In consequence of our recent exchange regarding Sally Rooney’s novel Beautiful World, Where Are You? it dawned on me that the paradigm of opposition has shifted from one based on change and conversion to one based on identity in a more static social-political setting. The immediate clue lay in the fact that I found Eileen’s leftist views unmotivated and Andrew did not. I was bothered that no grounds were given for why this daughter of a complacent middle class should become an embittered sympathizer of Soviet Communism. This reminded me that the young intellectual leftists of the Platypus Society had similarly been incognizant of any experience that had “radicalized” them. They were just what they were, as if opposing capitalism were like being left-handed or far-sighted. It was just who they were. Then I began to consider just how much of the current implicit justification for opposition is based on static identity. Most remarkably, the trans community is deeply invested in claiming that gender is not a choice but an inalienable condition. Choosing to be Black, as Rachel Dolezal did, was therefore equivalent to identity theft. What happened to the notion of choosing to throw in one’s lot with the oppressed? What happened to the paradigm of going over to the other side, of becoming a class traitor? Doing that would require giving an account of beliefs consciously embraced. Of having come around. Now it is not: this is where I take my stand, but rather this is just what I am. Given that identity is the measure of opposition, it is hardly surprising that even leftism itself now seems like an identity, not a choice. All the better, because if too many followed my example and “came out” as I have, I would not only find the cultural-political capital of my exclusion diminished. What is worse: in becoming the majority our claim of authority would be overturned, since oppression was what gave our position its legitimacy. In other words, I am an opponent of the status quo with a compelling interest in seeing it preserved.
Signed,
Andrew (Weeks)
Normal Thoughts 