The 2021 Holberg Debate on Identity Politics: J. Butler, C. West, G.Greenwald and S. Critchley.

The 2021 Holberg Debate: "Identity Politics and Culture Wars"
Starts at 3:00.

Does identity politics as it is currently manifesting itself offer a suitable avenue towards social justice, or has it become a recipe for cultural antagonism, political polarization, and new forms of injustice?

Panel: Judith Butler, Cornel West, Glenn Greenwald.
Moderator: Simon Critchley

Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, queer theory, rhetoric and literary theory. She is the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School. Butler has written more than 20 books, and her best known works are Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), and Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (1997), in which she challenges conventional notions of gender and develops her theory of gender performativity. Butler argues that being born male or female does not determine behaviour. Instead, people learn to behave in particular ways to fit into society. What society regards as a person's gender can be seen as a performance made to please social expectations, rather than a true expression of the person's gender identity.

Cornel West
Cornel West is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. West is presently Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy & Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He has previously held professorships at Harvard University and Yale University. West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and the means by which people act and react to their "radical conditionedness". A socialist, West draws intellectual contributions from multiple traditions, including Christianity, the Black church, Marxism, neopragmatism, and transcendentalism. He has written 20 books, and among his most influential works are Race Matters (1994), Democracy Matters (2004), and his memoir Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud (2010). West has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – “a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice”.

Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is an American investigative journalist and author. A former constitutional lawyer, he founded and wrote for the online global media outlet The Intercept with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill in 2014 until his departure in 2020, when he moved his writing to the online platform Substack. He is the author of several best sellers, among them, How Would a Patriot Act? (2006); With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful (2011) and No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State (2014). Living and reporting in Brazil, he was central to investigations that ultimately helped free Luis da Silva from prison after a parliamentary coup against the former President. Greenwald has received numerous awards for his investigative journalism. In 2009 he was awarded the Izzy Award by the Park Center for Independent Media for his “path breaking journalistic courage and persistence in confronting conventional wisdom, official deception, and controversial issues.” In 2010 he received an Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the arrest and detention of Chelsea Manning. In 2013 he led The Guardian’s reporting team that covered Edward Snowden and the NSA, which earned the newspaper the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013.

Moderator: Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley is a British philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor at the New School for Social Research. His books include Very Little…Almost Nothing (1997), Infinitely Demanding (2007), The Book of Dead Philosophers (2009) and The Faith of the Faithless (2012). Recent works include a novella, Memory Theatre, a book-length essay, Notes on Suicide and studies of David Bowie and Football and Apply-Degger (Onassis, 2020). His most recent books are Tragedy, The Greeks and Us (Pantheon, 2019) and Bald (Yale, 2021). He was series moderator of ‘The Stone’, a philosophy column in The New York Times and co-editor of The Stone Reader (2016). He is also 50% of an obscure musical combo called Critchley & Simmons.

[DrPatrickLockwood]

Cornell West: "if you stay woke for too long you're going to develop insomnia"

[sunrae]

1:10:50 "if you stay woke forever you´re going to suffer from insomnia". C. West

[ceelar]

After Butler says a black woman should be in the debate (later clarified that she was talking about a black academic woman*), Greenwald says they should have a working-class person as well. You can hear the other debaters groan, because either they see themselves as working class, or as people who understand what it is like to be working class. Greenwald then goes on to call them out, and himself, as people who moved away from working class lives, and are now working in elite environments. Debaters change the subject...

...and this moment perfectly characterizes the entire debate.

*who she agrees with

[jessicasawyer]

Judith’s thoughts on mandates are atrocious

[michaelthornton]

The Identity/Perspective that is ALWAYS excluded from these types of discussions is that of the “Non College Educated” Working Class person!

[bobwobbabble]

I love Dr. West and Glenn Greenwald for their courage to call out neoliberal identity politics. Judith adds nothing.

[Hist_da_Musica]

Butler thinks "women of color" are a concept, not individuals. Glenn pointed this out very well, he wasn't confrontational but he was quite clear.

[chrisyoung]

I still feel like they tip-toed around Greenwald’s critiques and attempts to dive deeper into the complexities and contradictions.

[kpmurphy]

At the 1:25:20 mark, Greenwald says it all. The media defines diversity and you do not fit in that definition, then too bad for you.

[rubentala]

Butler may be more deep and West more poetic, but Greenwald is a lot more politically concrete.

Butler is always looking outside of universals and always confirms the postmodern Left politics of groups' resistance instead of a radical revolution.

The right identity politics is the one made by the ones suffering multiple oppression. The identity politics made by other people IN THE NAME of those groups is the problem.

Greenwald is absolutely right in saying that sometimes what appears to be race is really class. The neoliberals say support to Trump is about white racism and never speak about working class support. If Sanders would have been the Democrat candidate, Trump would never have been president. Wallstreet Democrats love political correctness because it denies and distracts from class warfare.

[emileconstance]

The irony that when I saw an announcement for this debate posted on FB, the majority of the comments were asking, "Why is Greenwald being included?" Greenwald's comments were consistently the most relevant and lucid. I have respect for West and Butler, but they're very much saying the same things they were saying 30 years ago, w/ very little to say about our present moment (w/ very few exceptions). One of the pitfalls some academics fall into, is finding their "lane" and never really venturing beyond it--I will give West credit for also being an activist, and so at least putting his ideas/politics into practice.

[richardburt]

Butler donated to Kamala Harris in 2020 the maximum amount of money one is allowed to donate. Terry Castle donated thousands to Hillary Clinton in 2020. Angela Davis endorsed Biden. Shocking and disappointing.

[emileconstance]

I think one of the reasons Butler comes across as somewhat out of touch in this discussion, is that she's used to speaking w/ people who largely agree w/ her--i.e., people in gender studies classes in particular, and the humanities more generally (I know, because I've spent a lot of time in this world--it's where I first read Butler and West). Butler's ideas are generally affirmed in these circles, but aren't as persuasive, intuitive, or well-received outside of the fairly cloistered world of the humanities, where Butler is something of an academic celebrity. I love the humanities, and have found real meaning studying the humanities, but admittedly its insularity can be a real problem; and despite the emphasis on "diversity, " there is too often a lack of diversity of ideas, and a noticeable dearth of original thought.

Edit: I would be remiss if I didn't point out that there is great value in studying the humanities, esp. the opportunity to immerse oneself in a topic--be it the French Revolution or Song Dynasty painting, etc.--as opposed to the generally more cursory knowledge one typically acquires via digital/online learning. I think it's important to point this out given the pervasiveness of anti-academic sentiments, which I wasn't intending to add to by pointing out some of the shortcomings of academia or the humanities in the 21st century.

[ennotianen]

It seems that Cornel, Judith and Glenn all agree to varying degrees that these bigger philosophical questions such as justice and equality are universal and not particular. The big problem with identity politics, is that politicians and political systems hijack and weaponize meaningful struggles, and co--opt them cynically. Glenn is a journalist and he points out how these tactics are used to atomize solidarity by breaking up people into identity and interest groups making it harder for solidarity. He also is repeating much of what we hear in the "alternative" media discourse, where he is one of the most relevant voices. Cornell and Judith are philosophers who are asking the broader and deeper questions of what it means to have justice in a society, which is uphill from the base and ugly political systems Glenn is rightfully challenging. There isn't anything Glenn is saying that I don't think Cornell is and has been aware of for ages. Judith's mutliculturalism has a good moral framework but as she points out we are living in an anti-intellectual age, so when her ideas get filtered down to the political realm, they get condensed to political buzzwords and slogans which are used to emotionally manipulate people into voting in a direction or even supporting participating corporations. I think that the political issues we are facing are more immediate and Glenn does great work on this front, Cornell plays an important role in politics as well. I think that Judith is right that we need to broaden what justice and equality mean in our society and that we need to challenge the hierarchical nature, but as Cornell always points out, identity politics (as deployed by the Democratic Party for instance)doesn't seek to structurally change and dismantle the current neoliberal order, but makes room to absorb chosen people from given identity groups to signify "hey we're cool, we get the struggle, we're with you, now shut up and get back to work."

[thepeak]

I'll just say one thing about this ... I'm glad Glenn was there.

[twatts]

Cornell is so lovely and inspirational. He and Glenn make a perfect duo. Glenn gives a concise, literal narrative which is rational and organized, slamming each point down with precision. Then Cornell takes it over and interprets it for us in artistic form. What a special treat!

[agaperion]

Since everybody seems to want to redefine all our terms, I propose redefining "anti-intellectual" - i.e. As distinct from "anti-intellect". Because, IMO, it's not intellect that most people have a problem with but rather intellectuals who, it seems, believe they can not only tell others how they should live their lives and what they should think but indeed tell them what they do in fact think. Evidently, the concept of "projection" somehow became integrated into popular consciousness while flying right over the heads of society's ostensibly most intelligent people. Maybe if they occasionally looked up from their navels they'd notice that their absurd pontifications seldomly reflect the reality of the average person's _lived experience._

[kayleavanvliet]

I say this as someone who has always viewed Judith Butler’s work on language as profound and seminal in terms of how it is used and how it can be interpreted - listening to her during this whole thing was downright painful. She is so stuck in her ideology and her arrogant insistence that her worldview is the right one and that anyone who doesn’t agree is evil that she is incapable of perceiving how she herself is an agent of the very evil that she claims to be against. Then she also all but admits that “diversity” is only important if the “diverse” people parrot exactly what she believes. Cornel West and Glen Greenwald were way more intellectually honest.

[CajunMomma]

This is how it’s done ! As a viewer the goal is not to agree with any or all of their ideas but to expose yourself to others’ ideas with the goal of broadening understanding, empathy and love for each other. Without this much needed discourse we are doomed as a civilization. Truly grateful to all participants

[vchavez]

Glenn Greenwald keeps it clear and real...