[Peace-discuss] More on Identity Politics

[David Green]

Narcissus and the Mind/Body Problem 

By Betsy Hartmann 

Maybe it's because it's the darkest time of the year,
or the Christmas consumption rush when we're all
supposed to be experiencing brotherhood and love at
the cash register, or the horrific daily reports of
violence in Iraq that make me yearn for voices of real
moral authority calling for real peace, real justice,
real love. The Right of course has their voices, from
the fire and brimstone of the pulpits, to the
invective of Limbaugh and O'Reilly, to the softer
Orwellian drawl from the White House telling us we are
killing people to liberate them. The Democrats, it
appears, have a terminal case of neoliberal
laryngitis. And the Left? Left out? Left behind? Or
yet to overcome our fractured identity politics to
find a universalizing message that can inspire? 

Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in
the water, an unrequited passion that ultimately
consumed him and he wasted away. Sometimes I think the
U.S. Left could learn from the myth of Narcissus. When
we gaze into the political mirror, we want - and
expect - to see our own kind. We are more concerned
with our own identities than with finding common
ground with different ones. 

Clearly, identity-based formations are often powerful
and positive ways to mobilize people and to challenge
prevailing hierarchies. But in the U.S. the way
identity politics gets embodied can be problematic.
Consumer capitalism thrives on a narcissistic
obsession with appearances: our bodies R us. Given
that we live in the most crassly consumerist society
on the planet, it is not surprising that this ethos
affects even those on the Left. We are obsessed with
bodies and their appearances: whether they are black
or white, queer or straight, young or old, male or
female. Sometimes we are more obsessed with bodies
than with minds. 

It doesn't help, of course, that the Right is obsessed
with bodies too -- with controlling them. Racism,
homophobia, and misogyny force us to defend our bodies
and to define ourselves politically through that
defense. We are reduced to our bodies even when we
don't want to be. In building bridges between our
various struggles, we too often link in an add-on way:
issue plus issue plus issue, but the parts do not
equal a substantive and substantial whole. We lack an
overarching framework, a universalizing discourse that
can mobilize more than just ourselves. The Right has
been much more attentive to that need. 

We are trapped in a sort of vicious cycle. Without a
powerful and convincing moral script, it becomes
harder to break out of our identity formations, and
the political parochialism that ensues makes it even
harder to develop a broader vision. We are trapped
looking at our own reflections in the water. 

How do we get out? How do we win the fight for hearts
and minds? I don't think we can rely on rhetoricians
and spin doctors to do it for us, though some new
language would certainly help. Maybe the first step is
to acknowledge that we are influenced more than we
realize by consumer culture and that our obsession
with appearance and identity may have something to do
with the perverse logic of the marketplace that sells
difference as a way of ensuring conformity. A little
political self-reflection is in order, rather than
staring like Narcissus in the reflecting pool. 

-- Betsy Hartmann directs the Population and
Development Program at Hampshire College in Amherst,
MA. She is the author of Reproductive Rights and
Wrongs and The Truth about Fire, a political thriller
about the Far Right.