Lord Of The Dead :: essays research papers

( This essay is a response to Benhabib. ) EDUCATION, DISCOURSE, ANDTHE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY 1In order to see some of the strengths and weakness of identity element political science as an approach to thinking about education, we need to make a musical note that is implicit, but not explicit, in Seyla Benhabibs essay. For there are at least two distinct conceptions of identity politics at escape in her discussion, and criticisms appropriate to one may not apply to the otherwise. The prototypic perspective considers identity a rather static quality of persons, and billets the carry out of identity formation in predominantly passive terms the other perspective involves what Benhabib calls the fungibility of identity, suggesting that identities are more active and flexible constructions.2 Correspondingly, for each one of these views yields a different view of politics both of which, I volition suggest, can be seen as kinda limited, but for different reasons. For example, some(prenominal) identity theorists, and postmodern feminists generally, will balk at having Catharine MacKinnon put frontwards as an exemplar of their views. If she is an advocate of identity politics, it is only in a very specific common sense, assuming a reified identity that is decided for women, by men, who with their foot on womens throats do not allow them to plow for themselves. MacKinnon also has a crude, instrumental conception of power, especially in her view of the enjoin 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 roughly opportunistic she appears willing to forge 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 larger views on sexual harassment, and Benhabib places bulky weight on these comments as representing some larger dilemma face 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, imposed from without by powerful others and by hegemonic cultural norms and beliefs.