Category talk:Identity Politics

I'm seriously concerned with this category as a whole.

Firstly, I think it would be good to be very careful to distinguish the parts of Identity Politics that are actually relevant to P2P and Commons theory. The view that it is opposed as a whole seems to me mistaken and an overreaction. So, firstly, I would take out probably most of the articles here – and they may fit very well into a separate website – and leave the ones that are most directly relevant.

Second, I would like to ensure that there is substantial invitation to critical viewpoints from all sides of the question.

As has been done with several other categories, I would suggest that the present content of the page is moved to indicate that it is Michel's personal compilation, representing his position, which is perfectly understandable, whatever you think of its merits. The category page would be trimmed down to give essentials only, with an attempt to balance the different positions on this matter.

We are not emulating Wikipedia, but still I would like to see some attempt to get closer to Wikipedia's NPOV.

Would any editors like to join me in working out what will restore a greater balance on this wiki?

— Simon Grant (talk) 10:38, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Dear Simon, and other contributors,

Please bear in mind the general principles of this wiki, which is a perspectopedia, and in this particular instance, a pluralist multi-perspectival wiki which is open to multiple perspectives except for point of views that are explicitly against the equality of human beings, such as views fostering racial and other hierarchies etc .. (though they can be documented in a proper context). The mode of production of this wiki is through opportunistic updating, which means that article are 'composed' by adding various perspectives on the topic over time, so that they offer a fuller overview over time.

This section here has a special status and I take full responsibility for it, but it has been produced with the same philosophy. It's aim is to document the current trend to solve the crisis of elite over-production through new forms of allocation that are based on genetic and other biological characteristics, claimed to be responsible for unequal outcomes. And subjects are seen as representatives of these groups, rather than as complex beings that can freely choose to enter equipotential commons, with speech and other resources to be allocated according to group membership. These views and practices are the very antithesis of any legitimate peer to peer and commons movement.

Within this context, this section has actually taken great care to be balanced, it represents the main strands of progressive and egalitarian critique, i.e. radical left, social-democratic and liberal left, with care also to include many minority theorists and representatives of the radical emancipatory traditions. It is true that conservative anti-racist critiques are missing, as well and it has relatively few quotes from the authors of the pro-racialist theories themselves. I have no objection that they be included. But the way to create balance is to integrate counter-vailing perspectives, and our site has always been open to this, in fact to date there has been zero censorship of additional material. This is not a wiki where balance needs to be created by eliminating articles, but by adding new articles or adding new perspectives to existing articles.

If there is a real desire to turn it to a mono-perspectival encyclopedia, along the so-called Neutral Point of View of the Wikipedia, which specifically is designed to eliminate perspectival views, then it is always possible to fork this wiki, with one version that can move to a single perspective that is compatible with the new orthodoxies, and another that is open to various critical perspectives. I will not participate myself in a wiki that is constructed around the censorship of multiple perspectives. --MIchel Bauwens (talk) 15:24, 27 March 2021 (UTC)