A perspective on the Left and identity politics

[Pindar]

I was reading a piece:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"England’s National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) has voted for an academic boycott on Israeli institutions of higher education that do not renounce Israel’s “apartheid policy.”

[...]

"Also today, the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the largest labor union in Canada, voted in favor of a boycott of Israel because of its treatment of Palestinians.

Are these boycotts anti-Semitic? Maybe not, but, as I noted the other day, they are hypocritical, sanctimonious, and deeply wrong. No one is demanding a boycott of Russian academics over Russia’s occupation of Chechnya and the atrocities committed there (which dwarf, to put it mildly, Israel’s human rights abuses in the occupied territories). Or, as Ari Paul points out in an article at Reason.com, a boycott of Chinese academics because of the occupation of Tibet and other assorted abuses by the Chinese regime. Or ... sadly, the list could go on and on.

Partly, this double standard is rooted in the all-too-familiar leftist mentality which strenuously condemns bad behavior by Western or pro-Western governments while turning a blind eye to the far worse misdeeds of communist and/or Third World regimes. (It’s not quite clear into which category Putin’s Russia falls.) But the movement to boycott Israel is especially repulsive because it combines this anti-Western, anti-democratic bias with an element of “picking on the little guy.” No one in his or her right mind, even among the British intelligentsia or Canadian public employees, would propose boycotting American institutions because of the occupation of Iraq. Why? Because, obviously, such a boycott would cripple any institution’s ability to conduct its business; in the case of an academic boycott, it would cripple a country’s academic life and scientific research. But lashing out at Israel as a proxy for America is something one can do with minimal inconvenience.

An American boycott of any institution that participates in this shameful enterprise would be an appropriate response. It would be too much to expect the American Association of University Professors, but the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers should step up to the plate."

that included this commentary:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I’d simply add that I think one of the prime reasons the Western left, for all its purported “progressivism,” is so concerned with punishing Israel is that Israel, like, say, Michael Steele or Thomas Sowell, has wandered off the progressive plantation and rejected the narrative assigned it by those who presume to speak for a larger identity agenda. Which is to say, kibbutz culture has given way, over the years, to a strong capitalist system—and so Israel is considered by many on the left to be a traitor to the cause of worldwide socialism, just as surely as Steele and Sowell (among others) are considered race traitors for rejecting the political narrative assigned them by those who have assumed the mantle of “authentic” blacks.

This then lead to the below statement by a blogger which I thought some might find interesting:


"Leftism, and liberalism, and progressivism, and etc-ism. are not merely simple politics for most of these people. Their politics to them are a core part of their identity, and, more importantly, a central support propping up their egos. They are enlightened because they believe these things; someone who does not believe these things, and yet who, superficially at least, appears to be about as smart as they might be, represents a threat to their egos. The foundation upon which a crucial structure of their sense of self-worth is undermined if they discover that there may be people who can pass as normal and intelligent and yet do not believe as they do.

If one is smart, then one believes in progressivism.

If one believes in progressivism, then one is smart.

Those are the two assumptions that prop up their sense of self worth, and they are refuted by examples of smart people who don't believe in progressivism.

And because there is a great deal of personal psychological investment in progressivism, they react intemperately to rejections of it. It's not merely a tax cut that's being debated; it's they're very sense of importance that's being attacked. It's not merely gay marriage which is being argued against; it's their value as human beings that is being uncouthly denigrated.

This tends to make the left more emotional and, well, angry when debating issues. It's all well and good to discuss a purely theoretical issue. But when you have a strong emotional investment in it -- when you have skin in the game, as it were -- it becomes not an academic debate but a heated argument."