Attaining Visibility
“…gender is a complexity whose totality is permanently deferred, never fully what it is at any given juncture in time.”
-Judith Butler (Gender Trouble’s 1990)
Culturally constructed binaries (feminine/masculine) mirroring illegitimate “natural” binaries (female/male) is what is heavily (violently) propounded as normal, or even ideal. Ever sense “expert” discourse came into existence regarding sexuality it has effectively extinguished the space with which one has to articulate her/his sexuality–it set up the rigid homo/hetero binary. The legal/medical/psychological classificatory systems deeming what is acceptable and what is not have arbitrarily chosen to make sexuality a defining aspect of identity, narrowly focusing on biological gender. There is no cohesive “tradition” to cite.
The issue I have currently is reconciling the fact that our gay community is completely invisible and strives for equality/acceptance/a voice, and, on the other hand: why would any rational person ever want to be a part of the grotesquely oppressive and heteronormative society that we currently deal with? This makes it extremely difficult to crystallize any political agenda. The State legitimizes one thread of sexuality only–the rest are deviant–and it is appalling. The fluidity of desire does not accept culturally constructed barriers. It will spill out–as is proven time and time again. Obviously a postmodern view of sexuality/gender isn’t something that can be politicized and used to attain homosexual rights, but I’m tired of hearing neo-liberals justify homosexuality by magically appropriating it into their heteronormative values.
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
A state known for being liberal upheld Proposition 8. It is as follows:
“Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
…116 years ago the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama’s anti-miscegenation law was constitutional- the law stating two adults cannot marry because of the color of their skin does not contradict the Equal Protection Clause. Fortunately, it only took eight decades for the court to realize their incredible error (see Mclaughlin v. Florida/Loving v. Virginia). Can we, as rational agents, honestly look at ourselves in the mirror day after day with anything other than disdain for failing to see the horrendous lack of humanity in our refusing such a basic and necessary right to two individuals? Currently, for the other 90% of our country we haven’t even reached a Pace v. Alabama level of understanding for homosexuals, the ruling of which stated that mixing races results in “producing a mongrel society and a degraded civilization.” Fear of what is different was placed in front of civil liberty. Sound familiar? There is nothing in legitimizing same-sex marriage that would cause some apocalyptic institutional upheaval.
There is no argument.
If anything, allowing the woman a say in family decisions (or even decisions regarding her life) was more detrimental to the traditional values of marriage than homosexuality could ever be. If we really wanted to defend the “historic tradition” of marriage we should start by subjugating women (to the previous degree). No, it is the ubiquitous xenophobia that is the root of this barrier. The road to tangible civil liberty has proved a difficult one. I can only hope we learn more quickly from the sluggish past. I can only hope for a better headline tomorrow.
An Issue with W. James
After reading an excerpt from William James and feeling like his writing violated my privacy I decided to relay the experience and it is as follows…
James was critiquing Clifford’s evidentialism by reducing people into two categories: 1.) Those who have a desire to obtain truth and 2.) Those who have a desire to avoid falsehood. James claims Clifford’s belief that no one is justified in believing something based on insufficient evidence is a product of Clifford falling into the latter of the two categories. Don’t misunderstand me, there are many practical situations where evidentialism should be followed (court rulings, etc…), but that does not mean that evidentialism is fully applicable to all facets of life. But this isn’t why I became frustrated.
The reason hairs starting standing on end today stems from my desire to avoid being classified. I have always hated all classifications without any legitimate reason- it’s a completely irrational “pet peeve” of mine. Unfortunately, the more I thought about what I believe, or lack thereof, the more I realized that I do have a strong desire to avoid falsehood. I have always viewed truth as something that can never be attained by our temporal experience as humans and was beginning to think that my view was justified- not even justified, just okay to have. My professor, and the entire class, seemed to think the people in the “my” category tip-toe through life and are cautious of everything and everyone around them, but I am definitely not that way. I was internally furious at the class discussion. Today everyone seemed to be comfortable with blanket statements about human individuals, even the professor!
People that attempt to avoid falsehood aren’t scared of obtaining the truth, they just discipline their minds to know exactly what truth it is they are learning in lieu of blindly following the blind.
Small Talk
I find it disgusting that people can reference what happened between 1939 and 1945 during casual conversation. It seems that jokes about Nazi’s, Hitler, or the sufferers of the Holocaust are more commonplace than political jokes. I feel that (most) people don’t actually mean to offend anyone and usually have a laugh about this in the secrecy of their private residence, or with a select group of friends. However, this seems to be the case with any information that is widely known; because it is nearly universally known as a horrendous period in history, it’s okay to make light of it.
Frankly, these people are ignorant of the weight of what they are talking about. They haven’t fully realized that once those events occured humanity went back to square one. What we, as a collective entity, thought and hoped we could be was destroyed along with the lives of millions of innocent people. Even in our modern world we allow genocide to take place while sitting in an arm chair and reading about it. It is revolting. The “human condition”, it seems, will never change.
