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Demonstrators in Berlin
Photo: Christian Spicker / imago images /
Identity politics provokes, as was shown recently in the two articles in SPIEGEL.
Andreas Rödder presented the capers of progressive identity politics to embellish his conservative criticism of left politics.
Alice Hasters, on the other hand, defended it without addressing its problematic tendency towards self-radicalization.
Both were passionate about it, though it wasn't the same thing.
I would like to contradict both by trying to break down the identity-political method.
About the author
Bernd Stegemann
Stegemann,
53, is a dramaturge at the Berliner Ensemble and an author.
His new book "The public and their enemies" will be published by Klett-Cotta in February.
Us first!
is the core message of identity politics.
If you ask who this we should be, the answer is: we are we because we have experienced the same offense.
Such a policy is successful because it lets the whole world end at the tip of your nose.
One meets insults on every corner.
The simple request to wear a mask triggers a fury of freedom in not a few.
And the interested question of where someone comes from makes some people lose patience.
Identity politics turns every factual question into a question of honor.
And it is known to be highly flammable.
It was not just the populists of our day who understood that you can weld your supporters together with anger.
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