Why I hate identity politics
<p>I was born with a congenital defect.  That&#8217;s a value-free statement that nobody can conceivably insult me by repeating.  It is a fact that I have cerebral palsy, probably caused by neonatal oxygen deprivation. It is a fact that my central nervous system (specifically the motor-control areas of my right temporal lobe) does not function as in quite the same way as that of a a developmentally normal human being.</p>
<p>It is not quite a fact, but a plausible inference based on statistics on other Persons Of Palsy, that I am significantly more intelligent than I would have been if un-palsied.  It is not known how to permanently raise a human&#8217;s intelligence (some drugs can do it temporarily) but most people don&#8217;t drive their brains up to their personal genetic limit.  Palsied people try harder; as a group, their mean intelligence is high relative to the general population.</p>
<p>In fact, the compensation effect is strong enough that you could argue that the sum of my palsy impairments and the compensation effects has been a net <em>benefit</em> to me.  Imagine an Eric who walks normally but isn&#8217;t quite capable of reinventing hacker culture and blowing up the software industry and you&#8217;ll begin to see what I mean.</p>
<p>(It&#8217;s not necessary that you believe that; I&#8217;m not sure I do.  Maybe I wasn&#8217;t required for open source to blow up the software industry, or maybe I&#8217;d have done it if I hadn&#8217;t had palsy.  Doesn&#8217;t matter.  It&#8217;s enough that you grasp the <em>possibility</em> that a congenital defect with an intelligence-boosting side effect can be a net positive.)</p>
<p>I have never, ever, had any interest in constructing my identity around the fact that I am  technically &#8220;handicapped&#8221;.  That would just be damn silly.  I didn&#8217;t choose to have palsy, it was a  developmental accident with no more significance or meaning than the fact that I have blue eyes.</p>
<p>Now let&#8217;s suppose that I had been born with a normal motor cortex system, but something else went just&#8230;slightly&#8230;wrong.  I could, in that case, tell a very similar story.  It would read something like this:</p>
<p>I was born with a congenital defect.  That&#8217;s a value-free statement that nobody can conceivably insult me by repeating.  It is a fact that I am compulsively sexually attracted to other males, probably due to my prenatal brain being exposed to abnormally high levels of feminizing hormones.  It is a fact that that my central nervous system (specifically the amygdala and portions of the cerebellum and thalamus involved in sexual behavior) does not function as in quite the same way as that of a a developmentally normal human being.</p>
<p>It is not quite a fact, but a plausible inference based on statistics on other homosexuals, that I am significantly more intelligent than I would have been if I were straight.  It is not known how to permanently raise a human&#8217;s intelligence (some drugs can do it temporarily) but most people don&#8217;t drive their brains up to their personal genetic limit.  Gay people either try harder or gayness is allotropically linked to genes that set a high limit; as a group, their mean intelligence is high relative to the general population.</p>
<p>In fact, the compensation effect is strong enough that you could argue that homosexuality has been a net <em>benefit</em> to me.  Imagine an Eric who is at near-zero risk for contracting AIDS from anal sex, but isn&#8217;t quite capable of reinventing hacker culture and blowing up the software industry and you&#8217;ll begin to see what I mean.</p>
<p>I have never, ever, had any interest in constructing my identity around the fact that I am &#8220;homosexual&#8221;.  That would just be damn silly.  I didn&#8217;t choose to be gay, it was a developmental accident with no more significance or meaning than the fact that I have blue eyes.</p>
<p>(Those of you who are PC-twitchy are probably screaming &#8220;WHAT MAKES GAYNESS A DEFECT?&#8221; at the monitor right now.  Why, exactly the same measure that makes palsy a defect: it reduces the affected individual&#8217;s odds of reproducing significantly.  &#8220;Inclusive fitness&#8221; is what biologists call it.  Your problem is that I have been writing &#8220;biologically defective&#8221; and you are reading &#8220;morally defective&#8221; or &#8220;inferior&#8221; or something.  That is not a useful interpretation of either palsy or gayness, so please stop now.  Thank you.)</p>
<p>Back in observable reality, I&#8217;m heterosexual.  But the point remains&#8230;</p>
<p>My identity is not the accidents that have happened to me.  It is what I <em>choose</em>.  What I <em>make</em> of myself.  It is irrelevant that I have palsy; it would be equally irrelevant if I were gay.</p>
<p>People who construct themselves as professional victims because they have palsy disgust me.  People who construct themselves as professional victims because they are gay disgust me.  The choice to play professional victim <em>is</em> in fact a defect of character and morals, leading to  self-sabotaging behavior in individuals and their societies.</p>
<p>Identity politics, whether it&#8217;s about the &#8220;identity&#8221; of being palsied, or gay, or white, or black, or anything else, is a symptom of deep failure at <em>choosing for yourself</em>, at becoming a fully individuated and fully functioning human being.</p>
<p>And that is why I hate identity politics.</p>
