Lord Of The Dead :: essays research papers

( This essay is a response to Benhabib. ) EDUCATION, DISCOURSE, ANDTHE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY 1In order to visualise some of the strengths and weakness of identity politics as an approach to thinking about education, we need to make a distinction that is implicit, moreover not explicit, in Seyla Benhabibs essay. For there are at least two distinct conceptions of identity politics at work in her discussion, and criticisms appropriate to one may not apply to the other. The first perspective considers identity a rather static quality of persons, and views the process of identity formation in predominantly resistless terms the other perspective involves what Benhabib calls the fungibility of identity, suggesting that identities are more active and flexible constructions.2 Correspondingly, each of these views yields a different view of politics both of which, I will suggest, can be seen as sooner limited, but for different reasons. For example, m both identity theorists, and postmo dern feminists generally, will balk at having Catharine MacKinnon put out as an exemplar of their views. If she is an advocate of identity politics, it is only in a very specific sense, assuming a reified identity that is decided for women, by men, who with their home on womens throats do not allow them to speak for themselves. MacKinnon also has a crude, instrumental conception of power, especially in her view of the state as monolithic and fundamentally insensitive to womens concerns (as she says, the state is male3). As a result, her view of politics is strategic and somewhat opportunistic she appears willing to function single-issue coalitions with any group to advance her cause, as she has with right-wing groups in her antipornography crusade. MacKinnons expressed sympathy for Clarence Thomas in the Hill-Thomas case is rather stunning, given her bigger views on sexual harassment, and Benhabib places considerable weight on these comments as representing some larger dilemma fa ced by postmodern feminists in that dispute but I do not see that MacKinnons comments typify a position taken by postmodern feminists generally. MacKinnon is not postmodern in any sense that I can understand, and it seems rather misleading to characterize the weaknesses of identity politics and of postmodern feminism largely through her example. If she is an identity theorist, she has a quite reified and passive conception of identity, as I have said. For MacKinnon, there is no active component in the process of identity formation identity is constructed for women, compel from without by powerful others and by hegemonic cultural norms and beliefs.