Nachteile einer Identitätspolitik

Indentitätspolitik ist momentan immer mehr im Aufschwung. Sie ist sowohl für Rechte Gruppen als auch für linke Gruppen interessant, auch wenn sie dort verschieden eingesetzt wird.

Die Grundlagen der Identitätspolitik aus der Wikipedia:

Identity politics, also called identitarian politics,[2] refers to political positions based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify. Identity politics includes the ways in which people’s politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through loosely correlated social organizations. Examples include social organizations based on age, religion, social class or caste, culture, dialect, disability, education, ethnicity, language, nationality, sex, gender identity, generation, occupation, profession, race, political party affiliation, sexual orientation, settlement, urban and rural habitation, and veteran status. Not all members of any given group are involved in identity politics. Identity politics are used by minority and civil rights organizations to form a coalition with members of the majority.

The term identity politics came into being during the latter part of the 20th century, especially the African-American Civil Rights Era.[3]

Den fett markierten Satz finde ich interessant. Denn tatsächlich ist es ja eher das Gegenteil: Man grenzt sich ab und definiert die anderen als Gegenseite, die einen diskriminiert. Über diesen Vorwurf wird eine gewisse Unterstützung angefordert, aber gerade in einem extremen Bereich arbeitet man nicht damit eine Koalition zu schaffen, sondern eher mit Beschämung und aggressiven Vorhalten.

Zur Geschichte der Theorie:

The term identity politics has been used in political discourse since at least the 1970s.[4] One aim of identity politics has been for those feeling oppressed to articulate their felt oppression in terms of their own experience by a process of consciousness-raising. For example, in their terminal statement of black feminist identity politics, the Combahee River Collective said:

„[A]s children we realized that we were different from boys and that we were treated different—for example, when we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being ‚ladylike‘ and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. In the process of consciousness-raising, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from the sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression.“[5]
Identity politics, as a mode of organizing, is closely connected to the fact that some social groups are oppressed (such as women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, etc.); that is, individuals belonging to those groups are, by virtue of their identity, more vulnerable to forms of oppression such as cultural imperialism, violence, exploitation of labour, marginalization, or powerlessness.[6]

Class identity politics were first described briefly in an article by L. A. Kauffman, who traced its origins to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an organization of the civil rights movementin the USA in the early and mid-1960s.[7] Although SNCC invented many of the fundamental practices which currently make up identity politics, and although various black power groups extended them, they apparently found no need to apply a term. Rather, the term emerged when others outside the black freedom movements—particularly, the race- and ethnic-specific women’s liberation movements, such as Black feminism—began to adopt the practice in the late 1960s. Traces of identity politics can also be found in the early writings of the modern gay liberation movements, such as Dennis Altman’s Homosexual: Liberation/Oppression,[8][9] Jeffrey Week’s Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present, and[10] Ken Plummer’s ed The Making of the Modern Homosexual.

One of the older written examples of it can be found in the Combahee River Collective Statement of April 1977, subsequently reprinted in a number of anthologies,[11] and Barbara Smith and the Combahee River Collective have been credited with coining the term; which they defined as „a politics that grew out of our objective material experiences as Black women.[12]

Original six members of the Black Panther Party (1966)
Top left to right: Elbert „Big Man“ Howard, Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherwin Forte, Bobby Seale (Chairman)
Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton(Treasurer).
Some groups have combined identity politics and Marxist social class analysis and class consciousness—the most notable example being the Black Panther Party—but this is not necessarily characteristic of the form. Another example is MOVE, who mixed black nationalism with anarcho-primitivism (a radical form of green politics based on the idea that civilization is an instrument of oppression, advocating the return to a hunter gatherer society).[13][14]

During the 1980s, the politics of identity became very prominent and it was linked to a new wave of social movement activism.[15]

White identity politics can be driven by demographic change and diversity. Increased diversity and the prospect of whites becoming a minority in America can drive many to affiliate with conservative causes including those not related to diversity.[16]

Die Theorien stellen also den Benachteiligten in den Vordergrund und lassen seine Erfahrungen maßgeblich sein, eben seine Identität als Angehöriger einer bestimmten benachteiligten Gruppe.

Auch die Kritiksektion in der Wikipedia ist interessant:

The term identity politics has been applied retroactively to varying movements that long predate its coinage. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his book The Disuniting of America. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of liberal conceptions of civil rights, argues that a liberal democracy requires a common basis for culture and society to function. In his view, basing politics on group marginalization fractures the civil polity, and therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization. Schlesinger believes that „movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, rather than…perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference“.[17]

Brendan O’Neill has contrasted the politics of gay liberation and identity politics by saying „… [Peter] Tatchell also had, back in the day, was a commitment to the politics of liberation, which encouraged gays to come out and live and engage. Now, we have the politics of identity, which invites people to stay in, to look inward, to obsess over the body and the self, to surround themselves with a moral forcefield to protect their worldview—which has nothing to do with the world—from any questioning.“[18]

Left-wing socialist author Owen Jones claims that identity politics often marginalizes the working class, saying that:

In the 1950s and 1960s, left-wing intellectuals who were both inspired and informed by a powerful labour movement wrote hundreds of books and articles on working-class issues. Such work would help shape the views of politicians at the very top of the Labour Party. Today, progressive intellectuals are far more interested in issues of identity. … Of course, the struggles for the emancipation of women, gays, and ethnic minorities are exceptionally important causes. New Labour has co-opted them, passing genuinely progressive legislation on gay equality and women’s rights, for example. But it is an agenda that has happily co-existed with the sidelining of the working class in politics, allowing New Labour to protect its radical flank while pressing ahead with Thatcherite policies.

In der Tat spaltet die Identitätspolitik eher als zu nutzen:

Die Betroffenen können alles nur noch aus der Identitätsperspektive sehen und greifen aus dieser heraus den „Mainstream“ an, den sie für alle ihre Probleme verantwortlich machen. Sie grenzen sich ab und teilen damit in Gruppen ein, statt Gemeinsamkeiten auszumachen. Es gibt kein gemeinsames „Wir“ der Gruppen mehr, sonder nur noch ein  „Wir innerhalb der Gruppe“ gegen „die“.

Der eigenen Gruppe wird eine moralische Überlegenheit und ein höheres Wissen zugesprochen, was sich sicherlich gut anfühlt. Die anderen werden abgewertet und als jemand angesehen, der lernen und akzeptieren muss bzw der eigenen Gruppe schadet. Daraus entsteht dann Hass und Verachtung, das Gefühl, dass man der anderen Gruppe in allem überlegen ist und das diese Buße tun muss. „Allys“ können immerhin virtue SIgnalling betreiben und sich darüber der „guten Gruppe zuteilen“.

Dieses Auftreten führt natürlich auch dazu, dass die andere Gruppe merkt, dass sie als Feind wahrgenommen wird und entsprechend ihrerseits darauf reagiert. Entweder mit verstärkter Ablehnung (was dann wieder als Bestätigung in der Identitätspolitik gesehen werden kann, dass diese recht haben und die anderen nicht zuhören) oder mit dem Versuch der anderen Seite zu helfen oder zumindest ein Beschämen zu entgehen.

Um so mehr die Gruppe sich da hineinsteigert um so größer wird auch die Abgrenzung. Was zu immer mehr Spaltungen führt. Identitätspolitik ist insofern ein Teufelskreis.