Trans Slurs, Rax Liking Post-Structuralism A Lot, And Some Articles From Twitter

[rax]

Okay, so. This isn't super honed but I have to pack to be on a plane at 6 AM so I'm posting it as is.

Comments

[rax]

n the end the revolution is going to be about civility and respect.

Huh. I'm with you on respect, but I'm not sold on civility. Something to mull over, thank you.

[gaudior]

The idea that individual trauma is exalted in activist circles makes me think of that awful recent George Will column claiming that young women on college campuses are going around falsely claiming rape to get privilege and prestige, which is apparently something that George Will thinks that people who speak out about sexual violence on college campuses get.

Yeah. I mean, I can see a reflection of a shade of something it might be talking about, which is that everyone understands and uses political thought through the lens of their own experience/beliefs/understanding of the world/understanding of themselves, etc. So most people's political views and activism are also serving some psychological function for that person, whether internally or socially. Nobody's political activism is entirely "selfless" or divorced from their own egos and social relationships

[rax]

I guess, from what I get out of your post, I can see how these two definitions of neoliberalism would relate to each other - both philosophies that are hyperfocused on individual benefit?

Both individual benefit and individual responsibility.

Like, triggering is just triggering, it isn't restricted to people of certain ideologies.I think Halberstam is not thinking about people with PTSD triggers and is thinking about people who are "merely" upset by something. (Either that or he doesn't respect the possibility of PTSD triggers, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt.) I'm hesitant to describe my reaction to all but a small number of things as a trigger, but that doesn't mean I want to experience them or that I'm a boring censorious neoliberal for having a reaction to them

[tasha18]

This is a bit of a digression, but the book "methodologies of the oppressed" sounds fascinating. As a sighted-identified but congentally blind person, I stand on the margins of the margins. I sometimes worry that I'm hyperfocused on my own individualism because I don't yet have a community around my transability. I am working on that and also on trying to frame the idosyncratic issues I experience in more universal terms so that they are not so tied up in the territorialness of my transabled identity. .

[rax]

I strongly recommend Sandoval's Methodologies of the Oppressed, then! She talks about intersection in a very territoried way that I'm not sure how to explain because it's been a number of years but I think it would offer you both tools and food for thought.

[gaudior]

Wow, I feel like I should read all the articles you're in dialogue with before commenting on what you said, but also like I'm at work so amn't going to. Alas.

What I do think is that I really like your use of assemblages to break down the false dichotomy between individual and societal/political impacts of slurs. Cuz yeah, that's not really a distinction it makes much sense to make, not without really discounting one's own lived experience as a valid source of information about the world, which I think is a bad idea.