Jetsetting is now not the privilege of the elite so much as a veritiginous mundanity for a permanently dispossessed global workforce.
Identity politics is not politics at all, since it precisely negates the political as such by re-construing political positions in ethnic terms, subsuming 'ought' under 'is.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
Identity politics distorts traditional political discourse by focusing on ethnic and identity categories rather than broader political principles.
Mark Fisher's quote critiques the concept of identity politics, arguing that it undermines genuine political discourse by framing political issues in terms of ethnic identities. He suggests that this approach reduces political arguments to mere categorizations based on identity, shifting the conversation from discussing what should be done ('ought') to what is currently the case ('is'), thus negating the essence of political debate and action.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a university lecture on social justice, I might use this quote to provoke discussion on the effectiveness of identity politics in achieving equality.
More from Mark Fisher
All quotes βIf it is true, for instance, that depression is constituted by low serotonin levels, what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin. This requires a social and political explanation.
The most powerful love songs always turn on the discrepancy between the act of declaring love and the knowledge that the ostensible addressee is no longer there, was never there, and could never be there.
Little Axe's records are wracked with collective grief. Spectral harmonicas resemble howling wolves; echoes linger like wounds that will never heal; the voices of the living harmonise with the voices of the dead in songs thick with reproach, recrimination and the hunger for redemption.
If people dying as a consequence of the implementation of measures cannot count as evidence that the legislation has detrimental effects, what would?
What many students most want from college, although they would never admit it, is an authority structure. There is a demand for an authority which they can then reject; they want to be told what to do, so they can disobey. It is a textbook case of bad faith, a flight from freedom.
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Criminals, people who commit crimes, usually society rejects these people. They are also part of our society. Give them some form of punishment to say they were wrong, but show them they are part of society and can change. Show them compassion.
When you have a global mush, people lose their identity, they become pseudonyms, they have no investment and no consequence in what they do.
An event may be small and insignificant in its origin , and yet, when drawn close to oneβs eye, it may open in its center an infinite and radiant perspective because a higher order of being is trying to express itself in it and irradiates it violently.
Where persons love little, do little, and give little, we may shrewdly suspect that they have never had much affliction of heart for their sins and that they think they owe but very little to divine grace.
Nothing discernible to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.
Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?