The Basics: Deference Politics

"sorry about mass incarceration, let me act weird and anxious around you to make up for it"

When you’ve written as much and for as long as I have, it’s easy to assume that your readers understand a point you’re making based on something you wrote years ago, when for many readers that simply isn’t true. So as something of an experiment I’m going to try and mix in some posts here or there, labeled “The Basics,” that define some of my elementary ideas and attitudes and why I think they matter. This effort is for newer readers but also reflects my desire to make sure my essential ideas are articulated simply and directly somewhere. I imagine that someday I’ll attempt to aggregate these pieces together into one document or resource. Maybe.

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What do I mean by “deference politics”?

When I talk about deference politics, I’m referring to the tendency of left-leaning people to substitute interpersonal obsequiousness towards “marginalized groups” for the actual material change those groups demand.

If you’ve lived in any left-aligned spaces in the past decade, you’ve encountered deference politics many times. A white person in a humanities seminar, an organizing meeting, an industry convention, a workplace gathering, etc., who makes the conscious decision to avoid engaging or to engage from a position of proactive apology towards various identity groups is engaged in deference politics. Someone who insists that members of “dominant groups” should censor themselves or speak softly or avoid speaking too much or defer to or otherwise “make space” for members of minority identities is advocating for deference politics; someone from a dominant group who tells others in that group that they should defer is practicing (self-aggrandizing) deference politics. “Maybe men should just shut up for awhile,” voiced by a man, is quintessential deference politics. “I sat my white ass down and listened” is deference politics. “Teach me how not to oppress you,” spoken at an academic conference by a straight person to LGBTQ people on a panel, is deference politics. Avoiding sharing a challenging opinion on an issue of controversy for fear of running afoul of the wrong kind of identity accusation is deference politics.

The infamous image above, of Democratic leaders wrapped in kente cloth and taking a knee in memory of George Floyd, actually preceded a meaningful attempt at material change, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. While that bill would not have been a sufficient overhaul of America’s criminal justice system - it’s hard to use the federal government to reform policing, which tends to be governed by state policies and influenced by local conditions - it would have been a good start. The Democrats, sadly, were not able to pass the bill in two tries, though perhaps it could still be revived. That the party simply didn’t have the votes to make the bill law isn’t something that we should be particularly hard on the Democrats about, but the contrast between its failure and the theatrics that attended its announcement is deference politics in its essential form: at a moment of mass discontent over the state of race and policing, Black Americans got the absurd performance from Congressional leaders but not the substance of better policy. And this is core to the critique of deference politics; the point is not that the good intentions of the people who practice them are worthless but that the people who practice deference politics never seem to recognize that all of the deferring never makes positive action more likely. Like many great political crimes, deference politics privileges the communicative and the emotional over the material and the actual.

It’s important to point out that many Black activists and writers recoiled at the deference politics practiced after George Floyd’s death and pointed out that they had never asked for such theatrics.

Is “deference politics” just a way to say “woke”?

No. Deference politics could conceivably be practice or demanded in any given political context and by members of any given political tendency. Conservatives do occasionally advocate for deference politics, such as when they insist that only veterans should comment on issues of war and peace. Nor do woke people assertively practice deference politics all the time; in fact, for various demographic reasons most people practicing social justice politics are themselves members of dominant groups, and they have a tendency to assert their own superior right to speak rather than to defer to others. The term “deference politics” should likewise not be used to refer to all cringey elements of “allyship,” which involves a diverse suite of questionable tactics and attitudes, but certainly deference politics are core to the behavior of the modern ally. The practice epitomizes the modern liberal obsession with defining politics as a matter of interpersonal niceties rather than as the systems through which human values are expressed in material terms in the real world.

What are the origins of deference politics?

Certainly deference politics developed in part because of the perceived self-interest of members of majority groups in spaces where identity politics predominate; when accusations of racism or sexism or similar become ubiquitous, and the social and professional costs of being so accused are severe, many people will instinctively adopt a position of reflexive submissiveness. The intellectual foundations, though, are best expressed in standpoint theory, a branch of feminist discourse which insists that those who suffer under particular identity-based oppressions are the only ones equipped to discuss them intelligently or with credibility. The phrase “nothing about us without us” is a common expression of the standpoint-theoretical perspective. The problems with standpoint theory should be obvious. It simply is not true that the best people to understand or deliberate about a given issue are those most personally affected by said issue. We don’t, for example, generally fill juries for those accused of criminal offenses only with victims of those specific offenses; in fact, such people are often specifically excluded from serving on such juries because they are understandably perceived to be biased in a way that’s contrary to truth and justice. The same is true in politics. Those who are most intimately and personally connected to a given issue are often the very least well-equipped to engage effectively on that issue because they have too much baggage regarding that issue, are too close to the issue to think clearly about it.

Also, in democracy, everyone has a right (and an obligation) to speak out on issues of controversy regardless of their particular expertise or perspective. That’s the basic egalitarian principle of politics at work.

What’s the problem with deference politics?

1. Deference politics cannot create change. The point of anti-racism is to reduce the amount of material racism in the world in fact, in actuality. Racial inequality results in the creation of illegitimate gaps in human flourishing between races, most prominently between white and Black people - gaps in income, in wealth, in education, in health outcomes, in incarceration. If there is such a thing as “anti-racism,” surely it lives in closing those gaps. Getting food in the mouths of Black children, removing lead and other contaminants from poor Hispanic neighborhoods, preventing violence against Asian senior citizens, these are examples of the work of genuinely fighting racism. How is any of this accomplished through white people acting obsequious towards people of color in social and professional scenarios? Similarly, the fight for feminism or LGBTQ rights can be waged through securing access to abortion or ensuring a muscular legal response to physical violence or aggression against LGBTQ people and similar. Those things increase the amount of justice in the universe. Acting scared to offend people from minority groups when engaging with them does nothing good for anyone.

2. Being decent to people in minority groups does not require showy deference towards them. Of course we should be respectful and kind to everyone, as a matter of character. But being respectful and kind to someone does not require that we prostrate ourselves before them. You can express a confident opinion, even in the commission of disagreeing with someone, while still being respectful and kind. Indeed, in politics a willingness to share a strong opinion is a form of respect. And expressing sympathy and solidarity about a form of identity-based oppression similarly does not require abdicating the right to have an opinion on that oppression.

3. Treating people well out of fear or obligation degrades us all. As I’ve spent a lot of time documenting, modern progressivism has a habit of compelling people to obey its various directives through a sense of obligation or through fear of consequences if they don’t. But this inevitably undermines the very meaning of human engagement; when someone treats someone else with friendship only because they feel forced to, that friendship means nothing. And the more that the politics of deference compels people to be respectful to “the marginalized,” the more the organic kind becomes suspect. Fake respect and sympathy drive out real respect and sympathy.

4. Sometimes people from minority groups are wrong. And when they are, they should not be deferred to.

Is deference politics all bad?

No. Of course we should all take care to listen more and talk less, to consider the interests and feelings of others, and to ponder how our point of view influences our opinion. At best, deference politics provides the reminder we need that all of our perspectives are limited and contextual, as well as an opportunity to remember that we always might be wrong. Trying to see a given issue or question from the point of view of people who are not like us is a valuable exercise no matter what the context. It’s just that none of this wisdom is predicated on acting like we have some sort of inherent moral obligation to “shut up and listen,” a commandment which is always directed at other people even when it’s ostensibly a matter of self-implication.

What should I do, then?

Stop worrying so much about whether you conform to someone else’s vision of being opposed to racism, sexism, homophobia, or similar; concentrate on whether you actually are acting in opposition to racism, sexism, and homophobia. Worry less about whether you appear racist and more about whether you actually are racist. Do the work of politics, which is to say, evaluate what your moral values tell you is the right thing to do or say and then do or say them. Remain alive to the possibility that you are guilty of bigotry or ignorance. Remember that the surest defense against being guilty of interpersonal bigotry is your effort to speak with integrity and compassion towards all people. And whenever you have an opportunity to do something that reduces injustice and inequality, to embody progressive action, take the action that you sincerely believe will help the most. Follow the dictates of your own conscience and, if you do, proceed with confidence and without apology.

If someone challenges you in a disagreement about politics and does so specifically by questioning your right to speak given your identity relative to theirs, listen to what they have to say, authentically consider their point of view, and if you still reject it, look them in the eye and say “That does not work on me.” Be brave. And then you do politics, and you work it out.