Anyway, I'm not for defining anyone else. I can say what I think is dangerous, but it would be damn hypocritical of me to try to tell anyone else who they are or ought to be. I am not trying to tell you who you ought to be either, and if you got that impression from this, I'm sorry. In terms of what's 'wrong', I try to be about actions and situations, not individuals, because everyone is wrong sometimes, everyone goes against their best interests sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's part of anyone's identity to be wrong, or inferior, or worthless.
It's not as foreign to me as you seem to think, even if my experience has a completely trivial power basis not grounded in a history of discrimination or social identities (although really, I subordinate myself to a lot of people, to my detriment). Not so long ago, I wrote:
"Also, why would you respond by telling me what's 'wrong' with me (i.e. 'you're too this, you're too that')? It gives me the impression that you think I am stupid and inferior to you, you think you understand me completely, and you don't care at all how I feel about anything. This isn't to say that there isn't anything wrong with me or that you don't understand, it just seems condescending.
"I mean, why do you have to belittle me to say this sort of thing? Why does it have to be a matter of how I'm wrong and what I ought to do? Why can't we just accept that I'm dissatisfied with it, you're dissatisfied with it, but I've learned one way or another to act this way and I need help learning not to rather than someone telling me exactly how dissatisfying it is?
I mean, it's no wonder, really, that I don't want to talk to you about my ideas, if you think i'm so completely shitty as a person."
Just sayin', it doesn't sound so different. And I feel much the same when you accuse me of being a hegemon, like my opinion doesn't count because somehow all I am is one of the hegemons--no individual choice, unalterably dominating and controlling, ultimately not so much worthless as wrong and evil and cruel. That's precisely what I mean about social identities trapping people. As I think you were getting at.
no subject
It's not as foreign to me as you seem to think, even if my experience has a completely trivial power basis not grounded in a history of discrimination or social identities (although really, I subordinate myself to a lot of people, to my detriment). Not so long ago, I wrote:
"Also, why would you respond by telling me what's 'wrong' with me (i.e. 'you're too this, you're too that')? It gives me the impression that you think I am stupid and inferior to you, you think you understand me completely, and you don't care at all how I feel about anything. This isn't to say that there isn't anything wrong with me or that you don't understand, it just seems condescending.
"I mean, why do you have to belittle me to say this sort of thing? Why does it have to be a matter of how I'm wrong and what I ought to do? Why can't we just accept that I'm dissatisfied with it, you're dissatisfied with it, but I've learned one way or another to act this way and I need help learning not to rather than someone telling me exactly how dissatisfying it is?
I mean, it's no wonder, really, that I don't want to talk to you about my ideas, if you think i'm so completely shitty as a person."
Just sayin', it doesn't sound so different. And I feel much the same when you accuse me of being a hegemon, like my opinion doesn't count because somehow all I am is one of the hegemons--no individual choice, unalterably dominating and controlling, ultimately not so much worthless as wrong and evil and cruel. That's precisely what I mean about social identities trapping people. As I think you were getting at.