BEATING THE POISONED DRUM

“The argument that Butler makes, and that is very rich, is that the liberal state recognizes us on the basis of identities, and it recognizes identities as political only insofar as those identities claim to have been injured in some way, and can demand some kind of restitution for that injury. What this means is that, if we accept this model, we end up being more and more reduced to whatever particular identity category has been used to define us, even though every group that is defined according to one particular identity characteristic actually contains a multitude of other identity traits. We get more and more reduced to our group affiliation, if we accept that this kind of injured identity is the basis for us to become political, or have any kind of political agency. Butler extends this argument to point out that this is the way people start to become attached to their identities. Because these identities have made it possible for us to speak, for us to articulate a demand, even though those identities have been created through a process of injury. Even though those identities were created through a relationship of subordination or a hierarchy of some kind, we become attached to them. And that attachment is precisely what keeps us within that relation of subordination.”

— Asad Haider