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The kind of freedom I want to address is the most vital kind: political freedom. By that I mean the summoning and exertion of energy to engage one another on matters of collective government. What I have in mind specifically is democratic political freedom. By that I mean political freedom in a context shaped by three simple norms: political equality, popular sovereignty and, therefore, majority rule.
What should we make of identity politics as an exercise of democratic political freedom? Let me respond with five connected theses.
Number One. All politics is identity politics. Political activity is-and, at its best, is-animated by efforts to define and defend who I am, or we are, or you are, or hope to be, or hope to be seen to be.1 By extension, it is motivated by our imagination of what is or ought to be mine or ours or yours. It is not only about self-government. Nor does it always involve much in the way of public debate. What structures it, often beneath the surface, is the always unfinished enterprise of self-construction and self-presentation.
The reason, first of all, is that politics2 involves making comparisons and choices among-and commitments to-values and interests and groups and individuals (including choices not to choose among available choices). The choices and the commitments we make in politics are ones with which we mean to-or by which we cannot help but-identify ourselves.3
What is more, politics involves comparison, choice, and commitment under conditions of conflict. There are winners and losers. Crucially, over time, it is an open-ended conflict: The first ones now may later be (and often are) last. And, over time, political conflict is open in another respect. It is without permanent bounds or rules. The most unexpected issues may one day become salient political issues; allegiances and alliances shift; and, at some point, any mode of struggle, even war, may turn out to be politically decisive. This contingency of politics tends, in turn, to open up the enterprise of self-identification that animates it-keeping it on edge and, so, alive.
In democratic politics, moreover, the conflict is among putative equals. The norm of political equality not only destabilizes temporary victories. It also unsettles taken-for-granted hierarchies and, so, identities-and thus renews the spring...