June 2024
Identity politics has been criticised for its fragmentation of the political order, its lack of a sense of what is called “intersectionality”. Its different adherents, understandably perhaps, pursue their particular agendas in a partisan fashion, so caught up are they in arguing their cases with passion and conviction that they lose sight of, or just do not see, the bigger picture, whether that bigger picture includes human responsibilities as well as rights, climate change, or the wider issues of community and ecology across the planet. The identity politics of race, gender, and class, for instance, are all part of the whole. Every single cause is also the context for every other.