EDIT: Clearly the discussion to which I was replying was moved or deleted. If the moderators think it's appropriate to move this post to a more appropriate thread, please do so, otherwise if it's still here in the morning I'll take it down as no longer relevant given that it's in reply to a discussion that is no longer present in this thread.
The problem with the far left these days is that any opinion that doesn't line up with theirs is automatically regarded as offensive or an insult. The far right is just as bad. Can people no longer agree to disagree?
I recognize that I'm wading into very choppy waters here, and I may well regret this post, but the political scientist in me finds this discussion too juicy to ignore.
"Identity politics" as a term of art is all the rage these days, usually seen in its native habitat being lobbed about by politicians trying to get the public to dismiss ideas they (the politician, that is) disagree with without substantively engaging with them. That said, the concept of "identity politics", maybe more usefully phrased as "politics as identity" or "identity as politics" is extremely useful.
One of the hallmarks of this era of political debate is the extent to which political opinions and identity are becoming increasingly tied together. It has the effect of rendering more and more things "political" while simultaneously increasing the salience and importance of political matters in relation to personal identity.
I seem to have a particular lack of self-preservation instinct today, so I'm going to set out an example, which feels a little like the online equivalent of the prospect of walking into a field of landmines must feel like. All opinions provided are my own, and any offense anyone may take is unintentional.
That said, I think an instructive example is the still-ongoing but no-longer-maximally-controversial issue of and debate over LGBT rights. (I acknowledge that the community - and acronym - is far larger and more diverse; I'm just using a common shorthand for the sake of brevity.) When the country was embroiled in, for instance, the considerably charge debate over same-sex marriage from circa 2003 to 2015, from one angle it appeared to be just another political debate, between one side arguing in favor of a vaguely-libertarian position combining freedom of choice with anti-discrimination and equality elements. (Fundamentally, the state shouldn't arbitrarily let some people not get married because they - meaning the state - don't like who they want to marry.) On the other side you had traditionalist and religious elements arguing what was largely a moralist position (i.e. the state should not sanction or permit "immorality" or "sinfulness"). To the majority who didn't have a particular skin in the game, so to speak, where you fell on the issue was largely a matter of ideological/personal belief and pre-existing political inclinations. For
members of the LGBT community, however, the circumstances were very different, as what was at issue was a deeply personal issue regarding whether we would be accorded equal rights to everyone else in this matter, or not. To someone in that position, it was extremely difficult to separate the political from the personal. It's possible to understand, intellectually, how and why someone might come to a contrary position, but it's deeply uncomfortable to be faced with and engage with a position and argument that is fundamentally opposed to one's sense of self, self-worth, and one's conception of one's human rights.
That example, I hope, helps to illustrate why the tying of politics to elements of identity provokes such strong emotions. If, as is often the case today, political and policy issues and discussions are deeply tied to matters of identity (for an example the other direction, see rhetoric from Trump-supporting Republicans casting Democrats as, essentially, satanic demons come to destroy everything they hold dear. It's apocalyptic and terrifying, even if it's not really
true as such even the prospect is terrifying enough to be a powerful motivator, especially when stoked by media and political actors aiming to profit by it) then the prospect of the "other side" becomes anathema and the thought of that "enemy" winning power becomes a doomsday scenario. In those conditions it becomes
rational to make no compromises, because it becomes akin to providing aid and comfort to the enemy, and increasing the chances that they come to power.
Agreeing to disagree is only possible where both sides accept the legitimacy of the other side's position. That becomes very hard if not impossible wherever the other side's position is, or feels like it is, not just diametrically opposed to but outright hostile to one's own identity. And it feeds and is tied to a style of political thinking that then tends to use identity as a shorthand; anyone who shares a given identity may, within the bounds of it, express variation of opinion, but anyone outside of it who attempts to do so is suspicious at least or illegitimate at worst. Add in some of the common impulses of human nature and what you get is a very exclusionary (but not necessarily irrational) style of political discourse where those who are not part of a given group are free to agree with its 'consensus' position but not to challenge it. (Witness how fast, for example, the GOP turns on anyone who dares to question Trump.)
You're not wrong about how often opinions that are divergent are automatically taken as insults. Some of that is just a particularly-uncompromising style of political discourse, but a considerable degree of it concerns the question of legitimacy, which is deeply tied to identity for reasons that are very often neither shallow nor irrational. It's why I used the example of LGBT rights above, because the instinctive reaction to challenge by someone outside a community is often "how dare they", "how dare someone who isn't part of this, hasn't lived this, maybe isn't even
affected by this dare to say that we who are are
wrong". That instinctive response is not always right, but it's not always wrong, and when that is the baseline for political identity and discourse it does not favor calm and neutral discussion and agreeing to disagree, because it's so immediately palpable that there is no such thing as neutral in so many of these things.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, I guess. I didn't really expect to write this when I started. Hopefully it might be some useful discussion for people.
