I keep hearing people accusing other people of playing “identity politics.”
Let’s get one thing straight: All politics is about identity.
If you go far enough ahead, each individual is a political unit of one.
If you go far enough back, we are all one-celled organisms.
Where you stand in terms of your identity, and hence your politics, is just a matter of where you stop in the future or past. All else is “mithya” and hypocrisy, especially when you accuse the other party of playing “identity politics” because this phrase is truly tautological.
There is no politics without identity. In fact, there is no civilisation without identity for consciousness is intractably intertwined with the idea of self and that inevitably leads to a sense of identity which, the moment more than one conscious being is in the room, manifests itself into politics.
Be careful what you accuse “the other” of, for it exposes your own identity and the underlying politics as much as of the person you are accusing.
