Just a quick note for those on the left who reacted badly to our critique of identity politics. @winlow_s 1. We're not dismissing civil rights struggles that still haven't been won. 2. We're criticising the cooptation and subsequent domestication of these struggles by neoliberal institutions. 3. Adoption of DEI policies helps arms companies to promote themselves as occupants of the same ethical lansdscape as hospitals or universities. 4. This cooptation helps neoliberals to convince an electoral majority that their inherently and inexorably unjust system based on private debt, shareholder value and rule-bound competitive individualism - what we call 'pseudo-pacification' - can become progressively more just. This is impossible. 5. Because the liberalised left abandoned hope of intersectional solidarity and replacing or even regulating the economic core of neoliberal system, it failed miserably to offer any tangible solutions to the destructive social aftermath of the 2008 crisis. 6. The liberalised left's continued faith in and professionalisation of this failed variant of identity politics has inflicted untold damage on its reputation, losing the support of the multiethnic population and leaving it vulnerable to attack from a resurgent right. policy.bristoluniversitypres…