My thoughts regarding identity politics are that its a movement for weak and pathetic 'snowflake' children of the modern era.
One identity trait really important to understanding this phenomenon that they all seem to share is that of the 'pathetic poor-me cry-baby'.

I'm guessing that anyone who falls into this category will have already been 'triggered' and is by now hiding out in their safe space upon reading my comment, and not a bad idea all told as the following opinions might instead have them seeking taxpayer funded therapy.

We've transcended the issue of giving money and benefits from the people who earn it to the people to the people that don't and now these lazy, useless free-ride demanding mental weaklings want more and have found something new to complain about.

I can't change the world and it's foolish to worry about things I can't change, but if others wish to entertain insanity and self-sensor then it's their mental issue to deal with.

And they are going to have to deal with it too, because if they try to force this censorship on me I'm likely to take offense and respond accordingly - in a non politically correct manner.

I hope the government has plenty of money put away to pay for the future mental health requirements of these people, who of course naturally expect everyone else to support and provide for them.

Agree, but the cult of individualism can't be fully excised from the church until it becomes more than a one hour Sunday morning activity and rather a 60-80 hour per week thing for believers.

Meanwhile all of the dreadfully sane advocates of back-to-the-past right-wing or "conservative" Christian politics are just as "guilty" of asserting their identities in the culture-war politics now being dramatized all over the media.
And much/most/all of both progressive/liberal and back-to-the-past "conservative" Christian personal and cultural identity fits entirely within the realm of whats-in-it-for-me.
So too does everybody else of course.This essay describes the situation:
http://www.dabase.org/up-1-6.htm

Here in Australia all of the Murdoch media specializes in the promotion of hyped identity politics, especially of the right-wing "catholic" variety, while all the time pretending otherwise. This is especially true of "catholic" boys daily or the OZ "news"-paper.

Check out the book titled Between Jesus and The Market: The Emotions That Matter in Right-wing America by Linda Kintz.

Where and what is the source of Truth?
Is it subjective or objective?
And if subjective what kind of subjectivity?
Can it even be discovered by the use of brain-created language games ,or the use of left-brained reason?
Can it now be found within the fortress like walls of the dominant Christian cults, especially the mighty fortress called the "catholic" church? Was it even to be found there in the past?
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/jesusandme.html
The full version of this essay can be found in section THREE of this reference:
http://www.dabase.org/up-6.htm

Meanwhile this reference provides a unique perspective on the intrinsic self-bound and always self-reinforcing limitations of all point-of-view-based Western philosophy.
http://www.adidaupclose.org/FAQs/postmodernism2.html

On the Transcendental Perfectly Subjective nature of Reality http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/EWB/lastwords.html

Very clever Sells! And almost had me.

Bring on the plebiscite, without which these clever "editorials" (trojans) will never see the light of day? Without a plebiscite in just a few short months, some folk will never accept that true equality is the actual majority view?

It's all well and good for (why do you always answer a question with a question) Dreyfus and Shorten to stand up for the gay community as, i.e., the greens in the senate obstructed (the only one on the table) an ETS before, on the spurious supercilious grounds it wasn't perfect!

Yes I'd rather the government allowed a free vote on the floor, the possible result of a non binding plebiscite, which consequentially needs to be binding!

Patently, there are powerful personalities sitting on the back bench who will die in a ditch, possibly with Sells for company, before they'll allow that to happen!

A binding plebiscite limits their opportunities for the vexatious mischief and endless delays, so ably demonstrated by various personalities who equate manifest misinformation as just opinion, which they claim as a right? As they oversee the distribution of falsehood flyers

Everyone has a right to an opinion, always providing it is based on reliable or the most persuasive evidence and not cleverly camouflaged confection, with a cleverly concealed hidden agenda? Bring on the Plebiscite and get equality before the law, in every sense, done and dusted ASAP!

Currently the only offer on the table is the february plebiscite! Let's not follow the fatuous Greens because it's not perfect! Even if that means avoiding problematic personalities and commercial ventures less than sympathetic! So be it! Christmas is nigh and february 11 just a little over a month after that!

It's not an election winning political football Mr Dreyfus, Mr Shorten! If you can't or won't help GET IT DONE, you need to just GET OUT OF THE WAY!
Alan B.

By the way Sells the very best way to create a really good curry, is ensure it burns just as much on the way out as it did on the way in!

That requires the liberal application of cayenne pepper, hot mustard, horseradish and finely chopped chili blended in coconut milk and cut when cool, with a little O P rum. And served on a medley of (chilled) mixed meat or fish. Cooking is optional?

It's not quite rocket fuel but almost guaranteed to, speed up all movement!

Sorta like, stand aside or lose a limb, imposed urgency, and likely the most fun you'll have in a double decade, feeding your long list of favorite friends? And sure to regale you for veritable years afterward with colorful complements on your (nitro G) culinary conquests!?

I'm told that wind can be a problem, but manageable, always providing it doesn't come with ( oops, oops, bother) lumps! Hot diggity, boom diggity, look what you do to me, it's oh so new to me, oops bugger &@#^+?.
Alan B.

"Thus the modern self was cut off from the tradition and wisdom of the ages (read here "Church") and instructed to find identity within the self.
This was ruinous to community and to the self, to the community because the common good was replaced by the individual good and to the self because any search for identity within the immanent will result in idolatrous superficiality."

Translated: The 'common good' means what is good for white, heterosexual, middle to upper class males....like the author.

These arguments are all the same old whinge:
'White, heterosexual, middle to upper class males dominated everything and had and have a real good deal from society now they are all shattered that others...like the other 90% of the population are getting a look in and some recognition. The world is ending because of that'.

As that lot are so fond of saying to others far less privileged ... 'think of the common good, not your individual one and suck it up'.

Is identity politics a stalking horse for special-interest totalitarian groups such as those promoting Shari'a ? If it's okay for one group, then others hop in for their legitimate 'share'. Just wondering.

On the blatantly self-serving notion of 'only As can write about As', I wonder where that would leave Shakespeare, Aristophanes, Chaucer, Boccaccio, etc ? Who would be in Dante's Inferno ? Who would write 'Moll Flanders' ? And what would Dickens be allowed to write about by the NTP (New Thought Police) ? Contemptible rubbish rationale.

But I disagree, Peter, about 'truth' - of course 'something IS 'out there', otherwise Daffy Duck or the Coyote would just keep running out into space: there IS a reality. We may not ever find it, as Popper says, but we can get closer and closer, and in any case, in our ordinary daily lives, we run with SOMETHING, as we must.

But I do agree that Christianity is one major root for the recognition of the universality of human beings, their commonalities, their shared rights and responsibilities, and thus a major pillar in our hard-won Enlightenment-based value-system. As such, it is vastly more progressive than the backward values of any tribal or totalitarian system, including Islam.

Joe

This writer is why I cannot have a bar of religion. Why the dickens an Indian woman would know more about curry than any other ethnicity I do not know but the author stereotypes them anyway.
This nonsense can go on and on but not to anyone's real benefit. I would point out that all this nonsense can be used against you dicks as by you. I see it as my duty to now complain endlessly. Email so I have a record and complain about the complaints not being properly attended to. I think when the money runs out we will have to just start behaving like adults again.

"There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

How true!

Identifying with that which we are not, is a disease, a spiritual malady, so given that we are all one in Christ Jesus, anyone who seduces us to identify with being, say, "man"; "woman"; "gay"; "lesbian"; "Left", "Right", "Australian"; "Indian", "victim", "human"; or "Christian" - is guilty of inflicting a spiritual wound on us.

//given that we are all one in Christ Jesus//

I'm not.

«I'm not.»

Hear, Hear, O Toni, what a humble man!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z861YAJahkQ