Universality and Identity Politics Todd McGowan Columbia University Press

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The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of such aspirations. Critics see the invocation of universality as a form of domination or a way of speaking for others, and have come to favor a politics of particularism—often derided as “identity politics.” Others, both centrists and conservatives, associate universalism with twentieth-century totalitarianism and hold that it is bound to lead to catastrophe.



This book develops a new conception of universality that helps us rethink political thought and action. Todd McGowan argues that universals such as equality and freedom are not imposed on us. They emerge from our shared experience of their absence and our struggle to attain them. McGowan reconsiders the history of Nazism and Stalinism and reclaims the universalism of movements fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia. He demonstrates that the divide between Right and Left comes down to particularity versus universality. Despite the accusation of identity politics directed against leftists, every emancipatory political project is fundamentally a universal one—and the real proponents of identity politics are the right wing. Through a wide range of examples in contemporary politics, film, and history, Universality and Identity Politics offers an antidote to the impasses of identity and an inspiring vision of twenty-first-century collective struggle.

I used to be among those left-leaning academics who believe that universalism is problematic and that particularism represents a corrective to false universalism. Not anymore. McGowan shows that a genuinely emancipatory politics is intrinsically universalist, and he reveals the various ways in which identity politics inevitably serves the conservative establishment and traps us into a conception of politics as a struggle of one identity against others. Universality and Identity Politics is a groundbreaking book. Mari Ruti, author of Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life Passionately yet patiently argued, Universality and Identity Politics looks back at earlier debates surrounding the universal and mounts fresh defenses of it. More than timely, this book writes to the moment. Joan Copjec, author of Imagine There’s No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation What is universality? With his signature exactitude, Todd McGowan radiantly argues that universality is what we lack in common, the absent foundation for a nonetheless necessary sociality. Against the many theories conflating universality with positive content and violent oppression, Universality and Identity Politics illustrates how movements beyond the particular are indispensable for solidarity. Ceaseless catastrophes now rain down; McGowan boldly underwrites new political imaginings of equality and freedom. Anna Kornbluh, author of The Order of Forms: Realism, Formalism, and Social Space In calm, level-headed formulations that are as elegant as they are clear, Todd McGowan presents a crucial insight into all emancipatory political efforts. Those who want to liberate themselves without at the same time aiming at liberating all others do not lead an emancipatory struggle. As a result, they do not even liberate themselves. Robert Pfaller, author of On the Pleasure Principle in Culture: Illusions Without Owners

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Finding Universality

1. Our Particular Age

2. The Importance of Being Absent

3. Universal Villains

4. Capitalism’s Lack and Its Discontents

5. This Is Identity Politics

6. This Is Not Identity Politics

Conclusion: Avoiding the Worst

Notes

Index