Politics of Recognition - Essay Example

It is evidently clear from the discussion that Taylor’s essay on “politics of recognition” was first published back in 1992. According to Taylor, there is a strong relationship between “personal identity” and “recognition”. As explained by Taylor, the term “personal identity” is all about being able to know who we really are as a human being and that the “personal identity” of each person often times can be molded by how the society would perceive our own identity including how our personal identity should be.

For instance, in case the society was able to create a positive opinion concerning a group of people, then one can easily argue that this group of people would definitely develop a positive feeling about their own self. On the contrary, assuming that the society would have a negative thought about a certain group of people, then those people who are affected by the society’s negative remarks would somehow make the affected people feel bad about themselves. A good example wherein the society can cause harm to a certain group of people can be noted in the case of the African Americans.

In line with this, Taylor mentioned that it is the group of white Americans who created a degrading image on most African American people. For this reason, there are some African Americans who may somehow be unconsciously affected by such negative remarks. This also partly explains why there are some African Americans who view themselves as someone who is less superior as compared to the white Americans. Taylor also considered the case of the feminist's group as an example of “politics of recognition”.

As a common knowledge, the feminist's group is a group of women who aim to fight for gender equality and so on. However, one cannot deny the fact that there are quite a lot of women all over the world who have decided to accept the socio-economic limitations that were imposed on them by most patriarchal society. Instead of fighting for their rights to have gender equality, some women are more willing to let go of more promising opportunities due to the absence of adequate self-identity.