Debate: Identity Politics is Tearing Society Apart

so welcome welcome everybody to this debate we have voted and will be voting on identity politics is tearing society apart just to be absolutely clear these are not indicative votes we don't have three years to come to a conclusion and whatever you vote we will listen and respect the result now if at any point this evening events change in number ten for any reason if someone could put their hand up that'd be very helpful for me because I'll have to leave the table and go back to work but on that proviso I hope we will have a very fun evening I am 51 years old I know I don't look it but I am astonishingly my daughter is 19 now when I was 19 politics was left and right we worried about nuclear war and we changed our names to English names in the hope that no one would notice we looked a bit different I chose the name Neil I thought and no criticism criticism of any Neil's in the audience that was the most vanilla dull name I could think of my name of course is Kemal and I didn't change back to Kemal until I was a little older had a friend from the Indian Punjab who was called Tony he also he wasn't called Tony had a friend from Thailand called Ian he wasn't called Ian and I think underlined that was a notion of what we wanted those of us who were a bit different my father is from Sudan my mother is from Yorkshire a real north/south divide we wanted acceptance now my daughter is 19 she lives in a different world the world is available on her supercomputer in her hand she travels the world she is able to say anything to many many people anytime she wants via social media my daughter and her friends is not about acceptance it's about respect that is a very very different thing and she is concerned not so much with left or right but with issues around identity and the big question is is that huge change in the type of society we are when I wanted to share an opinion I went down the pub and shouted at a couple of mates about what I thought and no one else heard it if people now want to share an opinion they can share it with anybody in the world and it has changed the way we think about issues and that notion of respect rather than acceptance so I'm going to introduce the speakers from my far right our first speaker for the motion is Lionel Shriver author of twelve novels including the bestsellers the mandibles and the Orage Orange Prize winner We Need to Talk About Kevin a prolific journalist as well whose writing has appeared in The Guardian the New York Times The Telegraph the spectator The Wall Street Journal and many other publications so Lionel for the motion please do take to the podium and a round of applause [Applause] who are you most of us spend our lives trying to evolve a nuanced sense of ourselves but as far as the identity politics cabal is concerned if you're an anglo-saxon professor of economics at UCL with a child whose drug addiction has broken your heart a sideline as a stand-up comic and a passion for polka dancing all you are is white worse privileged meaning you should be ashamed of yourself and none of your achievements are to your credit for the term identity politics implies a worldview the dogma couches human history exclusively in terms of unequal power relationships between groups thus all of life reduces to human hierarchy an individual's identity derived solely from membership of a collective in the service of a revolutionary social justice your rights will right to be heard to avail yourself of social resources and to defend your own interests depend entirely on your having been marginalized due to race race ethnicity sexual preference gender or disability hilariously the bulk of identity politics Crusaders are actually well-off white people competing over who can be more righteous I grew up during the civil rights and women's liberation movements in the United States I was a fierce advocate of both but the goal of these earlier campaigns was to break down the artificial barriers between us and to release us all into seeing each other not as black or white or male or female but as individual people granted with race and sex we've still got a ways to go but one of the greatest impediments to fully breaking free of our pigeonholes is the rise of identity politics for we all fall into categories that weren't of our choosing I was born white female and American no one asked me beforehand whether I wanted to tick those boxes and they are boxes so I've never wanted these categories to define me as I wouldn't want the categories into which the folks in this audience were unwillingly born to define you either the color of my skin is an arbitrary accident not a personal brand as a woman I often break the mold I'm outspoken and sometimes unpleasantly aggressive I dress badly I even make a pretty lousy American having spent most of my adult life in the UK for me the boxes into which I was born had been confinements I've struggled to get out of and I would wish that liberation for everyone else identity politics urges us all instead to cling to the bars of our cages in locating advantage in disadvantage to the movement pushes historically marginalized groups to deploy weakness as a weapon thus you're strongly motivated to maintain that weakness the better to push other people around with the unfairness of your terrible plight perversely then victims of racism sexism or homophobia say logically grow attack attached to the very prejudiced from which they suffer because prejudice translates into power and without victimhood they have no idea who they are ironically the last thing the arctan identity politics crowd wants to see is a truly equitable society absent bigotry it's activists would be lost identity politics doesn't eliminate human hierarchy but simply flips the totem pole upside down thus at the very bottom sit awful undeserving ly advantaged white people and at the very very bottom white straight males who according to this Creed have no rights and no biz is venturing an opinion about anything who are obliged to check their privilege aka shut the [ __ ] up well I reject out of hand that any group should be told they have no rights and they have to put a sock in it I happen to be married to a white straight male and I'm often very interested in what he has to say according to identity politics the sins of the father are visited visited upon the sons if you're white you accept responsibility for slavery colonialism and the slaughter of native peoples from Australia to America but do we really believe in infinitely inherited guilt let's all be historically clear-eyed but Germans coming of age today oughtn't to feel personally responsible for Dachau nor should any of us pretend to feel guilty about something we know perfectly well we didn't do have you noticed how many headlines these days involve race how as sociologist Documenta steady decline in racial prejudice relations between races seem to be getting worse that's because this movement is inherently adversarial it thrives on enemies though ostensibly concerned with victimhood its proponents gleefully seek victims of their own identity Rian's have created a cutthroat predatory environment in which often anonymous self-appointed culture police prowl the halls of the internet searching for perceived violations of their orthodoxies using the wrong word reaching for the wrong pronoun allowing that amidst all the plunder and domination maybe countries colonized by Britain enjoyed one or two teeny-tiny benefits can now get you set for this movement has issued and not the color and gender blindness we aspire to in my youth but a hyper awareness of race gender and ethnicity implicitly the ideology pits disadvantaged groups against one another in a competition over who's been treated more badly rather than calling us to a shared community it fosters a climate of anxiety division antagonism touchiness and paranoia so in our universities faculties are terrified to teach or publish anything that might conceivably step on a minorities toes self-censorship is rife persecution common in workplaces employees negotiate a minefield of microaggressions and are afraid to make jokes in my occupation fiction is vetted by sensitivity readers while many of my fellow writers are frightened of crafting characters different from themselves lest they break a host of proliferating unwritten rules in social settings many of us have if anything grown less likely to approach a stranger of a different race and not because we're bigots but because we're fearful that we might inadvertently say the wrong thing I don't call that progress inexorably to identity politics has conjured the boogeyman of white identity politics now on the rise in the US if we're all to understand each other in terms of our helpless membership of groups white people are going to understand themselves in those terms as well and it's interesting how unattractive it is to brandish your skin color as the most important aspect of your sense of self when white people start doing it - certainly many of the folks staging this festival of taking offense are well intended we should all be alert to the fact that others may have experienced social and professional travails that we haven't yet surely the power dynamics of human hierarchies can't explain everything looking out the window and seeing only degrees of victimhood is a flat oppressive reductive and depressing way of looking at the world sometimes it's a relief to think about something else architecture color and light outer space so I for one do not plan on embracing my skin color or my gender or sexual preference as the cynic WA known of my character for I reject outright the very concept of identity that this poisonous overtly racist and sexist outlook promotes I like dancing to Talking Heads I'm a big fan of Graham green Richard Yates and Edith Wharton I've published 13 books of my own and whatever their failings those novels are a part of who I am I love the word mellifluous I over used the word insidious I have a weakness for Poldark I'm a mediocre tennis player who makes up for her deficits on the court with Shira Byul Ian's that and more is my identity so if anyone aims to put Lionel Shriver straight white female on my tombstone I'm definitely getting cremated thank you very much thank you very much Lionel not to not to insidious there our first speaker against the motion identity politics is tearing society apart is born foster dawn please take to the podium Guardian columnist who writes on politics Social Affairs and economics and also a staff writer for Jacobin magazine dawn [Applause] so as some of you might have noticed I'm a woman I'm white I have a disability and when I think about politics when I talk about politics a lot of those identities come into it so when I think about austerity I look at how austerity affects certain groups more than others so in particular austerity affects women 82% of all cuts that the government have made our impact women if you look at the if you look at the pay gap for instance women are paid less than men but if you narrow it down black women are paid a lot less than than other than other people so when you think about politics identity does have to come into it because everybody experiences things differently you know personally but also in terms of economics in terms of you know how it affects the community etc I'm going to think about the people well when I come across the people who complain about this it always seems to be exclusively boomers sorry I am closer in age to Kyle's daughter than Kemal so I am I am of the generation that is part yet partly interested in identity politics I don't think it I don't think it deflates things I think you know people live their life in a normal way and obviously your identity is part of that so everything that affects you everything that makes see it makes up it makes up the person that is you including your likes your hobbies or dislikes etc it all comes together to form a whole person and I don't think that you know talking to people and understanding that people have different views different experiences of life you know because of different identities I don't think it actually like deflates things I don't think it puts people in a box I think it allows us be more expansive with policy I think he allows us to look at political policy and think about how different groups will be affected by it and that you know and therefore stop discrimination within that kind of thing there's a lot there is a huge amount of concern about universities about people being no platformed about people not being allowed to speak it cetera and I always find it really fascinating that so many people get upset by a small number of students in the Student Union when almost nobody else will have heard of these little these small societies these small groups and I think it's I think the big problem is that we have older people who have you know columns in big magazines huge access of media constantly saying that they are being silenced I know this because they write constantly that they are being silenced they go on TV to talk about the fact that they have been silenced and you know I think if they were I wouldn't be constantly hearing about them and I think you know I think actually I don't see politics helps those people because it allows them to constantly place articles in the spectator in spiked magazine in all sorts of places talking about the fact that they have been silenced and that identity politics is ruining their life etc and you know think about Lionel speech I have a lot of friends who are white men and I don't look at them and say good lord you're so privileged it's disgusting because they are my friends and I don't think of people you know in small I don't put people in small boxes I don't look at them as a you know having a tick box on their chest that explains things about them I think that you know for instance me haven't haven't disability changes my life than what I'm in hospital a lot my friends know that and come and see me but it doesn't really change anything else I might need some things like for instance if we decide to have strobe light in here I wouldn't be able to sit and sage but that's about it don't do that and I find it really really fascinating that the big panic comes from older people a very small number of older people who you know who as you know Lionel was saying that the people who are into integrated politics are relatively wealthy tend to be white etc but whenever I read articles about people being silent so that people being kicked out by the empty politics it's always homeowners in their 50s it's always people who are relatively comfortable haven't lived through the you know the global financial crash didn't really affect them it seems you know it seemed such an obsession with with those people I've met people who were absolutely desperate to get removed from panels just because they wanted to talk about the backlash that came with it and they knew that if they were removed from a small panel in Student Union they could make a huge amount of money talking about it you know going on the BBC talking about how they were silenced writing as a spectator about how they were silenced and absolutely nobody at any point thinking why because they aren't clearly this person's being punished everybody I think that empty politics is actually really really helpful in terms of making sure that we think more deeply about how policy affects people about how we can stop kind of get you know gaps in admission so University how we can stop people being paid less how we can look at the fact that if you are disabled you are less likely to get a job and how we can you know change things to bring other people in and I think that I think that we have to move past the you know terrifying fear that a lot of boomers have around this you know people when I look at my friends I don't you know that have tick box in my head that appears like you know like some kind of sci-fi thing that breaks down what they are and who they are we might have conversations about kind of you know what so I'm stationed with my friend the other day about the fact that they had been the victim of a homophobic attack but I don't he doesn't always come up and sometimes it does and it's very I think it's a lot more useful to talk about it and think about how discrimination happens and how we can stop that from happening one one really really key bit I think David will talk about this is university admissions so for instance Oxford you know had a huge race problem they have a huge class problem and you know bringing that up and talking about it means that they will actually take some some action and think about that there have been some court cases where people have looked at the fact that you know certain policies are bound to affect women therefore they are discriminatory other policies for instance like exclusively seems to hit disabled people and those people have gone to court and talked about the fact they've been discriminated against and often one of the cases and change the policy so I think that you know if we want to have a more equal society there is no way we can do that without thinking about identity without thinking about how certain things mean that other people find it harder to get into certain jobs find it harder to reach certain things or even you know come into a building because there isn't a wheelchair ramp so I think that you know identity politics is not about deciding who who is a villain who is the most privileged who we should you know never ever talk about and attack and we talk about their privilege I think it's much more about making sure that our society is more welcoming to people and that political policy doesn't discriminate against individuals and big groups it doesn't Roman austerity massively affects women and it massively you know if you are a woman and you are disabled you're doubly discriminated against by certain policies that is identity politics and you know I think we need to remember that if we are making policy it needs to be more well it needs to make sure that for instance if you are a young black person and you're applying for a certain job you know or a placement University you aren't discriminated against by the way that the interview takes place and so I think identity politics is about equality it's about making sure that everybody has the same access and that access might be slightly different based on their identity and I think that it's led to a lot of people thinking more deeply about how they act and how society should be built so I you know I'm against emotion I think that we should be more equal and I think the identity politics is key to that we can't move past identity we can't ignore identity and I think that you know maybe at some point the boomers will understand that thank you very much dawn thank you very much our next speaker for the motion trevor phillips to my right was chair of the equality and human rights commission between 2003 and 2012 the co-founder of the diversity analytics consultancy Weber Phillips and he is presently chairman of the index on Censorship he's a director of the Barbican Art Center and vice-president of the Royal Television Society well good evening and thank you for inviting me to be part of this discussion I didn't really to be actually honest with you I don't really know what intelligent squared was before has asked to be part of this it's a tribute to their organization that this number of people can turn out on a lovely evening where you could be doing something much better to listen to us thank you so much thank you so much so let me introduce myself I'm the tenth of ten children of an immigrant family came here in 1950 with descendants of slaves including a woman the earliest known member of our family she was called happy presumably some slave owners idea of a great joke further back we would have come from the Mandinka or Fulani people of West Africa like David he also comes from Guyana that's a whole other identity story to tell you but we're great my ancestors were there for Muslims but of course we had all that whipped out of us probably in our case by the biggest plantation owners in British Guiana John Gladstone yes the father of the liberal Prime Minister William Glen's Gladstone and the largest single beneficiary of compensation after abolition I also have a professional identity I used to do TV don't do much these days I've only made three films in the last 20 years before that with my brother Mike I wrote the book and made the series which told the Windrush story first today I Acadian write for newspapers and magazines but mostly I'm basically a boring businessman I chair a talent business called Green Park and for the past four years I was president of accounts of the John Lewis Partnership I run a small data analytics business is probably a legacy of my time as a chemist when I was young I said all that out tricks tried to explain why I come at this debate from the way I do my background may explain some of what I say I agree with some of what dawn said by the way identity is more important because it now represents some real interests that for the first time in many century has a voice women obviously minorities when my father came here the white family who lived across the road could afford to be friendly with us they knew that no matter how clever my dad was how hard he worked how ambitious he might be when it came to getting a job or a house or a loan we would never be ahead of them in the queue that divided us from them not income not the area we lived but that thing that thing and by the way it's not just poor people of color who suffer because we have an argument no doubt about class here when I was chairman of the Commission for racial equality the people who were most affected who wept in my office were not young black men Harris by the police they were the teacher who knew that because he was black or Asian he would never become a department head the lawyer who knew that no matter how clever she was and how hard she worked she was never going to take silk and the doctors who knew that they would always be junior doctors and never consultants they had done everything that this society asked of them everything but the prison of their skin kept them in the place that meant they would never never reap the rewards of their diligence so I understand all of that and if that's all that the identity politics were about would it be short debate we could also be agree there are some other things that it shouldn't it it's not about I was the US president who wrote and moved and persuaded the NUS conference in 1973 to adopt the no platform policy we wanted to keep the fascist off campus nobody today thinks that Germaine Greer or Julie bindle should be in that category we can agree about that nobody today thinks that white men should continue staging the city than they do in the boardrooms of our great companies except then we don't have to have an argument about that and nobody believes that it's okay to abuse public figures I got my first bag full of hate mail when I became the NUS president in 1978 I was 24 years old and I had a whole bag full of it including a charming cartoon which drew my own lynching nobody will argue that that should be part of our politics so I don't think we need to devote a lot of time to all of that nor should we spend a lot of time comforting ourselves with the thought that we are virtuous and folks out there who want the fact that none of us is nigel farage doesn't let us off the hook on this issue clever and nice people can be racist - Albert Einstein called the Chinese and industrious filthy obtuse people one of my friends and somebody I admire in politics once called on the government he led to ensure British job for British workers we made tonight talk about institutional racism or sexism Stokely Carmichael came up with that phrase for a very specific reason it was a critique of Martin Luther King Carmichael said that point where he was making was that racism was so baked into society that you could have a police force full of black angels and they might still be shooting black people everybody said that don't be ridiculous 50 years on the killings of young black men all over the USA often by black police officers says the Carmichael was right so tonight this is really for me about politics in its place in society there's only one reason for politics to exist and that is to help us solve problems now for over a century and a half our political architectures followed economic and social divisions workers to the left bosses to the right but we're in an era of extreme possibly unprecedent disruption and the real tribal divide in our society symbolizes the deepest differences about what kind of people want to be I'm a remainer Pro globalization massively plural immigration Pro technology socially liberal London centric you expect that but I don't disrespect my many relatives who live in say Essex or Nottingham who feel just as passionately anti-globalization cautious about immigration and that includes my black relatives anti digitization and who loathe London's arrogance a survey taken after the referendum asked about people's attitude to various topics on the economy on capitalism there was absolutely no difference between remain errs and leavers fifty-one percent thought capitalism was a force for ill 49 percent force for good asked about multiculturalism 71 percent of remain us thought it was a force for good 81 percent of levers thought it was a force for ill 60 percent of remainders were Pro feminism lower than I expect 74 percent of levers were against feminism my point is it is these issues of identity that are dividing us this debate is really about one thing identity politics is a politics that is tearing our society apart I think that objectively true but perhaps where I differ with the other panelists possibly including Lionel is that they will all lament this fact I don't I think it is a wonderful thing our opponents confront the world with timidity in the hope that the existing political architecture can be tweaked and twisted into coping Poli Toynbee versus Richard Littlejohn labor versus Tory none of that work for me or for 60% of the British people who say there is nobody I can vote for if you really believe in liberation this is going to be struggle what makes you think that the straight white propertied men are going to give it up without a fight our society will be torn apart in to get justice we need a political map now that allows us to represent the true divisions in our society one my daughter said to me when I told the wall is going to say tonight oh I see you're channeling samuel l.jackson what the hell do you mean what she said Sam would just get up and he'd say this everything's changing politics has got to change too let's just tear this [ __ ] down and start something new thank you very much Trevor fortunately this isn't being broadcast live on the BBC there's quite a lot of bad language I feel or around us which is to be warned against before I call our next speaker up just to say that I have the results in front of me of your initial votes which I will be announcing after our fourth speaker has finished and then once David Lammy has finished we'll be coming to the floor for your chance to question these brainy folk up here before voting again so but before all that we'll go to our final speaker against the motion identity politics is tearing society apart David Lammy Labour MP for Tottenham one of Parliament's most prominent campaigners for social justice famously led the recent campaign for the Windrush generation to be granted British citizenship he's fought for justice for the gren fault our families and of course has run the high-profile campaign calling on Oxbridge to improve access for students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds David the floor is yours right so I'm listening to the speakers and I'm thinking about a young David Lammy growing up in Tottenham in the 1970s it's the young David Lammy that looks like Michael Jackson and wants to be Michael Jackson and that young David Lammy would never have believed that the tide of human progress would bring me here in front of you able to articulate to speak to have the confidence to do that I was also thinking of another young but a bit older David Lammy who walked into the House of Commons at the beginning of that Tony Blair government by that point I look more like Denzel Washington this was a period of consensus politics Clinton Blair knew labour things were coming together we had 10 consecutive quarters of growth and a kind of cool Britannia emerged where you know there were a lot of drugs as well things but you know dance music but people loved one another Here I am 2019 I now look like Forrest Whitaker tomorrow people will be voting in the European elections and many will vote for what I see as hard right parties and positions this is an age of Trump of Faraj of Jacob Riis MOG of Boris Johnson and we are accusing identity politics of tearing society apart the great story of the 20th century was probably democracy but if there is a second story theme that arcs that century surely it is rights and that by the end of that century so many human beings who started off at the beginning of the 20th century subjugated oppressed could actually begin to self-actualize in their own lifetimes women got the vote and with the invention of the pill control over their own bodies ethnic minorities colonized remember those pink bits of the atlas over so much of the world broke off because of the powerful words and behavior of people like Gandhi from that colonization workers came from being exploited burst movements like the Labour Party and I still believe at its best the best progressive cause in our country and now same-sex marriage and those who are LGBT taking their place when it's only in 1967 that you could be imprisoned because of the person that you love that is a remarkable story the story that is the story of the 20th century and of course that is a story about identity because when Martin Luther King spoke and he talked about judging somebody by the character of their soul not by the color of their skin have we arrived at that and even though that was a goal even though that was a goal he didn't Park his identity at the door to get that goal and neither did Harvey Milk fighting for gay rights in San Francisco and Beyond and all those fighting for Disability Rights so for me identity politics is about empathy it is about dignity and my god I look Nigel Farage in the face and I say it's about compassion compassion for your fellow human being so we stand by that progress despite all that we have to do we're now in a period where those on the right dismiss it when I raised concerns about who should leave the inquiry into those poor people that died desperately included a friend of mine on the 20th floor of Grenville Tower burned to death a young woman called Khadija se and I raised questions about who should lead that inquiry because actually in the role that I play in public life someone should say does it have to be another white male privileged upper class judge not because he can't do a good job joe Scarman did a good job when he led the riots into the Brixton riots but is there not in Britain in 2019 an ethnic minority law or even a woman that could take that role and I say that at a point in our country where only 7% of the judges are from an ethnic minority background and we have one one woman on our Supreme Court progress so much more so much more to do and those on the left of course class and economic equality inequality have to be challenged that's the basis of my politics but those who fight for rights today do not stand opposed to issues of inequality that exists in our society just as there were LGBT people who set up solidarity funds to fight for the miners you can be alongside those in that battle for against inequality in our society and yes there are moments when it goes too far if you're tweeting or writing white people are trash kill all men that is identity politics that I would not want to associate myself with but let us be clear on the proposition let us really single in on what may be tearing our society apart populism might well be tearing our society apart populism on the hard right and populism on the hard left austerity cuts brutal cuts to local authorities right up and down the country the biggest north-south divides since 1911 that may be tearing our society apart grim poverty chronic housing conditions right across this city that means so many people who could be in this audience aren't in this audience that could be tearing our society apart gross inequality with 44% of the UK's wealth owned by just 10% of our population 50% of the land in the UK owned by 1% of the population that could be the proposition that could be tearing our society apart but instead this proposition asks you blame the Bangladeshi woman blame the trans man blame the individual with disability and then they say they're victims and we heard that language from Lionel victimhood the victimhood that is being manipulated in our country is a victimhood that's being peddled today by Nigel Farage it is not the Vixen hood of the people I just described so reject this proposition it is not tearing our society apart it's an arc that begins with people like Mandela Martin Luther King Gandhi Emily pang curse stand alongside it because in the age that we are in there is a big difference between dignity compassion and human rights and the populism that would rip our country asunder thank you very much David thank you very much David so we're gonna um I think possibly up there reveal the initial vote for and against the motion and if it doesn't pop up I will read it out I will read it out as Hannah tells me to do as I do what Hannah tells me because that's an important part of this organization so for the motion identity politics is tearing society apart 50% agree against the motion identity politics is tearing society apart thirteen percent undecided those of you who tall this note sorry didn't tear this and just put it in on its own thirty seven percent so the panel you have got a large undecided group and you may actually move some people between those two numbers but before we go to questions clearly those for the motion are in the not the majority but in the lead not quite the majority so let's have questions from the floor hands up and I will take batches of three and I will distribute them amongst the panel as I see fit as I am the chair number four hello um so I think the panel of doing an ad and up hello see you thank you very much I think the panel have done a really admirable job of resisting sort of ascribing identity politics to a particular area on the political spectrum there's an emerging understanding however I think that this is a phenomenon that really belongs more favorably on the political left and for liberalism I'm quite interested in the emerging idea that almost inadvertently identity politics is inhibiting genuine social change because by encouraging people to embrace micro facets of individual identity we are inhibiting the possibility of the type of collective group action that's really needed to affect meaningful change on a broad actually important social level and therefore may be inadvertently maintained in the status quo and actually being more favorable to quite extreme right-wing views I just like to get some of the panel's thoughts on that okay thank you very much number two our minds are quite quick one and you spoke a lot about Nigel Farage at the under is he not a big purveyor of identity politics I thought I'd just you know for mock me breaks it party you cute this is peak identity politics now it's about identity thank you very much and number three is identity politics tied to socialism is it a form of socialism in the sense that rather than economic equal economic outcomes rather we're looking for equal outcomes between different genders classes or not class but race gender etc okay fabulous thank you very much so if I could kick off first maybe dawn with you on the question from the back left there identity identity politics in and of itself is actually harming change and is stopping us having the type of conversations we could have so oddly small C is a conservative movement I completely agree with the characterization of what you said about a lot of the talk about identity politics online I think that basically a small number of people very very small facet on the on the internet who are relatively extreme in how they define identity politics how they talk about it have been publicized massively and characterized as as a huge movement and often people talk about this for a relatively small group online as it as it as if they you know represent everybody I think they're a very very small extreme facet that get a lot of attention online but the majority of people who think about identity politics who think about how agency affects things in everyday life aren't part of that group they don't spend a lot of time online talking about it they spend a lot more time volunteering they spend a lot more time looking at problems in society and I think that I've never been involved in a in a volunteering group or talking about what policy should look like etc with Sintang cetera I've never kind of come up against any barriers because people have talked about identity politics that stop us from getting further so I think that a very small group online characterized as you know the entirety of under of identity politics when for the majority people aren't involved in that relatively small group in liberalism and I think it is liberalism rather than socialism in this case and they are characterized as the entire group because they are very extreme and they fulfill a lot of the kind of worries about these things on the right but in everyday life I don't see that instead I see people thinking more about when they when they talk about policies there should be you know in government they look more deeply at how they affect different groups and I don't see that that group online has any way lyonell the questions seem to be pointing towards the notion that identity politics allows for a form of micro extremism which stops us talking about things and it's quite conservative but Dawn's point is that that's a mischaracterization that actually your characterization of shutting down debates violate thanks to politics isn't the case it's not true when you actually talk to people about their identities you're confusing the aggression of Twitter with identity politics I see that aggression everywhere including on Twitter and other social media platforms but I and I certainly see it in the extremists on college campuses and that's not necessarily on social media I don't think you can conveniently exclude the less attractive and more shrill proponents of this ideology because they don't help your case um do you talk about this particular that particular question okay well I don't think this is actually just about extremes one of the things that is happening on college campuses and I see somebody who is sitting in this audience who is actually or is currently an object of this is that you don't have to have a sort of big whoo Ferrari Ferrari about people being their platforms and so on for something quite dramatic to happen one of the things that is taking place right now is that the boundaries that describe for example what will bring your employ into disrepute up are shifting and one of the things that we're seeing on college campuses is that the disciplinary procedure procedure is being used because it is said somebody who has for example made a disciplining remark about about women or indeed about trans people is there for bringing the college or the university in to distribute and at least two people by now have been fired for this point now the question is do you have that argument or do you simply put people outside of the door and what we are doing right now and this is what I think people are talking about when they talk about that identity politics not exactly what I mean but what they mean is that actually a shutting down debate what is actually happening is it is becoming more and more difficult more and more uncertain what you can say without facing that kind of treatment and I think that is where this is really getting traction and it will leak off the campus into other places into employees the question is how do we deal with this okay if the person if the person hold Ondo if the person may have been wants a platform here please put their hand up David answer that point that Trevor just made but also answer the point that doesn't your constant or the question doesn't your constant reference to Nigel Faraj reveal that identity politics is tearing society apart because his the questioner was suggesting is a type of identity politics Nigel Farage is playing out of a playbook that is far longer than the identity politics prefix it's a playbook that you can look back to in the 1920s it's what happens after economic downturn its blame the immigrant blamed the other it's their fault that your situation is what is so so I'm not sure it's completely right to ascribe to here yes he's yes of course he is he is playing to an audience and it is an audience that but it's not entirely you know there's a lot said about white working-class there are many many people in the Home Counties there they own homes they have nice pensions they're still attracted to that rhetoric so it's much more confident the reason why I was a little bit down on what Trevor said is only a little bit is that one confining this conversation to what's happening on University campuses is incredibly limited because university campuses in the end effect largely middle-class kids who are going to go on to be part of a liberal elite and they've always been roused on University campuses of across much of the developed world the second thing is ok so lionel's some lecturers have got a bit be careful about what they say hang on a minute my ancestors have to be really careful about what they said women had to be really careful about what they say okay gay men and women you know they're still living in jobs not able to be who they are let's get real about where the real pain is I'm so sorry that you well-paid university professor and writer she had a little bit carefully about your language despite your amazing Ivy League education I think you can work it out I think you can work it out thank you thank you Dave just on this point I wasn't sure whether this was seen as a pro or a con or maybe neither is identity politics basically socialism by another name like I think one of the odd things about this ideology is that it is less attuned to class than usual than the usual arguments about equality and it's much more focused on these qualities that as I discussed in my talk that we have no choice about that that it's it's about identities we were born into and and there there is a demonization of white privilege but one of the problems with the key thinking of people in these boxes is that the people inside those boxes are actually in very different economic circumstances so one of the weird consequences of the use of affirmative action quotas in university admissions in the United States is that a lot of people who are being advantaged by it are in fact incredibly well-off Africans you know the consensus those are pretty much the Africans that make it all the way to the United States people with money and it's and therefore these boxes don't really work on a socialist level because they're full of all different classes and all different levels of of advantage and it's one of the reasons one of the reasons of many that the boxes don't work do you agree with your your your coke and your supporter on this fight against diverting publicity Spacey's also possible African people have come across and they're the ones who are shouting about it at that my father is from Sudan he was quite poor she's now dead sadly I'm sure I'm just getting my head around the ocean dead amber look I thought I agree with what lino said but can I just make it two very quick point about what's been said on this question it's not just universities I happen not to agree with the individual who did this I mean I think it's it probably is unprofessional but a nurse has got fired for praying in front of a patient now personally if I were her employer I would say that that's conduct that we're not really keen on because there are some kind of things that you don't want to have in the workplace but to get hired or pray I mean it has happened she's appealed it's gone now this is where we're going with all of this and if I may come back to the point about that we've raised about about forests oh by the way I just almost socialism it speaking from the speeches tonight as the most left-wing person on this panel I don't recognize the voice from socialism you're talking about it's got nothing to do with it under the fair eyes thing I don't want to get into an argument about fairer eyes himself because we've had lots of that but one of the things that one of the things that we should observe about Donald Trump I spend a lot of my time in the United States now one thing we should observe about Donald Trump is the manner in which he has completely refashioned the Republican Party it has become a white nationalist party it has absolutely a solid base and that is because Trump I know what everybody hates him and all that but the most modern politician has realized what politics is doing and he has created an instrument that fits to the political cleavages that really exist in the United States right now that is if you want the best evidence on that side of the Atlantic for the fact that we need to rethink what we do the old 'aqaq architecture can't work we can't beat the populist we can't beat the populist with the 19th and 20th century architecture of politics okay thank you Joe let's have some more questions fairly where the numbers popping up for me to see I can see lots of hands but no numbers with people with mics number two sorry I can see one so the lights are very bright number two yep and then number four hello you said that populism may be tearing our society apart and you said identity politics isn't the thing to blame well there are many cases where identity politics is used for populism for example in Turkey where I come from Edwin is using religion a type of identity and he's using it as populism and he's getting people who have the same identity to support him so surely identity politics and populism are related Thank You number four [Music] number four stand up thank you hello oh yeah thank you and yeah my question is to those who are against the motion because I need a bit more clarity on what their arguments are because they seem to talk about austerity and Viraj and stuff like that and I don't think that's really the topic that we're discussing dawn said the austerity affects 82% more women than men that may be true I don't know but you know if you wanted to raise the tax rate on higher earners that would probably affect more men than women I don't understand by looking at the demographics the policies affect why that should play a role in deciding whether we think it's good policy or not I'm not sure why it affects them more women or men is a reason for me to oppose austerity I oppose austerity because it harms people men and women I don't understand why it harming women you know do we say that things that harm women matter more than things that harm men that seems to just be pitting men and women against each other okay thank you very much number three identity politics has been linked quite frequently in this debate to equality so my question is do you think if equality of opportunity has been achieved or will be achieved can that or would that then result in equality of outcome okay okay dawn for the gentleman at the back could you explain why you linked the notion of identity politics to the differential effects of policies which you've discussed and answer the question that just because something tends towards as you argue tends to affect negatively certain groups that that isn't actually identity politics at each and things that have affect women negatively if they also affect men there shouldn't be a dividing line there yeah I mean I brought that up because I think that if you have a policy that like massively affects a certain group and stops them from achieving certain thing in life then you have a you have a bad policy I mean austerity is bad for a number of reasons not least the fact that it's been shown economically not to work but if you have a policy that like deliberate that very deliberately it stops a quality of opportunity for certain people then there's no reason to have that policy if you had upon the see that like massively affected disabled people you would again saying this is a very policy and I think that if you looked at you know raising tax on higher earners and it affected more more men than women that's because men tend to earn a lot more it's not because you know the government hate men and move that way it seems to be the point was that if a policy affects a certain group of people but also face another group of people but fewer of them it doesn't make it less important for the group that happened to be in the minority in terms of the effects no I think that again you can have a policy that is racist because it always exclusively affects black people you could have a policy that is sexist because it almost exclusively affects women and you know we used to have we have quality audits on policies and people and people would look at what would happen to to people beforehand we've scrapped that and that means often we do have policies that are discriminatory that was something that the equality Human Rights Commission you see quite understand the point well a quality audits before policies were put in place yeah they're still there on me that well oh they're not no they're not your your your there's guidance that you can do it but it's not what we what we wanted compulsory right okay David what about the point that the questioner over there raised identity politics is tearing society apart as he explains anyone in Turkey would tell you I have a large Kurdish population in my constituency I think it's the biggest in the country and many Kurds are on the rough end of treatment from erga 1 in terms of their language their liberties nevermind the judges the journalists and the conspiracy of silence frankly from the West in relation to what he is doing in Turkey my own sense of what's happening in Turkey is far deeper than the description described as identity politics but you are right of course there are people using identity as a means to push a kind of totalitarianism in relation to their populations of course that is happening or to preference one group and of course I'm you know I I think we always have to challenge supremacy and I don't just talk about white supremacy when I say that I'm talking about people in the world who effectively our ethnic nationalists saying that one group of people are more supreme than others and that is what he is up to in Turkey but I say also in this country and that's why I talk about Faraj to go to the question at the back that there are people who want to describe particularly English identity I I'm really comfortable being British but I want to assert very strongly I am also English and I want to challenge those who want to confine Englishness to solely an ethnic anglo-saxon identity I defend my right to be English and so yes there are people doing that yes there are people doing that but because they are doing that is not the reason to then challenge those who are clearly still far behind in the pecking order as I said the Bangladeshi woman the trans deny them their rights in order to say we are all the same and that is what you hear and Lionel that's what I picked up in part of somehow somehow our common humanity means we cannot talk about identity because in the end that is usually used by those in a privileged position to shut down it's like those who say to me please don't talk about judges David and hooba gets to be a judge you've got to be a judge on merit why is merit always defined as an Oxbridge educated public school educated white male or is merit found in other areas it shuts down possibilities and that is why I believe identity politics yes it's real but it's it's it's it's necessary it's not about being good it's necessary and those who those who defend and want to extend rights to have equal rights it's not about claiming you're better than of it's simply about reclaiming your human dignity and that human dignity that fight for human dignity goes on can I just I've got a touch on this socialism point just a touch the associates by the there are some and let me today they exist in my party they might be on the far left of politics and they believe that chaos somehow the brexit party winning in the European elections the Tories in disarray is good for labour because it lets us in my problem with those hard left activists some of whom I think work in the leaders office is they would throw ethnic minorities under the bus whilst we get that revolution that's my problem with those that want to focus solely on the class war and screw ethnic minorities LGBTQ and others who when the fascists come will be the first in the queue Lionel just answer the question around equality of opportunity and equality of outcome if there were equality of opportunity would there be equality of outcome I think was what the lady was asking gradually it's all I can answer equality I'm the end model these prejudices wouldn't would it would not be instantaneous and I think one of the reasons that we have a an insistence increasingly on equality of outcome is is social impatience and I am sympathetic with that impatience I would love to be able to press a button and make make a perfectly level playing field for everyone regardless of the circumstances in which they were born but social change I'm afraid doesn't work that way and when you try to instantaneously achieve the kind of equal society you envision you end up creating yet more unfairness instead of getting the the fair world that you want you want to take a example the New York Times a few months ago announced that it was dismayed that it was publishing more men's letters to the editors than women and and they really wanted to equalize it but they conceded to the readership that two-thirds at least if not 3/4 of the letters they get are from men so they now have a new goal that in less than a year from now they planned on to have a in a letters page that will be 50/50 now in my view that's too fast that's the kind of pushing the button that I'm talking about because what's really going to happen it means that if you're male and you write into the New York Times that chances of your getting n regardless of the quality of your argument or the fineness of your prose goes way down in order to advantage the few women who write in and of course in the perfect world I'd see a roughly 5050 letters page maybe but what I really care about as a reader of that newspaper is that they're good letters and they don't really care whether they're written by men or women okay long Anna and therefore that's what you get that's when you sacrifice when you you insist on equality of outcome regardless of equality of input you get more injustice okay thank you long Trevor it's very briefly equality of opportunity will it ultimately lead to a quality of outcome not necessarily and if I may say so reason I want to come in as I think it's a brilliant question to which we don't really yet have an answer the reason we don't have an answer is this we know that a lot of the differences between the categories we are talking about are to do with unequal treatment for example the pay gap is undoubtedly in part to due to unequal treatment by employers it is also due to occupational segregation and jobs status but the women work for mission which did fantastic work on this now what 78 years ago showed that there is also something like a 25 percent which is unexplained now one of the things that we don't know is to what extent is that because women actually want different things out of work than men now I know we're talking about averages please don't you know that there are some women who want this in it but what a court if we think about categories actually the truth is that this comes to a very central point which we wrestled with a lot at the Equality Human Rights Commission if you believe in diversity you also have to accept but groups of people on average might want different things out of life and they might bring different things to the table I mean a sense that is for particularly on gender that is one of the the reasons that I campaign and I beat the guys people who work for me to put forward women candidates because I believe that women will bring something different to the boardroom you know I married somebody who had been running a company for the company for 20 years it owned by her and another woman every time they bring in a male partner the whole thing tanks actually they are smart women and whatever it is they do and how they do it I think has something to do with whatever it is that women bring it that are so the answer to your question is let's not assume either that one will automatically follow from the other and also let's not assume that that is necessarily a great thing if we believe in diversity then we also believe in difference okay thank you very much we're just about out of time I'm very sorry we're not allowed to have any more questions we're going to have brief summing up statements from the panel in reverse order no more than two minutes please so David as the final speaker you will go first in the summing up and then we will have the results of who has been convinced by the thrilling arguments made from the stage David give us two minutes well I ask the audience to really think what is tearing society apart and it really in the end is inequality it may be the fifth Industrial Revolution artificial intelligence and the loss of jobs for much of many people in the developed world but it's not identity politics identity politics is a response to those who for much of human history have been subjugated and under others and actually for me this debate is about what is our common humanity so yes you do not want a politics that is solely about identity politics I am far more interested in what we share and our civic nationalism that allows us all to be patriotic allows us all take a place in British society than I am solely in a narrow singular ethnic or gender-based identity that can shuts down discussion but I absolutely believe if we have a common destiny then we have to recognize that there are immense issues that are structural and that that structure tends to privilege certain groups of people over others and we are rightly at the beginning of the 21st century challenging those who have held on to power and been reluctant to give it up so that we can all share in what countries like ours have to offer David thank you very much Trevor two minutes to sum up four quick points the issue of a freedom of expression I'm chair of the index on Censorship came up I asked on television about two weeks ago in the discussion about something we sure need to go into whether it would be legitimate and I think it's ought to be to ask this question we know that here and in North American pretty much everywhere children of Chinese heritage outperform pretty much every other category we know that their performance is almost unimpacted by their parents level of education or their family and household income should we be able to study why that is happening can we learn something from that which might help for example the long tail of underachievement of the community from which I icon I think we should and it might turn out we don't learn anything it might turn out I I don't believe in the biological thing at all but if we cannot ask that question then actually what we may be doing is depriving some people of a possibility of change for my pains and asking this question I was described in public on Twitter and elsewhere as a racist by somebody who is a member of one of our very distinguished universities now you know I'm not a sewer I'm not gonna sue this person but if we cannot actually have that conversation how can we gain progress and this is a point I think that night that Lionel was dealing with earlier on it's not just the sort of big stories what we now start to do do we now say I'm not gonna ask that question because I know it's going to be trouble so that's the first point second point I want to make is yes that is very quick on these other two points on the issue of populism and all of that let me say this gently I just don't really feel happy about being told that because I want to raise some questions I'm blaming women and black people that it's not what I do the person over there who raised the question about populism here's the list Oh durn salvini Putin lepen balsan ro Orban Trump these people are coming we have to think of smarter ways to get in their way instead of just shouting at them um and lastly this is a very I'm gonna make a complicate point so forgive me if it's not intelligible one of the things that we already know is that the changes that are being wrought by technology are going to affect different groups of people differently they will affect women differently in the United States but the arrival of the driverless car will be a problem for white men and not very many other people because that who the drivers are within a year they will not just see themselves as people have been knocked off the road by driverless cars they will see themselves as white men who are oppressed we need to be thinking about how we respond to these things that's why this debate is about lot more than as you say those right a lot more than what happens on universities or who gets discriminated against it is about the big changes that I take place in our society and if I may just want to say last one thing I was a bit disappointed a bit disappointed with this discussion because somebody said to me oh I've been to one of those it's like jeremy carr for the Waitrose classes and none of you has done that tonight so Hannah you could put that on your website Jeremy Kyle for the Waitrose classes dawn sum up your arguments in two minutes although Trevor took three and a half that's fine I was interested to hear from Trevor that he was the most left-wing person on the panel you know more than mere David so he must be a communist brilliant and you're not the most left-wing person on the panel dawn may be suggesting ok we'll fight on yes I agree with everything David said and some of the points are the people raised I think that identity politics is a small factor in millennial life and it's a and it isn't attempt to address in justices in this or in society it's it's an attempt to address inequalities that make life more difficult it's and it is an attempt to kind of look at our own behavior and make sure that we behave well and you know treat people how they deserve to be treated and I think the big thing that is serán unquote society apart it's not identity politics but it is inequality because if you are poor it really fills your mind like it's very difficult to process other things and if you are extremely rich your concern is about money again how to keep that money how to how to save it and I read a great things recently about the fact that a lot of extremely rich people are terrified that there will be some kind of revolution and have been buying her bolt holes in in New Zealand with big bunkers in case people rise up and try and kill the super-rich so I think the big thing that is terror in society apart is inequality and I think that identity politics is a small movement that people use to try and address that in equality and there isn't a kind of fearful thing you know that is used to attack people silenced people and you know hunt down white men in many ways thank you very much dawn Lionel the last two minutes are yours I started this event off by trying to define it identity politics partly because of when it ended up happening anyway which is that we sort of slid all around the place talking about populism and I suppose it was inevitable that we'd end up talking about Briggs it I think it's important to define what we're discussing and what I what I'm talking about is a is it's a way of thinking it's a way of thinking about ourselves and others and it's a it's a way of thinking that puts on you and I label that that you cannot defeat you cannot think outside of it you can't defy it it so if you're white you can't you know you have no right to an opinion on a whole range of it issues it's it's a culture and and it's an atmosphere that's starting to permeate our our whole society across the West a kind of super sensitivity and and antagonism which I find makes my life worse and it I think it makes all of us less open to each other but if I had realized that even though I found David's speech quite rousing that what we were really debating was racism and sexism are bad I think I'd have turned the invitation down thank you very much Lionel Trevor thorn and David I am now Speaker Berko for the next 30 seconds the result the final result from magnificent audience here thank you so much for coming for the motion let's remember it was 50% before we heard the August panelists after it was 50% for the motion after the debate 55% so it's gone up slightly but hold on David hold on all we'll have prizes let's not forget that against the motion before you heard the August opinions of these panelists 13% that has shot up to 35% with only 10% now undecided so everybody's one and it shows just how hard public votes are to interpret and on that note I wanna say thank you very much to you thank you very much to intelligence where Hanna and the team advising such a great debate and thank you very much to the panelists [Applause]

Channel: Intelligence Squared

Views: 789,349

Keywords: identity politics, political correctness, intelligence squared, david lammy, lionel shriver, social justice, free speech, intelligence squared 2019, intelligence squared debate, identity politics debate, identity politics explained, we need to talk about kevin, politics, labour party, dawn foster, trevor phillips, trevor philips, intelligence, iq2

Id: hVMYfuzhbxk

Length: 88min 28sec (5308 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2020