The mantra at the forefront of Identity Politics says that Diversity is Strength. It isn't. We are naturally diverse as individuals, and that's a good thing, a necessary evolutionary thing. It ensures that vibrant cultural richness and a multiplicity of ideas and viewpoints are upheld and carried forward, as well as a healthy genepool. Diversity is good, but it isn't that which makes us strong. Humanity finds its greatest strength, and acquires its greatest power, through cohesion. Cohesion is therefore true strength, not diversity.
Diversity = difference. And when you push, pedal, and promote differences, you fracture cohesion. Breaking it, and us, into separate parts. This is where Identity Politics becomes thoroughly destructive. In generating this mindset, even in light of its surface benefits (acceptance, tolerance, inclusivity), the marginalization of one group or another invariably results. One "identity" gets smothered by another. All gay people were once together, and now, in many instances, they stand apart. Gay men against gay women, gay men and gay women against trans people (who stole their thunder), and even gay black men against gay white men... It never ends.
Identity Politics emerged at a time of great social upheaval. It was long overdue, but at last black people got equal rights, women were liberated, and homosexuality was decriminalised. But then it changed. Identity Politics grew shoots, multiplied, and mutated like a virus. New groups and identities were created (invented), new abbreviations and acronyms sprang into being. And with each new subdivision, people grew more and more estranged from their fellow human being.
Identity Politics pretty much takes top billing these days in the political conversation. But why? I think most of us on PA are aware enough and savvy enough to detect an insidious agenda at work here. Maybe it's because, so long as we're busy fighting amongst ourselves, we're not fighting them, the Powers That Be. This is a matrix of control, and social engineering par excellence, make no mistake. To divide, or to diversify, is to conquer (the social fabric). In my opinion, Diversity is only Strength in the same way that War is Peace, or Freedom is Slavery, from 1984 by George Orwell.
This ideology wants to remind us that we're all different, to focus on that perceived difference, even construct our entire reality around it. In politicizing diversity, and making movements out of it, all we see, and shall continue to see, is the further breaking of bonds between people. The true message should really be the opposite: no, we're not all different, we're all One.