7. YOU THINK YOU KNOW ME? - Re-evaluating Representation & Identity Politics

As happens a lot in 2019, I was talking this week and the issue of representation and identity politics came up. Namely, the question was about whether someone had the right to speak on issues they had no direct experience of. In this case - Islamophobia.

“I am not a Muslim so I can never know what it is like to experience Islamophobia” they said.

This sentiment is familiar to modern discourse. Writers, especially, have been called into question a lot recently for trying to put themselves in the shoes of people they are not. Men writing about women; straight writers writing about LGBT issues; white writers writing about race. The argument seems to go something like this:

1a. The right to talk about particular issues with authority and authenticity comes only from one’s direct membership of relevant groups or direct experience of the issues in question.

2a Therefore people with no direct membership or experience should not speak on these issues.

There is a second, distinct, argument, which is also at play here which I think too often is being conflated with the first:

1b. Representation of all groups is important for a variety of reasons.

2b. There is too much under-representation of certain minority or marginalised groups.

3b. Therefore it is better to have actual members of under-represented groups talking first-hand about their own issues and experiences than for another “non-member” of that group (usually white and male) to talk about it “for them”.

It is my contention that while the second argument is important, and worth considering, the first argument is deeply flawed. Furthermore, that the second argument, if accepted, does not make it wrong for a “non-member” of a particular group to speak about that group, merely that it puts forward a compelling argument to prioritise group-members first as a higher source of authority, and to ensure these first-hand representation is as widely available as those of “non-members”.

The reason I think the first argument is flawed is due to the old philosophical problem of qualia - the “raw feels” of what it is like to experience something. Once we accept that there is a subjective phenomenological distinctness to experience, we are stuck, as Thomas Nagel famously pointed out, not only unable to know what it is like to be a bat, but not really knowing what it is like to be anybody but ourselves. Both you and I step barefoot onto a nail. We both yelp in pain. But how do I know what your pain is like? That we share identical behaviours is no assurance of identical qualia. For all I know your inner state as the metal stabs through your flesh is one of inner calm, deep satisfaction, and perhaps even joy (despite the outward appearance) whereas mine is of shock, agony, and a self-directed sense of stupidity at walking without shoes across a dangerous building site floor.

Now this is all standard philosophy of mind stuff - but what is true about the qualia of pain, or of colour (is the red I see the same as your red, or is what I call “red” what you would call “green”?) must also be true of other experiences. So, for example, you and I (now recovered from our nail-wounds) are walking through a shopping centre together when a gang surround us and ask for our wallets. Petrified, we both hand over our money.

But did we both have the same experience of being mugged?

According to the standard ideas about qualia, we can never know. My mugging experience was my own, and yours was your own too, even though we were both sharing the same external experience. Perhaps my qualia of “fear” was different in a very nuanced way from yours? Perhaps, although you were shaking and gave over your wallet just like me, you felt no fear at all? Maybe just a detached sense of sadness at what the world had come to? Maybe you found the whole thing funny?

We know that each individual experiences the world uniquely from the point of view of qualia (we also know it from comparing the statements of eye-witnesses to events, which invariably tell a wide range of conflicting stories about the very same thing) and what’s more, we can never ever get inside the qualia of another to experience their experience exactly as they experienced it (or, arguably, to even understand that experience, as the colour example shows that even our descriptive words sometimes fail to fully translate what is really going on inside us). So, back to our initial example - “I am not a Muslim so I can never know what it is like to experience Islamophobia” - we now have a strange problem of qualia regarding the idea of representation and authority regarding identity politics in general. For if we follow the logic of the argument through, no two Muslims can actually know for sure that they agree on what it is like to experience Islamophobia, let alone a non-Muslim.

If each of our experiences of the world are isolated within a personal island of subjective qualia, then no two people can know for sure whether they experience the world in the same way.

What this means for identity politics, is that the underlying notion that Muslims can talk about Islamophobia, the LGBT community about homophobia, non-white ethnic groups about racism, and women about sexism (etc.) with an authority that is lacking from a “non-member” of each group falls apart. Every woman will experience living as a woman in a patriarchal world uniquely; every person who has been discriminated against because of their race, sexuality or religion has felt that hurt without peer.

Now, if we are to avoid entirely descending into a purely individualist and almost solipsistic world as a result of this, where no one can talk with any authority about anything that hasn’t been personally experienced first hand, then we must make the case that the arguments about qualia put forward so far are a bit too strong. I may not know exactly “what it is like” to be you experiencing, for you, a particular experience, but the more we discuss together what it is like, and make appropriate analogies to shared points of references I do understand, the more likely it is that - although never knowing exactly - I can still have a fairly good idea of what it is like to be you.

But this then means that, actually, one does not need to be a member of any particular group to understand the unique experience of that group. With enough research, with enough dialogue, with enough made analogous to one’s own experiences there is no reason to assume one cannot empathise to a point of fairly accurate understanding of anyone; or at least with as much understanding as anyone within the member-group would be equally able to grasp from behind their own impenetrable barricades of private qualia.

I may not be a Muslim, and may not have experienced Islamophobia. But I have experienced systemic prejudice for my beliefs as a young punk rocker in a fairly conservative small town. I have been spat at in the streets, told I am not wanted in certain public spaces, accused of crimes I have not committed, and stereotyped as a violent thug in the media, all because of the music I listened to and the clothes that I wore. Combine those experiences with lengthy discussions with Muslim friends and colleagues and a lot of research, I believe I could have a pretty good idea of what it would be like to suffer as a victim of Islamophobia. Certainly enough to write a convincing chapter about it in a book, or write a play or movie about such discrimination. And certainly enough to have an informed opinion on it which could be expressed on a public forum such as Twitter or even on this blog.

Once the problem of qualia undermines the first premise of the argument (The right to talk about particular issues with authority and authenticity comes only from one’s direct membership of relevant groups or direct experience of the issues in question) because even within said groups there is no such thing as shared experience, then there is no longer any basis for the conclusion (therefore people with no direct membership or experience should not speak on these issues). However, we still have the second argument to contend with. A reminder:

1b. Representation of all groups is important for a variety of reasons.

2b. There is too much under-representation of certain minority or marginalised groups.

While the first argument can no longer prevent the “non-member” from saying something meaningful about experiences which are not their own (so I can read a book by Michael Cunningham, a book by Anne Enright and a book by John Irving, all dealing with issues of homosexuality despite only one of the three novelists being gay themselves, and genuinely learn something about the LGBT experience from all three), it is important to note that the authority of anyone’s ability to understand the experience of another person (of whom they cannot ever access personal qualia) is through dialogue, discussion and research. A “non-member” has to do the work to ensure their representation of a particular issue is accurate and in-line with those who have experienced it first-hand. I, as a white man, cannot just sit in my room and write with any authority about the experiences of a transgender person of colour off the top of my head. However, I can read about genuine experiences of such people, hear their stories, and come to understand - find those analogous experiences I can identify with - and then start an attempt at translating my newly earned understanding into a piece of writing.

What this means, therefore, is that the second argument remains very much in play. The under-representation of certain minority or marginalised groups means that we need to hear much more directly of their individual experiences to have any hope of negotiating through the subjective variances of oblique individual qualia and be able to understand (as best anyone can) “what it is like” to be a member of such groups. It is only once first-hand voices have been heard that the necessary research is available for the “non-members” to do the work essential to making their own attempts to represent views which are not their own as authentic as is possible.

So today, writing nearly twenty years after the events of 9/11 which precipitated the rise in Islamophobia here in the UK, I can, as a non-Muslim, speak with some authority about what it is like to be a Muslim experiencing Islamophobia only because my thoughts are informed by the years of many actual Muslims describing their firsthand experiences in a variety of different mediums. I have seen documentaries by Muslim, read books by Muslims, seen films and TV shows written by Muslims and I have spoken personally to Muslims about “what it is like” to experience Islamophobia. Without that source material, I would merely be guessing, and you would be right to be suspicious or critical of my attempts at articulating an experience I know nothing about.

So what I guess I am saying is the following:

1c. If we accept the existence of qualia then “what it feels like” to be a member of any group is an inherently private and subjective personal experience no-one else can ever have access to.

2c. This includes fellow members of the same group, whose own experiences will have unique “raw feels”, despite identical origins, incomparable with the qualia of others.

3c. There is no privileged access to the qualia of another person within identity groups.

4c. Given 3c, we are therefore left with two options:

a) Everyone’s experience is unique and therefore no-one can authentically claim to speak about anyone’s experiences but their own.

b) We can come to somewhat know the experience of others, as best we can, through dialogue with them, finding as close an analogy with our own private qualia as can be articulated and understood.

5c. If a), then any attempt to articulate the experiences of people different from yourself is meaningless. Furthermore, representation is a myth (everyone is equally represented as the one and only one of them, and more people who “look” like you in media and culture will have no guarantee of representation of people who “feel” like you and know “what it is like” to have your lived experience.)

6c. If b), then it doesn’t matter whether you are a member of a group or a “non-member”. Understanding is difficult and not guaranteed, but remains possible for all people so long as they can somehow bridge the gap between two unique and private mental states.

7c. While it is likely that those with similar experiences (i.e. members of the same identity group) may find it easier to bridge that gap than those with completely different experiences, being a member of a particular group is not a necessary condition for understanding “what it is like” to be a member of that group (though, by itself, it can be sufficient).

8c. However, one can only understand “what it is like” to be a member of a particular group by listening to the voices of members of that group whose experiences you are trying to understand.

9c. Therefore, if authenticity and accuracy is important to us, it remains necessary for actual members of under-represented groups talking first-hand about their own issues and experiences to be prioritised, at first, over “non-members” because “non-members” cannot accurately reflect and represent the experiences of groups for which they are not members if they haven’t, themselves, first heard what these personal experiences are.

10c. We therefore need to make a distinction between the illegitimate argument that only members of certain groups can speak meaningfully about that group and the legitimate argument that we should hear more firsthand voices from all sorts of different and diverse people and groups so that the full spectrum of human experience is reflected in our culture. The former argument being predicated on an inherent falsehood due to the private nature of qualia, whereas the latter acknowledges the problem of qualia and the resulting need to see as much as we can into the inner-lives of people who are not ourselves to have any chance of understanding of “what it is like” to not be ourselves (whether that other person is a member of our own identity group(s) or not).

AUTHOR: D.McKee