Is intersectionality the new caste system?

Intersectionality introduces labels which divide people

Question: Is intersectionality the new caste system?
Position‹3 of 3: Yes, intersectionality is the new caste system
Argument‹2 of 2: Intersectionality introduces labels which divide people

Intersectionality places labels on people, who are categorised as oppressed or oppressors, and encourages individualism. It suggests we are defined by our identities and that we have little common ground.

The argument

Intersectionality places labels on people, categorising them according to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender orientation, class, and so on. These labels then determine how oppressed someone is, and as a result we become defined by these particular characteristics, not by our actions and beliefs. In this way, labels undermine individual agency, whilst at the same time encouraging individualism, where subjective experience rules supreme. Intersectional narratives also divide people according to whether they are oppressors or oppressed. Focusing on victimised identities, it fosters an ‘us versus them’ mentality, typically against cisgendered heterosexual white men. Categories as emotive as ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressor’ not only ignore the nuance needed to overcome societal challenges, but they challenge the identity of those grouped as ‘oppressed’ but do not feel that they are. Instead of a long series of battles where specific identities fight for their own liberation, we need a more universalist approach where marginalised groups are not framed as at odds with each other. Intersectionality implies that freedom is a zero-sum game, creating a situation where other identity groups are targeted, and the larger system is not challenged. People cannot be neatly organised into social categories, we need to recognise a more universal humanity to end oppression.

Premises

[P1]Intersectionality labels people by race, sexuality, gender, and class, then ranks how oppressed they are, defining them by characteristics rather than actions or beliefs. [P2] It divides people into oppressors and oppressed, fostering an "us versus them" mentality typically aimed at cisgender heterosexual white men. [P3] Treating freedom as a zero-sum game targets other identity groups while leaving the larger system unchallenged. [C] Therefore, because intersectionality introduces labels that divide people, intersectionality is the new caste system.

Counter-arguments

Intersectionality doesn’t place labels on people, these labels are created by a much larger social system. Intersectionality is a way to understand that we are not single-issue individuals, and our identities are complex and unique. The belief that intersectionality introduces a new caste system has things the wrong way round; the larger capitalist social system has created a caste system revealed by intersectional thought.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise treats the categories as introduced by the framework. As the counter-argument puts it, race, class, gender and sexuality operate as social categories independently of any analysis of them, and describing how they overlap is not the same as creating them. [Rejecting P2] Whether the framework ranks people or describes how disadvantages compound is exactly what is in dispute, and the premise assumes the first. The "us versus them" mentality is attributed to the framework rather than shown to follow from it. [Rejecting P3] Zero-sum is asserted rather than derived: an account on which several forms of disadvantage reinforce one another points toward common cause rather than competition between groups. And a caste system is a hereditary hierarchy enforced by law or ritual, which nothing in the premises shows an analytic framework brings about.