Should Race Be Used as a Form of Identity?

Should range Be Used as a Form of individualism element?Identity is based on organism the same as some mass and contrastivefrom new(prenominal)s. The difference is usually equally weighted discuss with interview to the category of race.Identity is one of the most heavily debated factors of modern tender life. This is represented in the corpus of sociological research, by the importance set(p) upon its influence in the dissimilar ways in which individualists and societies conceptualise themselves and others. Identity, send-off and foremost, is based upon the notion of being the same as some wad (to make with some mint), and to be different from others. This prat and lots is interpreted as individuality having both a positive and a minus aspect, positive in identifying with a neighborly separate, and contradict in being different (or opposing) another. This may not necessarily be the case stock-still. In this paper I allow for investigate the use of race as an id enticalness, as this has traditionally presented us with both the positive and negative amaze of identity, and in much(prenominal) recent times, a more positive example in both identity and difference.Identity, in its most groundworkonical sense, is organise from being other than another particular person or grouping. This basic difference comes in many defecates, from gender, to class, topicity, sexual orientation and race or ethnicity. Whilst these ar the some of the more major identity groups, thither argon countless other ways in which people identify with apiece other, from a lifestyle guided by a certain musical comedy taste to a radical semipolitical identification. Identity so carcass a very great way in which people rede themselves and the world. Any one person will belong to a return of different identity groups however. A person might, for example, be a British national with an Asian ethnicity, and belong to a particular political group and economic class. Whether or not one particular facet of a persons identity is more great than the others, is a affair that is fiercely debated.For some theorists such as milling machine (199711), nations atomic number 18 respectable communities. They atomic number 18 contour grades in the ethical landscape. The duties we owe to our fellow-nationals be different from, and more extensive than, the duties we owe to human beings as such. Miller and others argue that nationality is the most important way in which people identify themselves, and as such it interprets their responsibilities to co-nationals much greater than to others. Whilst Perry (2001103-108) argues that gender is the most important identity group, and that feminism is in danger of being watered-down and destroyed by theories that level too much emphasis on the multi-faceted nature of an individuals identity. For, she argues (2001107), Women of all ethnicities, sexual preferences, and even classes, will be deprived by pr oposed changes in welfare regulation, means-tested custody, and the rolling back of abortion rights and affirmatory action guidelines. redness theorists argue however that class is the most important factor in well-disposed identity, for the economic class you belong to will determine whether or not you redeem political function oer you and your communitys future. Hence Marxs (20018) famous opening line to his Communist Manifesto, The chronicle of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.For the means of this paper however, I am going to focus on the influence that race plays in identity constituteation, and its transactionhip with the other facets of identity. execute has long been debated in sociological circles, just now precisely what race is or even whether it exists to any significant level has been placed in uncertainty by a number of theorists. Todorov (199964-70) argues that for a theory of races (or racialism) to exist, it needs to deve lop five different presuppositions. Firstly the racialist must mull everywhere that there are different races of people at all. Scientifically such a position is untenable, but, as Todorov argues, whether or not the man in the passage thinks this way does not depend upon science. Secondly the racialist must suppose that people are not only racially separated by appearances, but that there are lines of office amongst cultures too, which are considerably relate with racial appearances. The third supposition is that the demeanor of an individual is profoundly unnatural by their race. Fourthly there is a hierarchy of value amid differing races, and lastly that some political order should be in place to reflect all the previously mentioned factors. For Todorov racialist doctrine has not bygone away but has merely changed its institute, from discourses based on race to those of culturalism and nationalism.For Todorov wherefore there are many different presuppositions that have to be in place before race itself as a significant identity can be considered. But, as he himself notes, there is an ideological word form of racialism which is pure and simply racist and does not rely upon notional grounding or offer any form of justification. This is racist behaviour and attitude is the most common one in society, and this behaviour can only create and galvanise race or ethnic identity. This can take occur in both a positive and negative fashion, in that one group might define itself in a positive nature when to a lower place pressure from another, or one group might violently negate another and try to eradicate it. In such circumstances, the significance that race or ethnicity plays in identity is accentuated and becomes more important than other factors. Indeed, according to Assad (1993), minorities in modern situates are confront with two stark choices they can submit to complete assimilation or be despised as different. In such circumstances, the identity under threat comes to the fore of the life of the person in question. To submit to the absolute majority is to lose your identity, but to keep it is to face hostility and conflict. Of course, the situation that Assad presents us with is somewhat extreme. But whereas in most circumstances the differences among people might be treated with equal weight, within the boundaries of a nation deposit trying to forge a unifying identity, racial and ethnic identity does become more important.Britain, for example, present us with a multicultural society that incorporates a whole range of people from different ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds. But this does not mean that racial discrimination and intimidation does not occur. As Solomos (2003) argues, the long history of racial discrimination in Britain has light-emitting diode to political activists in all the main political parties, whose aim and purpose is to fight for the rights of ethnic minorities. Such developments galvanise people around their ethnicity and form new identities with which people differentiate themselves against others. The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1980s were interested in precisely thisA major carry on of the group was the need to analyse the complex processes by which race is constructed as a well-disposed and political relation. They emphasised that the concept of race is not simply confined to a process of regulation operated by the state but that the meaning of race as a social bend is contested and fought over. In this sense they viewed race as an open political construction where the meaning of terms such as black are struggled over. Collective identities spoken through race, community and locality are, for all their spontaneity, right on means to coordinate action and create solidarity (Solomos 200328).Race can therefore be theorised not as a natural category or regulation of the state, but as a political construction where identity can be create in or der to fight for social justice. This political use of race argues that racial divisions in society are a cause of major differences in quality of life, and therefore racial identity is of much more importance than other factors. Such division can however cause greater resentment amongst different social groups and put more emphasis on difference than on similarity. patch positive discrimination by the dominant social group, in an onslaught to redress the power balance between different segments of society, can often enflame racial tautness. As Solomos (2003192) argues, anti-racists are often depicted as doing more harm to race relations than extreme rightwing fanatics. This is because they highlight racial differences and modify people between different racial identities. It could be argued however that anti-racists do not create racial tension, but merely highlight tension that is already there. In any case, the importance that race plays in workaday social life is clearly ev ident. Anwar (199899-100), for example, claims that racial discrimination against Asian people has been on the rise in recent years in Britain, and that in 1994 alone there were 170,000 instances of racially affectd crimes and threats, whilst an estimated 74 people have been killed by racist attacks between 1970 and 1989. Racial identity can motivate people not only to dislike and slander each other, but even to reach the extremes of violence and murder. With this in mind race is kinda obviously, although without any ultimate justification, the deciding factor in a persons identity in many social situations, overriding other factors such as gender, political affiliations or, very often, religion.Scott (2002) renders this assumption problematic however by researching the roots of racialism from a red ink perspective. Whilst race and racism clearly do have an important impact in social identity, this is for Scott a modern phenomenon with historically traceable roots. Scott argues t hat modern racism is intimately related with that of capitalism, and that whilst racism has always figured in societies in different forms, it is only with capitalism that it becomes a constant factor. Early slavery in the New World, for example, was badly made up from purity slaves from England before the large influx from the West Indies and Africa. The English ruling classes had no qualms about exploiting the white working classes, but in the end the demand for labour at home rendered the practice of shipping white slaves over to the Americas as inefficient. exploitation Blackburns analysis of racism and capitalism, Scott (2002167) argues that racism is linked to capitalist increment, national identity and the individualising of the populace.Its development was associated with several of those processes which have been held to define modernity the growth of instru psychological rationality, the rise of national sentiment and the nation-state, racialized perceptions of identit y, the spread of market relations and wage labor, the development of administrative bureaucracies and modern tax systems, the growing mundaneness of commerce and communication, the birth of consumer societies, the publication of newspapers and the beginnings of press advertising, action at a distance and an individualist sensibility (Blackburn in Scott (2002167).A further Marxist analysis might consider the influence that alienated labour has on divisive notions of race (see Manson 200020). For Marx, man becomes alienated from his labour in a capitalist society, because he no longer has any control over the intersection points of his labour. He therefore becomes reduced to an atomistic cog in a productive machine, alienated from his work and society. Pseudo-identities can then be formed and people coerced into assuming them to fill in the lack of meaning left wing by his lack of control over his social production. Furthermore, the crux of Marxist theory rests upon the notion that the class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it(Marx and Engels 197064). This means that it is the ruling economic class, which are the people who control the means of production, that disseminate ideas and values throughout the rest of society. Notions of race are therefore inherently linked with the prevailing ideas of capitalist production and the values and ideas that this produces.Whilst the Marxist analysis does not refute the existence of racism, nor can it cut through its powerful and destructive effects, it does suggest that the existence of racial discourse is the product of an underlying one, that of the capitalist economy. Whether this is correct or not, it does at least render problematic the notion that race is a distinct and unique form of identity. This also calls into quest ion whether or not race really is more important than other forms of identity, or whether its existence is part of an underlying form of identity production.