"Until the middle of the twentieth century, no one who was asked about a person’s identity would have mentioned race, sex, class, nationality, region or religion."
A brief review of just about any book in the bible would soundly refute this statement.
I found Susan Neiman’s Evil in Modern Thought a fascinating, tightly argued book. This attempt to posit a leftist alternative to the “woke” doesn’t convince me, in part because it’s built on questionable foundations, in part because it slips around among ideas of the left, sentimentalizing the internationalist left, bending over backward to accommodate victims identified by identity, and leaving a concrete idea of a leftist path forward unclear.
As others have noted, the proposition that basing identity on race, religion, ethnicity or sex is a mid-twentieth century invention is refuted by history. (It would be interesting to know the context for the quote from Kwame Anthony Appiah.)
The popular and facile claim that history is always written by the victors is also refuted by history, or historians. A few examples: The Athenian Thucydides wrote the history of the Peloponnesian war, a war ultimately won by Sparta. Tacitus, Senator of imperial Rome, quoted (or put into the mouth of) a Germanic chieftain the famous indictment of imperial peace, “Desertum faciunt pacem appellant.” [“They make a desert and call it peace.”] The Southern “Lost Cause” idea of the US Civil War predominated until the revisionist history of the Sixties. Perhaps the last example can suggest that a (self-professed) victim’s story is not the only story, and not always true.
Neiman’s argument is at its slipperiest when she critiques the politics, psychology, and moral value of victimization while bending over backward to express solidarity with any and all victims, to the point of slipping in a call not just for “empathy” but for “reparations wherever possible.” Neiman mentions several examples of people making fraudulent claims of (officially victimized) identity, presumably in search of influence or power, or just a job. How about the hope of free money as a motive to keep the wheels of grievance turning?
Neiman’s view of the internationalist left strikes me as sentimental: the left was never as united as she makes it sound. Under the stirring picture of the International Brigade, the Spanish Civil War saw fierce in-fighting between Communist and liberal opponents of fascism. The resistance movements of countries like Italy and Greece likewise saw combat between partisan groups of varying leftist allegiance, struggles for power in the post-war world. As for universalism, it is to the left of the Soviet Union and Maoist China that we owe the phrase “political correctness,” now usurped by “woke,” which seems to be following—or trying to follow—its totalitarian trajectory, universalism as a source of control rather than solidarity.
I’d like to think there is a left alternative to “woke,” one that focuses on the traditional concerns of labor (fair wages, workplace safety, the right to unionize) and seeks to expand the social safety net (quality public education, affordable healthcare, environmental protections, affordable retirement) to all, covering the cost by raising taxes those who have profited obscenely in the last 40 years. That’s one version of a nuts-and-bolts center left platform that could win popular support. If someone comes up with the language in which to frame it and pulls together a coalition big enough to deny activists, left and right, a veto. I’m not holding my breath.
Are you a historian? I love your catalogue of history not being written by the victors. I agree that it's easy to "sentimentalize" left-wing universalism. However, it's traditionally been a key difference in outlook between the far right and far left. Even universalist pretensions are revealing, especially in relief against ethno-nationalism. Anyway, left-wing universalism seems to be something of the past, even rhetorically, and I take her point to be that this bespeaks a too-little-noticed and dramatic shift in left-wing discourse. In other words, it's an embarrassment for the left, a crisis in left-wing ideology, and a blow to whatever moral authority it might have had. For myself, I'm satisfied with liberal universalism (of, say, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights school) and would count among friends on the leftist fringe an ever-dwindling contingent of Trotsky-ish sorts.
I'm not a historian, but my parents were, and I grew up in a history-saturated world. I like to read history, and think it a sadly neglected discipline. I also like your summation of Neiman's position. Arguably more succinct and clearer than her own. And I'm in on liberal universalism; it has a generosity of outlook that is traduced by the "woke" charge of cultural imperialism. Thanks for your clarifying reply.
I am quite familiar with the author's thesis. I call it the 'Piketty Model'. Apparently, Piketty coined the phrase 'Brahmin Left' as opposed (in his model) to the more traditional 'Merchant Right'. Do I approve of the 'Piketty Model'? No. Does Piketty? Of course, I don't speak for him (he is a French Marxist)? It appears that Piketty is no great fan either.
Excellent! I would add that recognition of injustice and its victims used to be grounded in universal values. In other words, the crime was not the age-old accusation, "Your tribe hurt my tribe." The crime was that people were not treated as individuals of equal worth and dignity, regardless of race, sex, creed, and so on. The crime was, at a minimum, stealing the individual's right to be themselves. The universalist stance -- the focus on universal human rights -- doesn't wash away identity. It protects it.
Meanwhile, in a debate in the Missouri legislature over DEI funding, when asked about what ethnicity he identified as, a Black Republican representative stated "I identify as an American".
When I filled out the 2020 census online, it asked me to identify my nationality and would not accept "American" as an answer. In addition, an answer to this item was required, despite the fact that my ancestors arrived here between 140-200 years ago. Considering that this item serves only to discriminate against someone, most likely people like me, and that furthermore, it is compelled speech, how is this constitutional?
To be fair, race and ethnicity have been part of census since the beginning. Some of my ancestors who were mixed race were listed as "colored" or "mulatto" in the census from the ante-bellum period. But yes, probably there even then as a discriminatory tool. The current focus on racial and ethnic groupings will probably be expanded to those of gender too.
Yes, you are correct, race has been included since the beginning. There were categories for states where a person was born or sometimes where their parents were born. Some census years asked for one language spoken by the citizen. These items obviously tracked immigrants. After the family was in the U.S. for 2 generations, however, they wanted to assimilate and be considered "Americans." This was generally the case by the early 1800's, except for separatist groups like the Amish who continued speaking a dialect of German. By the end of the nineteenth century there was a fair amount of pressure, at least in Pennsylvania where my family settled, to stop speaking the immigrants' original language and stop using it in church records and so on. Most of the people in my grandparents' generation could speak German, but they avoided doing so to such an extent that I didn't know they were fluent until my mother told me so. This wasn't done out of fear, there was a strong value favoring assimilation, identifying with being an American citizen.
I now live in Oregon. When the COVID vaccines were being distributed the governor here used data about race and ethnicity to actively discriminate against people over 65. There was a big push in my county to vaccinate street people and POC's because they were considered "vulnerable," despite the fact that age and medical conditions were the greatest risk factors for hospitalization and death from the disease. (The governor also made sure that teachers of any age and ethnicity were also vaccinated asap, because she was a wholly owned subsidiary of the teachers' unions). Similar policies were perpetrated against elderly white people in other states. Woke activists have explicitly stated that they want to implement policies that are racially and ethnically discriminatory for medical care in general. It is in fact one of their top priorities.
Universities are also using information about the ethnic composition of neighborhoods to discriminate for and against applicants for admission. They are already planning how to get around the expected SCOTUS ruling against affirmative action by using applicants addresses to screen for ethnicity.
I try to avoid using references to Hitler and Nazis to inflame anxieties about what could happen here, but in this case the parallels are unavoidable. The Germans have historically kept exceptional records, which included the religions of their people. Hitler used these records to identify the Jews. It was a very effective system, because the religious history of every citizen's family was known for generations, even centuries.
The practice of collecting this kind of data always leads to adverse consequences for groups of people, if not at the time it is collected, then later, under a regime with new agendas. We need to get rulings from SCOTUS prohibiting the collection of data that is likely to be used to discriminate for or against groups of citizens, especially now that we have been given notice that discrimination is being actively planned.
I can see clearly what is the thoughtful basis for woke. It is a strategy for a power and money-making cut in line. Males, specifically white males... it isn't so much that they have been privileged because of gender or race, it is that they and the market-based system evolved into a high-performance meritocracy that they adopted. Basically, the system rewarded a certain mindset and certain performance related behaviors only because it worked the best, and it was only because males and white males dominated the working/career demographic that they dominated economic outcomes.
The way forward is education and practiced skills development for the other demographic groups to emulate what works and allows them to compete effectively. However, this is hard work and takes time. Better for those greedy for power and money to undertake a grievance project to destroy the working meritocracy system and replace it with one that selects on victim demographics rather than real demonstrated capability.
The problem with woke other than it being a racist immoral ideology at odds with the design of the American system, is that private business cannot survive if it destroys hiring and promotion based on anything other than capability. The competitor that rejects woke employees has a better chance of winning in the market. And the employee that demonstrates stronger performance, work-ethic... basically capability to produce... they will be higher-valued by these employers.
I don't care about the educated female demographic here. They have it great today... except that they are brainwashed by their campus experience and media feeds... but what can be done about that?
But they have weaponized gender and sexuality pulled minorities into this cult project... disingenuously... and again delayed, for example, the final integration of the black community into the mainstream social and economic systems.
Thinking there are shortcuts is understood with the media sensationalism of the small number of people who manage big economic wins. But it is the wrong message and lesson. Most people with a high income and wealth had to grow their skills over time. They had to work their asses off while becoming effective at maneuvering the needed personal relationships to support their career advancement.
Woke is a lie to everyone that needs this message and focus. Basically woke is an immoral attempt by hating, malcontent, educated, power-obsessed, upper-class, liberal feminists, throwing everyone else under the bus to be run over and destroyed only to achieve their goals of dominance of everone else. Anyone that buys into it is complicit in what are crimes against humanity.
Recalls Abraham Lincoln’s July 1858 Electric Cord speech. He confronted the xenophobia of the Know-Nothings:
There are men among us now who cannot trace their ancestry back to the Founders when we celebrate the Fourth — but “if they believe what those old men wrote, they are blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh” of our ancestors….no less than we ourselves
One should read this marvelous speech in its entirety
Recalls also Ernest Renan’s “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?”
Explicitly counters contemporary competing notion of Volk with that of a people united by shared memories and principles, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
We all know the subsequent history of these notions in Europe
"Until the middle of the twentieth century, no one who was asked about a person’s identity would have mentioned race, sex, class, nationality, region or religion."
A brief review of just about any book in the bible would soundly refute this statement.
Refuted by any book of the bible, and I suspect, with the exception of Antarctica, over a thousand years of world history.
Yes, but happier ages regarded ascriptive characteristics as “accidents of birth “. Or “hasards de naissance”
Enlightenment Republics looks, like MLK, to “content of character”
I found Susan Neiman’s Evil in Modern Thought a fascinating, tightly argued book. This attempt to posit a leftist alternative to the “woke” doesn’t convince me, in part because it’s built on questionable foundations, in part because it slips around among ideas of the left, sentimentalizing the internationalist left, bending over backward to accommodate victims identified by identity, and leaving a concrete idea of a leftist path forward unclear.
As others have noted, the proposition that basing identity on race, religion, ethnicity or sex is a mid-twentieth century invention is refuted by history. (It would be interesting to know the context for the quote from Kwame Anthony Appiah.)
The popular and facile claim that history is always written by the victors is also refuted by history, or historians. A few examples: The Athenian Thucydides wrote the history of the Peloponnesian war, a war ultimately won by Sparta. Tacitus, Senator of imperial Rome, quoted (or put into the mouth of) a Germanic chieftain the famous indictment of imperial peace, “Desertum faciunt pacem appellant.” [“They make a desert and call it peace.”] The Southern “Lost Cause” idea of the US Civil War predominated until the revisionist history of the Sixties. Perhaps the last example can suggest that a (self-professed) victim’s story is not the only story, and not always true.
Neiman’s argument is at its slipperiest when she critiques the politics, psychology, and moral value of victimization while bending over backward to express solidarity with any and all victims, to the point of slipping in a call not just for “empathy” but for “reparations wherever possible.” Neiman mentions several examples of people making fraudulent claims of (officially victimized) identity, presumably in search of influence or power, or just a job. How about the hope of free money as a motive to keep the wheels of grievance turning?
Neiman’s view of the internationalist left strikes me as sentimental: the left was never as united as she makes it sound. Under the stirring picture of the International Brigade, the Spanish Civil War saw fierce in-fighting between Communist and liberal opponents of fascism. The resistance movements of countries like Italy and Greece likewise saw combat between partisan groups of varying leftist allegiance, struggles for power in the post-war world. As for universalism, it is to the left of the Soviet Union and Maoist China that we owe the phrase “political correctness,” now usurped by “woke,” which seems to be following—or trying to follow—its totalitarian trajectory, universalism as a source of control rather than solidarity.
I’d like to think there is a left alternative to “woke,” one that focuses on the traditional concerns of labor (fair wages, workplace safety, the right to unionize) and seeks to expand the social safety net (quality public education, affordable healthcare, environmental protections, affordable retirement) to all, covering the cost by raising taxes those who have profited obscenely in the last 40 years. That’s one version of a nuts-and-bolts center left platform that could win popular support. If someone comes up with the language in which to frame it and pulls together a coalition big enough to deny activists, left and right, a veto. I’m not holding my breath.
Are you a historian? I love your catalogue of history not being written by the victors. I agree that it's easy to "sentimentalize" left-wing universalism. However, it's traditionally been a key difference in outlook between the far right and far left. Even universalist pretensions are revealing, especially in relief against ethno-nationalism. Anyway, left-wing universalism seems to be something of the past, even rhetorically, and I take her point to be that this bespeaks a too-little-noticed and dramatic shift in left-wing discourse. In other words, it's an embarrassment for the left, a crisis in left-wing ideology, and a blow to whatever moral authority it might have had. For myself, I'm satisfied with liberal universalism (of, say, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights school) and would count among friends on the leftist fringe an ever-dwindling contingent of Trotsky-ish sorts.
I'm not a historian, but my parents were, and I grew up in a history-saturated world. I like to read history, and think it a sadly neglected discipline. I also like your summation of Neiman's position. Arguably more succinct and clearer than her own. And I'm in on liberal universalism; it has a generosity of outlook that is traduced by the "woke" charge of cultural imperialism. Thanks for your clarifying reply.
Left may not be 'woke' in theory. In practice, the left is totally 'woke'.
Well, Peter. It looks like you missed the whole point of the article.
I am quite familiar with the author's thesis. I call it the 'Piketty Model'. Apparently, Piketty coined the phrase 'Brahmin Left' as opposed (in his model) to the more traditional 'Merchant Right'. Do I approve of the 'Piketty Model'? No. Does Piketty? Of course, I don't speak for him (he is a French Marxist)? It appears that Piketty is no great fan either.
Excellent! I would add that recognition of injustice and its victims used to be grounded in universal values. In other words, the crime was not the age-old accusation, "Your tribe hurt my tribe." The crime was that people were not treated as individuals of equal worth and dignity, regardless of race, sex, creed, and so on. The crime was, at a minimum, stealing the individual's right to be themselves. The universalist stance -- the focus on universal human rights -- doesn't wash away identity. It protects it.
Meanwhile, in a debate in the Missouri legislature over DEI funding, when asked about what ethnicity he identified as, a Black Republican representative stated "I identify as an American".
When I filled out the 2020 census online, it asked me to identify my nationality and would not accept "American" as an answer. In addition, an answer to this item was required, despite the fact that my ancestors arrived here between 140-200 years ago. Considering that this item serves only to discriminate against someone, most likely people like me, and that furthermore, it is compelled speech, how is this constitutional?
To be fair, race and ethnicity have been part of census since the beginning. Some of my ancestors who were mixed race were listed as "colored" or "mulatto" in the census from the ante-bellum period. But yes, probably there even then as a discriminatory tool. The current focus on racial and ethnic groupings will probably be expanded to those of gender too.
Yes, you are correct, race has been included since the beginning. There were categories for states where a person was born or sometimes where their parents were born. Some census years asked for one language spoken by the citizen. These items obviously tracked immigrants. After the family was in the U.S. for 2 generations, however, they wanted to assimilate and be considered "Americans." This was generally the case by the early 1800's, except for separatist groups like the Amish who continued speaking a dialect of German. By the end of the nineteenth century there was a fair amount of pressure, at least in Pennsylvania where my family settled, to stop speaking the immigrants' original language and stop using it in church records and so on. Most of the people in my grandparents' generation could speak German, but they avoided doing so to such an extent that I didn't know they were fluent until my mother told me so. This wasn't done out of fear, there was a strong value favoring assimilation, identifying with being an American citizen.
I now live in Oregon. When the COVID vaccines were being distributed the governor here used data about race and ethnicity to actively discriminate against people over 65. There was a big push in my county to vaccinate street people and POC's because they were considered "vulnerable," despite the fact that age and medical conditions were the greatest risk factors for hospitalization and death from the disease. (The governor also made sure that teachers of any age and ethnicity were also vaccinated asap, because she was a wholly owned subsidiary of the teachers' unions). Similar policies were perpetrated against elderly white people in other states. Woke activists have explicitly stated that they want to implement policies that are racially and ethnically discriminatory for medical care in general. It is in fact one of their top priorities.
Universities are also using information about the ethnic composition of neighborhoods to discriminate for and against applicants for admission. They are already planning how to get around the expected SCOTUS ruling against affirmative action by using applicants addresses to screen for ethnicity.
I try to avoid using references to Hitler and Nazis to inflame anxieties about what could happen here, but in this case the parallels are unavoidable. The Germans have historically kept exceptional records, which included the religions of their people. Hitler used these records to identify the Jews. It was a very effective system, because the religious history of every citizen's family was known for generations, even centuries.
The practice of collecting this kind of data always leads to adverse consequences for groups of people, if not at the time it is collected, then later, under a regime with new agendas. We need to get rulings from SCOTUS prohibiting the collection of data that is likely to be used to discriminate for or against groups of citizens, especially now that we have been given notice that discrimination is being actively planned.
At times I'm tempted to misrepresent myself in these types of information gathering schemes. But then after all, depends on how you "feel" that day.
I can see clearly what is the thoughtful basis for woke. It is a strategy for a power and money-making cut in line. Males, specifically white males... it isn't so much that they have been privileged because of gender or race, it is that they and the market-based system evolved into a high-performance meritocracy that they adopted. Basically, the system rewarded a certain mindset and certain performance related behaviors only because it worked the best, and it was only because males and white males dominated the working/career demographic that they dominated economic outcomes.
The way forward is education and practiced skills development for the other demographic groups to emulate what works and allows them to compete effectively. However, this is hard work and takes time. Better for those greedy for power and money to undertake a grievance project to destroy the working meritocracy system and replace it with one that selects on victim demographics rather than real demonstrated capability.
The problem with woke other than it being a racist immoral ideology at odds with the design of the American system, is that private business cannot survive if it destroys hiring and promotion based on anything other than capability. The competitor that rejects woke employees has a better chance of winning in the market. And the employee that demonstrates stronger performance, work-ethic... basically capability to produce... they will be higher-valued by these employers.
I don't care about the educated female demographic here. They have it great today... except that they are brainwashed by their campus experience and media feeds... but what can be done about that?
But they have weaponized gender and sexuality pulled minorities into this cult project... disingenuously... and again delayed, for example, the final integration of the black community into the mainstream social and economic systems.
Thinking there are shortcuts is understood with the media sensationalism of the small number of people who manage big economic wins. But it is the wrong message and lesson. Most people with a high income and wealth had to grow their skills over time. They had to work their asses off while becoming effective at maneuvering the needed personal relationships to support their career advancement.
Woke is a lie to everyone that needs this message and focus. Basically woke is an immoral attempt by hating, malcontent, educated, power-obsessed, upper-class, liberal feminists, throwing everyone else under the bus to be run over and destroyed only to achieve their goals of dominance of everone else. Anyone that buys into it is complicit in what are crimes against humanity.
Convictions not blood !
Eloquent and essential reminder
Recalls Abraham Lincoln’s July 1858 Electric Cord speech. He confronted the xenophobia of the Know-Nothings:
There are men among us now who cannot trace their ancestry back to the Founders when we celebrate the Fourth — but “if they believe what those old men wrote, they are blood of the blood and flesh of the flesh” of our ancestors….no less than we ourselves
One should read this marvelous speech in its entirety
Recalls also Ernest Renan’s “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?”
Explicitly counters contemporary competing notion of Volk with that of a people united by shared memories and principles, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
We all know the subsequent history of these notions in Europe