Thoughts on identity politics

I was thinking about my failed attempt at grad school this morning and remembered a visiting professor who came to give a lecture about al-Farabi. I can't remember which rock star in the field of philosophy of Islamic lands it was but during the Q&A, he was asked about a different scholar who had a very different conclusion about whether or not Farabi was the author of a particular work. The professor's answer was along the lines that this other scholar was entirely wrong but that was forgivable because he had all the right politics.

That reminded me of one of my favorite essays, "Reflections on the philosophy of Hitlerism" by Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas was a French Jew who studied under Edmund Husserl at the University of Freiberg where he also encountered Martin Heidegger just before the latter joined the Nazi party and became rector at the University. The tail end of the essay details the role that identity politics plays in fascism in general and Nazism in particular.

Man no longer stands before a world of ideas where he can choose his own truth by a sovereign decision of his free reason; he is already bound to certain truths, as he is bound by birth to all men of his blood. He cannot play with ideas anymore because they come from his concrete being, are anchored in his flesh and blood and share their gravity.

Chained to his body, man is denied the power to escape from himself. Truth, for man, is no longer contemplation of a foreign spectacle, it is a drama in which he himself is an actor. So it is, weighed down by his existence - which contains irreversible givens- that man will say his yes or no.

It's notable that Heidegger never recanted of joining the Nazi party. His own philosophy was grounded very much in the same idea that who we are irrevocably determines who we will be. We are overwhelmed by our past and our becoming is set by what has become before.

In contrast to that, Levinas offers that humanity has the miracle of the power of repentance. We are not chained to who we are right now. We can encounter ourselves, our own history, and change the course of our future selves by exercising free will.

But we are being told these days by Q, MAGA types, Christian Nationalists and others that whatever our choices we make according to our own reason it doesn't matter unless we belong to the right tribe. For Christian Nationalists it's not only being American of European descent but also being the right kind of radicalized Christian. For MAGA types, it's being a Trumpist. For Q types, it's being redpilled. Without belonging to the right tribe, our ideas don't matter. If we're not part of the right tribe, we can't possibly be right in any discussion because we're "gay" or we're "deluded". Being who we are, we can never be right or, even if they might agree that we are right like the proverbial stopped clock that's right twice a day, our ideas do not need to be entertained because of who we are.

Like the professor at that lecture. Despite thinking his colleague was clearly in the wrong, he thought his colleague's ideas were at least worth being entertained because he belonged to the correct tribe. And if he belongs to the correct tribe and he has all the right politics, he's at least worth listening to even when he's wrong.

Such a view diminishes human freedom. The capacity for thought and developing ideas resides in all of us and the power of those ideas stems not from who we are but from the very strength those ideas have.