[acituan]

> If there is a group that is a dominant political power, it's the same thing

The problem is to assume that dominant political actors cohere to constitute a group, a conspiratorial evil one at that. Hypotheses of evil conspirators played out so many times throughout history and it never ended well.

We all have a not-so-high-precision heuristic of detecting agency, therefore we sometimes ascribe agency where there is none. This unchecked unfortunately leads to Gnosticism-like belief structures where there are assumed demi-gods and demi-demons playing over us. Proof is any news feed, which will deify or demonize the character-du-jour. (And to be consistent, I am not making media into another conspiratorial force; if we are watching news like that it is only because we've been showing demand for it.)

[wolverine876]

That's a conceptual question but doesn't call into question the practical reality: People clearly have some identity as a group, and act against other perceived groups. In the last few years it's gone from subtle to brazenly, proudly advocated, as evidenced by ethnic nationalism. Arguably, much of the worst in human history was born from discrimination against a group: Armenians, Tutsis, Jews, African-Americans, Muslims in Bosnia, etc. etc. etc.

But to the concept, which we can learn something from: How do you reconcile what you say with the fact that people do have group identities - not as their complete identity, but part of it - and act as a group and treat others as members of groups? They clearly and explicitly do: People will openly discriminate against people based on skin color, sexual orientation, etc. As I said, ethnic nationalism has exploded, worldwide.

[acituan]

I'll start with your second question.

> How do you reconcile what you say with the fact that people do have group identities - not as their complete identity, but part of it - and act as a group and treat others as members of groups?

This has evolutionary roots in kin selection; we as primates do have some machinery that makes us favor the survival of individuals that fulfill some definition of kin. I want to make it very clear, this is a proposition of "what is" and not "what ought". Just because we do have the machinery doesn't make it right, as it can escalate all the way up to genocide. But acknowledging it is a good first step. No one is pure, no one is inherently innocent about it, but also no human is only a primate.

> That's a conceptual question but doesn't call into question the practical reality: People clearly have some identity as a group, and act against other perceived groups.

This is where the definition of identity becomes pivotal; we must not conflate an ontological identity (x is an x and only an x), and a categorical identity (x belongs to the category y). Group identities are the latter. The problem with categorical identities are the certain amount of frivolousness we are allowed about it;

Let's suppose an object a has n attributes, and object b has m attributes. For all objects n and m are infinitely many. Therefore whenever we make a comparison such that "a and b mutually share a subset between their n and m attributes, therefore they are similar" we are excluding infinitely many attributes that they do not share. Conversely, by only selecting a certain subset of those infinitely many attributes, we could claim any two objects to be in the same category. This makes categorical identity by definition a purpose specific, subjective construct. Its key function is relevance; that the attributes we chose are relevant to our goal.

This is exactly where the combination of the machinery for kin selection and inherent flexibility of categorical identity exposes us to hijack. You can convince anyone that they belong to a group by defining a group with the attributes that you find most useful for you. But that doesn't mean it was the best category to approach to the problem with. E.g. just as ethnic nationalism has exploded in Europe, racial essentialism has exploded in the US while very peculiarly missing class identity as a solid alternative that could actually address a good proportion of the grievances. Is this because the flexibility of categorical identity was (ab)used by those who wouldn't find discussions around class identity favorable, or because there was a true essence to those initial categories? My vote; it is more #1 than not.

To sum up; group identities are self-fulfilling, overly flexible and most importantly purpose built constructs. Wrongly choosing the category could as well ossify the problems it is trying to solve than to help people break free of them. I'll even one up; the meta-group of "belonging to a group" is even bigger of a problem; to convince people that the fact that they can be group-things is more important than them being individuals creates a greater host of framing issues for them.

[wolverine876]

Very well written, and I agree completely. Usually I don't bother going that far on HN (and I didn't know the theory so clearly) because I wonder who else is as interested as I am. I'm glad you are.

To give an example of what you describe, many white Americans used to choose identities over where they emigrated from: Italian vs Irish vs Polish, etc. Now many identify around being white Americans, against people with other skin color and against immigrants.

> Is this because the flexibility of categorical identity was (ab)used by those who wouldn't find discussions around class identity favorable, or because there was a true essence to those initial categories? My vote; it is more #1 than not.

There's no true essence to it; that's an assertion by people trying to protect their power against the inevitable flexibility of groups. But also, some of it is not intentional either - it can be just incidental - and I suspect much is the artifact of prior intention: Their grandparents refused to associate with black-skinned people, and so now they don't know any black-skinned people, so they don't identify with them, and black-skinned people become the unknown.

> To sum up; group identities are self-fulfilling, overly flexible and most importantly purpose built constructs. Wrongly choosing the category could as well ossify the problems it is trying to solve than to help people break free of them. I'll even one up; the meta-group of "belonging to a group" is even bigger of a problem; to convince people that the fact that they can be group-things is more important than them being individuals creates a greater host of framing issues for them.

While I agree, we must still solve the present(and past) harm done to people for being identified with certain groups. I'd always work to leave the door open to what you are saying, but that doesn't help black people (and LGBTQ and others) who are threatened and harmed today.

But generally, I'm with you. ;)