "This group outnumbers you and when it gets to the point they are tired of sucking your dick and licking your boot, they will retaliate, and you WILL end up in a worse position then you want to. And it WILL be ugly. After which point race relations will not recover for decades or centuries. And it's probable there will be a lot of death.

I don't want that. I think Neo liberals do want that though. Because a lot of their views tend to align with racist stereotypes, and they NEED non whites to win votes. Basically? The worse race relations are (which they and their Marxist view points are the cause of) the more they get to cosplay as "allies" and keep you voting for them. The term "Democrat Plantation" is not a saying for nothing.

Last thing. (For real this time). If you are white and reading this and you disagree, kindly tell me why you have not deleted yourself if you are so evil. And before you hit me with the, "Oh well I'm one of the good ones" or "Because I need to be a white savior to all these poor stupid non whites", maybe move to a country in which you are the minority. Hell, move to china. Try to talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre. Ask them why they don't hate themselves. Assuming you live long enough to ask. Hell they might even let you be a TV star. You can scream at the TV talking about how bad an entire skin color is. I'm sure Russians, Brits, Spaniards, Irish, and some Portuguese will be thrilled to see you pushing that rhetoric.

[belacqui-pro-quo]

“Iden­tit­ari­an­ism” is an un­for­tu­nate word, for sev­er­al reas­ons. First of all, it’s an awk­ward and off-put­ting con­struc­tion. Ugly neo­lo­gisms — phrases like “pluriver­sal trans­mod­ern­ity,” “phal­lo­go­centric on­to­theo­logy,” “de­co­lo­ni­al epi­stem­o­logy,” etc. — are these days sadly all too com­mon. Second, it’s a poly­semous ex­pres­sion, sig­ni­fy­ing more than one thing. Of­ten it refers to things which are not just dis­tinct from one an­oth­er but even op­pos­ite in mean­ing, a prob­lem I’ve writ­ten about be­fore. Lastly, it has both pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive con­nota­tions de­pend­ing on what’s meant and who’s us­ing it.

Hope­fully, this will be­come clear in what fol­lows. Re­turn­ing to Mitro­poulos’ entry, men­tioned at the out­set, we find:

Ad­orno coined the term “iden­tit­ari­an­ism” in Neg­at­ive Dia­lectics (1966), promp­ted by cri­tique of Kan­tian and Hegel­i­an philo­sophies.

The ar­gu­ment, very briefly, goes something like this: Like Hegel, Ad­orno re­jec­ted the man­ner of Kant’s dis­tinc­tion between nou­men­al and phe­nom­en­al forms. Put simply, Ad­orno gran­ted Hegel’s claim con­cern­ing the his­tor­ic­ally- and con­cep­tu­ally-gen­er­at­ive qual­it­ies of non-cor­res­pond­ence, but wanted to press Marx’s cri­tique of philo­soph­ic­al ideal­ism fur­ther against Hegel­i­an Marx­ism. Ad­orno re­mains a dia­lec­tician. But, un­like Hegel and more like Marx, he es­chewed the af­firm­at­ive, syn­thet­ic moves of con­scious­ness (i.e., philo­soph­ic­al ideal­ism) and ac­cor­ded epi­stem­o­lo­gic­al-his­tor­ic­al pri­or­ity to the ob­ject (mat­ter, ma­ter­i­al­ism) rather than the sub­ject (ideal­ism) in ex­plain­ing the course of this gen­er­at­ive, non-cor­res­pond­ence (or non-iden­tity). Iden­tit­ari­an­ism and the ideal­ist philo­sophies of Kant and Hegel are thereby con­tras­ted to a ma­ter­i­al­ist philo­sophy of non-cor­res­pond­ence, or what Ad­orno calls “neg­at­ive dia­lectics.”

How it happened that “iden­tit­ari­an­ism” came to be plaus­ibly used as a syn­onym for “iden­tity polit­ics” — or, more ac­cur­ately, co-op­ted by arch-iden­tit­ari­an Hegel­i­an Marx­ists against any em­phas­is on race, gender and/or sexu­al­ity, and in their de­fense of more or less ex­pli­cit ar­gu­ments that class is the a pri­ori or primary cat­egor­ic­al di­vi­sion of sub­stance — is a mys­tery to me.

Mitro­poulos dis­tin­guishes, in oth­er words, between the ho­mo­gen­eity as­ser­ted by lo­gic­al op­er­a­tions of equi­val­ence or iden­tity, which de­clare un­like things (A & B) to be alike (A = B), and the het­ero­gen­eity as­ser­ted by vari­ous iden­tity groups with com­pet­ing sec­tion­al in­terests, which de­clare them­selves dif­fer­ent from everything else. She in­dic­ates, quite cor­rectly, that the former was cri­ti­cized by Ad­orno in the six­ties, where­as the lat­ter has been cri­ti­cized by fig­ures like Ad­olph Reed, Wal­ter Benn Mi­chaels, Nancy Fraser, and Mark Fish­er over the last fif­teen or so years.