7/27/2019 Summary of Young's excerpt

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Iris Marion Young

Justice and the Politics of Difference extract

Classic notions of liberation from group based oppression have typically involved the elimination of group based differences. This ties into ideas about universal humanity and notions that individuals

should be free to develop themselves without norms and expectations determined by their groupbelonging. Such ideas have been very important for emancipatory politics.

Many groups have rejected these ideas, criticising them for requiring the oppressed to assimilatewith the dominant group. Instead, these groups have created positive group identities based on

their own cultural and social experiences.

Insisting on ignoring group difference has three oppressive consequences:

The privileged group implicitly defines the standards according to which others aremeasured. These standards are culturally and experientially specific, however theyare portrayed as universal and neutral. This perpetuates the oppression of othergroups who struggle to meet these standards.

The ideal of a universal humanity allows privileged groups to ignore their own groupspecificity. Against this neutral ideal, only oppressed groups are marked as Other.

The denigration of groups that deviate from the neutral standard causes aninternalized devaluation by members of those groups.

A politics of difference removes double consciousness from oppressed groups, allowing them tocelebrate their identity. This can also cause the revitalisation of the dominant culture. Oppressedgroups may have cultural practises and perspectives that are superior to those of the dominantgroup. These groups provide a standpoint from which to criticise the dominant culture. Theirstruggle for a positive identity also pressures the dominant group to question the idea that their

norms are universal and neutral.

A politics of difference promotes a notion of group solidarity. Unlike the atomistic nature of liberalhumanism, it insists on the liberation of groups. It also requires separate self-organization. Membersof oppressed groups need separate organizations to reinforce the positivity of their own experience

and to collapse double consciousness (though coalition is still allowed).

There is some valid concern that admission of difference from oppressed groups will reinforce their

oppression. Young argues that a politics of difference can overcome this however. Instead of seeinggroup difference as essentialising, it aims for an understanding of group difference as ambiguous,relational and shifting, with neither amorphous unity nor pure individuality. Groups are notcomprised of people with a set of fixed attributes, but rather bring together those with a particularaffinity, who share a similar social situations and perspectives. They will also acknowledge the

differences within groups.