Karsten Schubert sings the praises of identity politics

15 years ago, hardly anyone in this country could say what “identity politics” was supposed to be. In the meantime, we no longer know because this knowledge has been lost in the clamor of the so-called culture war and identity politics itself has become a fighting term.

There are other terms circulating that are used more or less synonymously in the debates: postcolonialism, wokeness or postmodern left.

After October 7, 2023, their representatives were condemned to hell in numerous essays and commentaries by conservative and liberal authors after some woke people celebrated the Hamas massacre as a liberation struggle.

Even the left-wing music journalist and pop theorist Jens Balzer states that there is a “moral bankruptcy” and in his essay “After Woke” he tries to save what can still be saved from the emancipatory theory. At the same time, Karsten Schubert’s “Praise of Identity Politics” comes out, a book that seems interestingly unimpressed by recent developments.

In his good-humoured apologetics, he defines identity politics as “the political practice of marginalized groups who, in relation to a collective identity, defend themselves against being disadvantaged by the structures, cultures and norms of the majority society”. Their strategy is to expose power where it was not previously visible.

If, for example, activists cancel an artist because, in their view, he has made racist comments, then, according to Schubert, they are drawing attention to the conditions that enable or even promote the telling of racist jokes.

Rights of defense against the state

The accusation that the attempt to cancel was an attack on freedom of art or freedom of expression is, moreover, not valid, because these fundamental rights are primarily defensive rights against the state and its organs generally play no role in such disputes .

So everything is good? Even better! Because identity politics is not just for the benefit of marginalized groups, but for society as a whole, because it calls power relationships into question and incites them to change. It thus proves to be a guarantee for the progressive democratization of society.

The author ultimately calls on his readership to join in his praise and appreciate identity politics as an indispensable corrective. If only it were that easy! Because Schubert doesn’t make it easy to follow him.

Veil between political theory and reality

Political science generally does not have a reputation for producing good authors. “In Praise of Identity Politics” is written in a particularly brittle style, which also points to a problem with the content.

The almost 200 pages read as if they were written in the farthest corner of the Stabi and as if the author hadn’t even followed the news at that time. It seems as if a kind of veil has fallen between argumentation and the world, between political theory and political reality.

Just one example: The BSW party was founded, among other things, because many left-wing politicians wanted to increasingly argue economically instead of devoting themselves to identity-political demands. This internal left-wing conflict has had a significant impact on German party politics for over a year now.

Silence on specific conflicts

But Schubert has practically nothing to say about this. Such very specific contemporary conflicts play no role in his theory development, as he is certain that identity politics and class politics are in no way contradictory to one another. Quite the opposite, since, according to him, the proletarians were actually practicing identity politics back in the times of Marx and Engels.

What sounds like an attempt to reconcile the divided camps is actually a hostile takeover. Because presented in this way, identity politics is actually not the new left-wing theory that needs justification, but, conversely, politics that argues economically: “The necessary new politicization of exploitation and capitalism will not exist against identity politics, but only as a new intersectional variety of class-related identity politics.”

When reading sentences like this it is difficult not to think of the evil image of the ivory tower. Does the author really believe that low-wage workers will be won over to an “intersectional variety of class-based identity politics”? If so, wish him good luck in the agitation.