A lot of people seem to dislike identity politics. Political commentator Peta Credlin, for example, writing under the headline "West slides into abyss of intellectual decay", says "... the world's most successful societies were at an inflection point ... would they collapse into self-doubt and succumb to an identity politics that sets group against group on the basis of immutable characteristics?"

Fine, fine, abysses of intellectual decay have been selling like hot cakes since the prophet Jeremiah lashed the clans of Israel for their "wickedness", but I'm old enough to be entitled to be cranky with the bright young things and to remind people incessantly what things were like in this country in the good old days.

You youngsters don't know what real identity politics look like.

Back then, kids from Catholic schools would get into regular punch-ups with the Prots from the state school, with jeering songs on both sides along the lines of "Proddy cats sit on mats / Eating maggots out of rats ..."

For Catholics, your religious identity probably determined your politics (Democratic Labour Party), your public service........

© Canberra Times