Well, politics as such is, in fact, the business of manufacturing consent. But as Chomsky pointed out, regarding the way the media represents ideas, the smaller the news sound byte, the more one is convinced to keep things exactly as they are. By contrast, dissenting ideas do not automatically gel with our common-sense, and they therefore require more explanations and detail and justifications than we normally would require when listening to established opinion. That is why those who would like to conserve the status quo keep things short and, as it were, sweet.

It should be noted, though, that people professing identity politics in its original form claim to be of the left. They claim to want to shut down undesirable behavior, attitudes and perhaps thoughts.

 Originally, identity politics, as thought up by Herbert Marcuse was intended as a reverse engineering of right wing politics. Those who were excluded from power in its formal manifestation were deemed to have the revolutionary potential to take on the system and destroy it from within. They could become powerful by reverse engineering the system, which is to say by embracing their identities that were considered to be negative, or violent, by those identities running the system. Or, in the case, of women, they could embrace the more cooperative, proto-socialist nature that the patriarchal system had pummeled into them, and use this to serve a revolutionary cause.

Reverse engineering was, therefore, the method to overthrow the dominant order and to establish greater power for those identities denied power. And this was the first wave of identity politics, as exhibited and expressed by such entities as The Weathermen, who blew stuff up, including themselves in one instance, on behalf of the Third World.

But now, and by contrast with these intended revolutionaries, we have another wave, which is using the Internet as a tool to get their views to dominate. It’s not so much a matter of reverse engineering for this crowd, but more like using the master’s tactics to put people in their place. The tone and method are extremely one-sided, not open to conversation and draconian. Perhaps in the choice of method, alone, there still remains some idea of reverse-engineering the masters’ system. The idea is to hit hard and unrelentingly until the dominant set of values crack.

But there is also something of the old style Puritans at work here, selecting people out as “examples” of what not to do, and putting them in stocks, and pelting them with things to make them feel disgraced.

In all, there is a distrust of dialogue. And whether this is in part justified, or not, depends on the experience of those involved in this movement. But what I have noticed myself is that they do tend to attack those whose values are more similar to theirs, rather than dissimilar. In other words, they pick on easy targets like JK Rowling (and myself), rather than on difficult targets like actual right-wingers, to make examples of. This indicates opportunism, along with perhaps the sort of psychological distress that leads to distorted perceptions.

I believe those who embrace the contemporary identity politics of the ostensible left these days are trying to outdo those whom they perceive to have any power, by dealing with them in the same manner in which they have felt they were dealt with — that is, in an illiberal and authoritarian way. I also feel their hope is to reverse-engineer the power structures by using the methods of their enemy, in order to change the direction of the flow of power so that it is not longer the preserve of certain approved identities (white, and male).

Despite all this, I feel that these self-styled revolutionaries are not in a position to change society, or even themselves. Their lapses are in that they are far too opportunistic, prone to attacking their own side, and do not have qualities instilled in them that would make their fight ethical, enduring or realistic. Along with this, they have embraced too much of the puritanical elements of the 19th Century to be able to be able to be really revolutionary, rather than Christian Reformist. Their characters are not truly the inverse of those who are in power. They are, instead, the mirror image.