chat

Come on, folks. It isn't difficult to look up things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standpoint_theory

Standpoint theory, also known as standpoint epistemology,[1] is a foundational framework in feminist social theory that examines how individuals' social identities (e.g., race, gender, disability status), influence their understanding of the world. Standpoint theory proposes that those in positions of marginalization are able to achieve certain standpoints which put them in a better position to know certain facts about the world related to that marginalization.

But from MY point of view, the Jedi are evil!

But my "father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate" lived in China and he hated it.

What is that

Standpoint theory has truth to it, but it can be absurdly reductive. Lived experience is important, but it does not automatically make you an expert on systems of oppression. Liberals do not seem to understand this.

What?

Another term for this is tokenization. The premise being that an individual of X background is surely the authority on all topics related to X so you must believe them. This is, by necessity, inconstantly applied, because actual humans disagree with each other and know vastly different amounts about topics and have differing interests and backgrounds despite all being X.

Liberals use it constantly to give their bad ideas weight, as they can't argue them on merit. Discussing a country and imperialism? Let's bring in the gusano that knows jack shit but is very condescending. Want to go in a different direction in a strategy discussion? Sorry, John is Vietnamese (his grandparents immigrated from Vietnam) and says China is bad. There's often a racist tone to it that they don't recognize.

It is a form of essentialism, and essentialism is the philosophy that underlies reactionary politics.

"Look for answers by assigning an immutable category to everything."

I disagree. Maybe liberals misinterpret standpoint theory but its foundationally solid.

At least in America, which imports the reactionary losing/wealthy side of every socialist revolution around the world, standpoint theory is guaranteed to get you a "bomb every country under the sun my Venezuelan friend approves of this" perspective. Partly this is because a lot of Americans think all immigrants are impoverished instead of having to be pretty well-off to get here (excepting border-jumpers or refugees). I know some second- and third-gen immigrants that even play up this perception. Except I've been to their families' houses lol

Based on the wikipedia definition it sounds a lot like intersectionalism but not fully developed?