this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2026
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Identity politics posits that oppression stems from identity, and that the latter cannot be chosen but is rather an inborn quality. Yet they also claim identity is a social construct. What is expressed by that quality is therefore identity itself. This expressed quality cannot be attacked; conversely, the persons themselves can be attacked, but only if the identity is not. For the sake of simplicity, we will use “identity” in the singular form. How ableism is avoided is thus semantics elevated to an art. Similar to how the religious wittily avoid sinning through careful exegesis of the Bible.

For example, instead of using the usual slur against those affected by ableism, one can attack the person by merely changing the words, just as I once heard that “Donald Trump is mentally deficient.” Or the smart-ass can say that a person’s intelligence is “delayed.” This logic of identity politics brings everyone who subscribes to this struggle to a cul-de-sac. The human being as such and persons themselves no longer matter; only their identity matters. Therefore, since oppression (or fascism) is defined as attacking a person’s inborn quality, this means everything else is a fair target.

Unfortunately, with this kind of logic, it's acceptable to make fun of red-haired men and even to verbally abuse them à la South Park. In the case of the adult cartoon, even abusing kids is considered fine as long as people who are “red-haired” are not systematically oppressed (a silly example, I know).

A reactionary leftist can abuse a gay man as long as the man’s “gayness” is not attacked. The white man now becomes the ultimate target. Let’s say this particular man is poor; that doesn’t matter to these reactionaries. Nobody “identifies” as poor, and poverty is not an identity. Accordingly, calling a gay white man “white trash” is considered perfectly fine. Idpol is presently "in and of itself." It must go beyond this and become in and for itself.

The idpol logic grants identities themselves the status of the oppressed, while the human being as such is reduced to nothing. The common man, the average person, aka most people, is reduced to nothing! What identity politics first set its sights on, fighting actual oppression, is now becoming a war on anything other than that. Oppression becomes the universal, the great equalizer, instead of the universal human being who must never be subjected to oppression. A human identity that would be fully universal is precluded and made impossible in this inverted world of “identities as oppression.” Many of them will claim that identity is a "social construct." It's not. It cannot be. What we see here is oppression as identity, oppression as appearance, rather than as a relation, a relation between human beings.

In the imperial core, the centralization of capital against the super-exploited periphery created a sort of inverse worldview. In spite of this, it daily re-creates the conditions that will permit the universal human being to come into existence. As long as capital is centralized in this core, what is behind the veil of illusion is the actual class struggle, but super-exploitation did not create the conditions proper for a “pure” class antagonism to emerge. Hence identity politics in the manner of Fukuyama's end of history. But the ground, the soil in which we fight the class struggle in the imperial core, is the soil that can permit only the result of a pure class antagonism: that is, communism in the flesh, fully born. The inverted side of “actual oppression” is appearance. Therefore, to tame capital here is to destroy capital in the name of the universal human being. The ground is being tilled for the final struggle, the fight for full human emancipation. Yet capital is centrally planted in the core but not centrally planned. The incoming explosion, the break with continuity, the revolution that will emerge in the struggle of capital against the periphery, is the universal human being; it cannot be otherwise.

We have to liberate ourselves by any means necessary. Comrades, in the name of the entire human race, we must be fanatics! In the West, to liberate ourselves from the shackles of capitalism, we must kill the capitalists!

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[–] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

oh, yeah I am a long time lurker. Replying here because i don’t want to spam and get in trouble for that.

I see. Well given how this thread has gone, I'm going to give you some unasked for advice. I don't have high hopes of you even reading it given you said you didn't read the previous longer post I wrote, but it is worth emphasizing to other posters regardless.

You seem to have tried with this thread to do analysis that is too caught up in universal principle thinking and abstract originality, which has resulted in a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding as to your meaning, intentions, and the general message of what you're saying that is different from existing analyses of material conditions.

So my advice, in the future, is to focus first on small pieces of analysis that are largely springboarding off of existing marxist literature, and place them into concrete examples in a particular region. Like a scientist who is looking at someone else's studies and trying to expand on it a little. This can further discussion and understanding without biting off more than you can chew all at once, while also testing your own understanding, ensuring that it holds up when applied to more local conditions.

In my libbed up lib days, I often got caught up in the abstract debate bro stuff where it tended to boil down to who could make the better sounding abstract argument. Nowadays I try to challenge that tendency in myself and refocus on concrete examples in historical context. Marxism is not without its valid abstract theory, but it is also heavy on observing over time in order to ensure accuracy and shape an accurate model of the world. Analysis needs to serve liberation, not the other way around.

[–] NineteenSeventeen@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I know marxism more than you. Did you read anti-duhring or materialism and empirio-criticism? Did you read Lenin's philosophical notebooks? No? Surprising....

[–] ComradePupIvy@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hey man, we are not going to do that here, not only is that a large attack with asumptions, but we are not going to take good faith argument and debate and go "But I know more than you" especially when your analysis is already shakey

[–] NineteenSeventeen@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In my libbed up lib days,

They implied i was a lib. That is not good faith.

[–] ComradePupIvy@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 day ago

They compared it so something the did when thethey where a lib, they did not call you a lib

Second this is not up for debate or discussion, you have more than one occurence of on this thread, taking a critisism and reaponding with an adhominim and or implying the other user doesn't understand communism for really no gpod reason, this is not acceptable behavior

[–] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 day ago

I was really trying to give you a chance. Trying not to make uncharitable assumptions. But it turns out I was right earlier when I thought this was about ego for you. Marxism isn't a game of one-upmanship. Somehow you have (allegedly) read a bunch of theory but glossed over Mao's Oppose Book Worship. Go out and investigate the facts. Books can only take you so far on their own.