| 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. ;) |