“Identity politics” rule in American political culture, in the mental health profession, and in the schools and universities alike. But “identity” does not signify the fully-developed critical intellect combined with an understanding of one’s personal history from infancy, the historical context in which that history occurred, or the capacity to stand up to arbitrary authority. Rather, “identity” consists of “rootedness” in “multiple, overlapping interest groups.” And such memberships constitute “adjustment” and “moderation,” for the rooted individual is unlikely to go off the deep end into millenarianism, other utopian fantasies, or wild-eyed anarchism, but will be a faithful adherent to “democracy” and “balance” whatever that means to the party in power.
The vagueness of what constitutes “identity” leaves us not only mired in collectivist categories, but makes it hard to pin down political speech, for it too is vague and undefined, very much like the IRS rules for tax-exempt organizations. However, recent revelations suggest that antagonism toward progressive ideology, including welfare state economics, falls outside of the permissible boundaries of charitable and related organizations. Tea Party localism is now as dangerous as Marxist-Leninism was held to be in the late 1940s and early 1950s under the aegis of the dread McCarthy-ites and the John Birch Society. For more on this understudied subject see the following examples. (This is the follow-up blog to https://clarespark.com/2013/05/15/who-is-barack-obama/.)
http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable-Organizations/The-Restriction-of-Political-Campaign-Intervention-by-Section-501(c)(3)-Tax-Exempt-Organizations (vagueness of prohibition against political partisanship).
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/tehistory.pdf. (H/t Jim Wilson for providing this)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)_organization
http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare (this website is critical of the Koch brothers and the Republican Jewish Coalition among other targets)
http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/sites/default/files/ssn_key_findings_disch_on_democratic_representation.pdf. A left-wing website that argues that class conflict is masked by the pluralism advocating membership in “multiple, overlapping interest groups” but this article did not mention all the social theorists who put this formulation out there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Dahl. The major theorist of pluralism is political scientist Robert Dahl of Yale University, who has become more pessimistic in recent (20th century) publications. He was challenged by New Left scholars and other anticapitalists. Born in 1915, he is still alive.
https://clarespark.com/2011/03/28/index-to-multiculturalism-blogs/
The Clare Spark Blog 
[…] We are in terrible trouble, and have no one but ourselves to rely upon. We still have the internet and social media. These must be protected above all else, whatever our politics. The republic will stand or fall depending on our defense of free and inquisitive communication, let the chips fall…. (For a follow-up blog see https://clarespark.com/2013/05/16/divide-et-impera/.) […]
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