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Group Identity

Entry 2241, on 2022-10-03 at 21:46:27 (Rating 4, Philosophy)

I often think to myself, what is it about the woke, politically correct, leftist fascists which annoys me the most? For example, what is it that triggers me to get involved in Facebook debates which, I suspect, are fairly pointless and won't change anyone's opinion?

If I had to narrow it down to one thing, I think it would be identity politics. Definitions of this vary somewhat, but my simplistic explanation is a belief system where people are judged primarily based on groups they belong to instead of who they are, or what they believe, or what they achieve as individuals.

Note that many of these groups - in fact the majority of them - aren't the type a person can join voluntarily. They are usually based on immutable characteristics, such as sex, age, or ethnicity.

Now this, to me, is clearly not only a stupid way, but also an unfair and dangerous way to behave. How can judging a person, based on something they cannot change, be fair and reasonable? Well, clearly, it can't.

But we increasingly see people being accepted for jobs based on these characteristics. In many countries it is illegal to have these types of requirements, but when they favour traditionally "repressed" minorities this is often overlooked, and even if the bias isn't overt it can still be there.

So a large company saying that they want to hire more women into senior roles, or another saying they want more people of colour in engineering is OK, but saying they want an old white man isn't. And when hiring is done in an unbiased way, if it leads to hiring a majority of those old white men, you can be sure some criticism will be forthcoming.

I very much believe in the primacy of the individual. I like many of the concepts emphasised by libertarians and followers of Ayn Rand's philosophical idea of Objectivism. Note that I am aware of the controversy around Rand, especially whether she was a genuine philosopher or not, but I am just interested in exploring ideas instead of worrying about who originated them, or how academically respected they are.

I found this quote from New Zealand's libertarian party (or the closest thing we have to one), Act. They said "a person should never need to pass an identity test to do their job." To many people this would be uncontroversial and, in fact, undeniable, but many others would disagree, saying that some groups in society deserve extra consideration due to factors which disadvantage them, for reasons beyond their control.

I would have two questions about this: first, are these people really disadvantaged by society, because it is often unclear where the fault lies; and second, even if there are systemic factors working against them, is it fair to favour them over another person who played no direct part in this process?

For example, many New Zealand organisations celebrate hiring more Maori instead of European New Zealanders, because there is a narrative that Maori are the victims of systemic racism. But is the lack of Maori in senior roles really the result of racism, or is it a cultural issue where that community favours formal education less? And even if it could be shown that racism does exist, does making a hiring decision based on that belief OK? Does the white European deserve to be denied a job they might be better at, just to correct a perceived imbalance. Should it be them who pays?

I think the answer to the second question is clearly no. If we concede that making decisions based on race is bad when it goes against the person in the "minority group" then surely making a race-based decision which favours that group must also be bad. Are they not examples of racism in both cases?

I also dislike news reports which celebrate a person's accomplishments based on their membership of a group. For example, with the headline "Kamala Harris makes history as first woman of color elected US vice president" I have to wonder why we are celebrating that simple fact instead of whether she is a good vice president. Many people would say that the evidence indicates she's a terrible VP, and some might extend this to calling her a complete idiot.

And that brings me to another point. People who criticise Harris are often accused of being sexist or racist, as if the fact that she is a black woman (but not very black, really) means she is beyond criticism. There would be no suggestion of this if Donald Trump was criticised for similar reasons. So can we not criticise a politician because of the group they belong to? This sounds both unfair and potentially undemocratic.

All of these issues can be avoided if we all just ignore identity or pretend we don't see it in the person, and judge them based on their abilities instead. The famous quote from Martin Luther King, "judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character" summarises this idea well. But apparently the woke crowd like to praise people who worked for black equality, except when it doesn't suit their agenda.

Note also how sexist MLK was when he used the word "man" there; maybe it should have been "judge a person not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". You can see how easy the identity game is to play if even a hero of the left can be criticised for failing to be "inclusive".

So, I say let's just treat people as individuals. Praising people simply because of the identity they have is unfair both to them, because it treats them as if they can only succeed based on their identity rather than their real worth, and on others, because they might do the same but get no recognition because they don't belong to one of those favoured groups.

When one group is favoured over another it also leads to resentment. I'm sure black people in the US were resentful when white people got jobs which they might have been able to do better. So why would we assume that doing the opposite is not also going to lead to disgruntlement which might result in negativity towards the person getting the special treatment, even though it isn't really their fault?

It's an apparently complex problem, but it has a simple solution: just treat people as individuals and not as representatives of groups which they are seen as belonging to. If a person is best for the job, ignore their gender, race, sexual preferences, etc, and hire them. If a person from a disadvantaged group does something wrong it's not racist, or sexist, or homophobic to say so, it's just stating something which would otherwise be accepted.

We're all individuals. We all belong to groups too, but I don't think that should be as important as it is to many today. We should all be able just to be ourselves without our group identity becoming a factor.

Comment 2 (7309) by OJB on 2022-10-04 at 08:38:07: (view earlier comments)

Exactly. It creates all sorts of negative side-effects, even if it did achieve its original intention, which is debatable in itself.

Comment 3 (7310) by Ken Spall on 2022-10-04 at 10:15:02:

I've always believed that decisions based on race will be problematic.

Comment 4 (7311) by OJB on 2022-10-04 at 10:39:01:

I would say any preference given to a group based on race is simple racism. They try to justify it, but that's what it is. So, yes. it is problematic.

Comment 5 (7312) by Anonymous on 2022-10-05 at 09:03:28:

It's funny isn't it? Group identity, or identity politics seems to be a modern rebranding of stereotyping - the assumption of a set of characteristics based on group membership. Correct me if I'm wrong, but often left leaning individuals have bemoaned stereotyping and profiling?

Comment 6 (7313) by OJB on 2022-10-05 at 10:28:55:

Yes, in the past group identity has been a thing - on both sides of politics but arguably mainly the right - for years. It isn't a great idea in most cases so most intelligent people decided to abandon it. Except the crazy leftist SJWs who embraced it, reversed many of the stereotypes, and escalated it further.

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