intertribal | turistas go home!

Of course it exists in both democracies and authoritarian governments, but political structure does make a difference.

Ok, if you were trying to say that you have respect for me, you could just say that, instead of saying, "In fact, if I wanted to be a bitch" and then proceeding with saying what would make you a bitch by, presumably, insulting me. It's like saying, well I could say this, but I won't because I'm too nice, but here, I'll let you know what it is anyway, but don't blame me for it, because I'm not actually saying it. WTF?

I'm not sure why you have any respect for me anyway because I have no Great and Important People on my side, like you. I respect you and I respect your opinions, even when they anger me. But I am insulted by the way you phrase some sentences and I am insulted by namedropping. Because it gets really hard to stay calm when you feel that you're being talked down to.

I had assumed that your saying, "And saying, oh, boo you, what the hell is that going to accomplish? to them reminds me of military generals telling student protesters, "why don't you do something constructive instead of just yelling at us, huh? why don't you try to help instead of making it worse, wink wink nudge nudge?"" was meant as a characterization of my opinion, which I objected to. If you have respect for me, then why do I remind you of military generals? I shouldn't have responded to your anger by taking offense, and for that I am sorry, but really, I think we are both guilty of doing that in this conversation.

In what followed after "if I wanted to be a bitch," I was trying, obviously stupidly, to say that your attack on me was unwarranted and that in fact I would be a "bitch" if I accused you of what you had just accused me of. In that sense, I guess yes, it is an insult--I was saying your attacking me was unwarranted and 'bitchy' in a very indirect and cowardly manner. However, I was not saying that you yourself were guilty of what you had attacked me of, and I'm sorry that it looked that way.

I have respect for you in general, and it is not the prestige of "Great and Important People" that I'm concerned with (personally, I'm more concerned with their actual arguments, but it's true that I read more about "how the representation of social reality is constructed" than "how to change the representation of social reality", though I think the two projects can and should coexist and inform one another). I have respect for your opinions, and I enjoy arguing with you even when we disagree, but I am insulted/saddened by what seemed to me to be righteous anger and indignation against me. I see no reason for "namedropping" to be insulting. I think I am not the only one to phrase some sentences in an insulting manner, though I'm sorry for what I've done to contribute to that. I'm not trying to talk down to you, and if you feel like it, I can only imagine it's because I am staying calm and you are not. Or because I think I'm right? But this is true of any opinion I hold and doesn't mean that you don't have equal basis to make an argument against it. I would simply prefer actual argument to anger and accusations.

It is not because I am staying calm and you are not - and if that's not a condescending statement I don't know what is (you know, not calm = emotional = not logical = irrational, as opposed to calm = logical = rational, and thus superior). It is because I feel that I am discussing social structure with someone who has a hegemonic viewpoint. I'm sorry that I feel that way, I guess, and I'm sure that's not entirely true, but there it is, that's the problem. That's how I see your background and that's how I see your circumstances. In that context, namedropping is insulting, because it's a mark of what/who you know, to be used as artillery in an argument against me, the subaltern of the two of us. I'm really surprised that this is not more obvious to you. That also explains what you see, and what very well might be, my righteous anger and indignation towards you, and why I see insults and condescending language.

We've never been able to discuss race and wealth, I think that's just a fact. The only thing we can talk about is gender, and that sparingly. I can only talk about race and wealth with my friends who are poor minorities. I know that is petty to you, and exactly not what you want or what you see as helpful, but to me, you and your authors and Steve saying that comes across as something the hegemons are telling the subalterns to keep them from complaining too loudly. Yes, still and yet, that's how it comes across, and I guarantee if I showed this conversation (which I wouldn't) to my friends who are poor minorities, that's how it would come across.

I'm not saying that I'm right and you're wrong. Far from it. But it's the same problem with rich Western countries trying to tell poor violent countries elsewhere to adopt democracy because democracy is what they see as the right way to run a country, whether you're rich or Western or not. And that may very well be true. But because it's coming from these particular countries, the poor violent countries just see it as "be like me - I am right, and you are wrong because you are different". Which sucks for democracy, because there's a very good chance democracy is the way (just an example), but it'll have a hard time being accepted in those parts of the world precisely because of the people promoting it.

Well, okay, fine, I'm not calm now. Happy? It really, really makes me unbelievably sad and frustrated to see you react this way and try to respect it, because, let's face it, I can't.

I am not saying that you are irrational, and in making this about race and me a hegemon you are refusing to see that this is fundamentally a disagreement between two individuals, and you are refusing to see your own insults as effective and having the same basis in power as my own. You could. You could say, "I'm sorry I insulted you." Then at least you would admit that you possessed the power to do such a thing. I admit you do. I admit you can offend me, and that you in fact have. If you place so little value on my own friendship, and my own integrity, well, that hurts. Does that make you happy? Does it make you happy to make me cry? And I have admitted countless times that you are, or are at least able to be, both rational and highly intelligent. That's not what this is about.

Also, this--this that you wrote here--is HUGELY condescending. As if I could not have my own opinions or at all respect you merely because I am white. As if you understand all of this, and I will remain, can only remain, in ignorance for the rest of my life because I have no real experience. As if I am not at all capable of ever being your equal.

What I see is this: I see you being insecure about your own position, I see you therefore interpreting things I say as being intended to insult and condescend to you when they never were because of that, and I see you becoming angry because of these insults that exist more for you than for me. I do the same thing talking to Steve. It's not about race, it's about power, and I don't know why you're giving it to me when you could just as easily treat yourself with the same respect any decent human being would, when you could just as easily see the real power you have to both win this argument and deeply hurt me.

See, this is why I didn't want to say it until now, although that's what I've been thinking for a long time. I'm sorry that you're taking this as an insult, and I'm sorry that I've insulted you (although you're right, I don't really think I have the power to insult you, but if you feel insulted I guess I do), but the fact that you're taking this as an insult says something as well, doesn't it? Anyway, okay, I am sorry I insulted you. I can be quick to throw things out there, and when you don't respond to them with belligerence I usually assume they had no impact.

And I truly felt that you were saying that I was irrational.

I do think you can have your own opinions. I doubt that you can really respect me because I am not a Great and Important Person, or one of your college friends who you've learned from. I haven't taught you anything and I feel like those (teachers) are the only people that you respect. I'm not saying that you can't respect me because you're white, I don't think that has anything to do with it. I don't even really expect you to respect me to be honest.

I don't think this is just a fundamental disagreement between two individuals. I guess that's a difference. I've said that I don't think people are just individuals, and I don't think we are either. I think it would just be wrong to assume that we are - and if you want, that you believe we are individuals and I don't is a fundamental disagreement between us, although now I'm getting twisted up. I think that we can try to "transcend" that, as you say, but I don't think we have. People come into every argument with biases, no one is a clean slate, and that's what the hegemon/subaltern thing is in this case, a bias.

"It's not about race, it's about power, and I don't know why you're giving it to me when you could just as easily treat yourself with the same respect any decent human being would" - well, why do you think I give you that power?

Okay, I'm insecure. This is just a last ditch effort to win an argument that I'm bound to lose. Whatever.

Okay, I shouldn't have said that last thing, it was snarky. I don't like it when people tell me I'm insecure.

I feel like people should be insulted by being thought of as (or hell, actually being) hegemons, or with an unavoidably hegemonic viewpoint, and if they aren't, it might be that the accusation is too absurd, they don't care about the opinion of the person voicing it, or they know they're hegemonic and don't care. So yes, that I was insulted shows I don't like being trapped and bound to being a 'white oppressor' (strangely enough, i think i'm quoting myself...or abbey). In any case, I accept your apology.

I really am sorry you felt that way. I had only meant that you seemed angry and insulted, which you had explicitly said, not at all that you were irrational. If I didn't respect your opinion and intelligence, I probably wouldn't try to talk about these things with you (even things which I have more academic experience with, though disciplines seem to promote their own way of viewing the world, and I think it's good to talk with people whose academic experience isn't bound to the presuppositions of your own department...). Hell, if I didn't respect your opinion and intelligence (not that they're your only good qualities), I probably wouldn't be your friend.

Well...if you don't, then I expect myself to respect you. I respect my friends, and they do teach me things and influence my opinion. I also have a different sort of respect (more purely intellectual, unless I know more about their lives, I guess) for certain people I read. But none of them is always right; no one is. Steve is probably the only teacher I have at all equal respect for, and that partly just because he's a friend, or at least someone I can trust. He's wrong sometimes too, and I am learning to be better able to question or disagree with him without my whole self-worth resting on it. I mean...when I have arguments with Jason about topics related to what I study, he's come at it from the perspective of "anthropology is a wrong and misguided discipline, and this is why" and I've had to defend myself every freaking step of the way. I still respect his opinion, even though I often disagree, and there are some points on which we will probably never agree. You and I much more often already agree about a lot of things, whatever the reason for that is. I think you've already changed my worldview and how I grew up. However, I am admittedly very stubborn, and it does take a lot to convince me I'm wrong once I believe something. That in no way means I don't or can't respect your opinion and the fact that you have reasons for it. Besides which, there are plenty of situations where we'd be in the opposite position, if we started talking about anything more political science oriented, I'm sure. I don't expect that my opinions would be as nuanced or well-supported as if I had read and studied what you do. I don't think that means I am irrational or not worth respect, although I also don't expect to be able to convince you of my opinion, at least not without some understanding of what you do and a lot of effort, possibly never. But convincing you of what I think and you respecting me are two totally different things. Same here. Me disagreeing with your opinion does not mean I don't respect you, and I'm very sorry if anything I've said has given that impression (I'm obviously emotionally caught up in the debate, and if I said otherwise, that's just wrong).

People only transcend the groups they place themselves into when they treat each other as equal individuals (I suppose there is the possibility of groups on an equal level, but I think it's not what we're talking about), and if we aren't doing that, then no, we aren't acting as such. I agree that no one is a clean slate...we all have habits of perceiving, acting, and thinking. Sometimes they do us more harm than good.

I don't know why. I wish you wouldn't.

(to your comment below) Fair enough. I probably don't either.

With regard to my comments about Jason...I should add that he convinced me to see poverty as creating many racial stereotypes and identities a bit more than I had previously. I still don't think it can be reduced totally to that, as if the way people see 'race' does not matter at all in the creation of it, as I believe that such things are socially created, and Jason is more of a materialist. But the whole conversation did consist of a lot of yelling before we got to reach the agreements we did, although we were always both participants in the argument, not victims of attack. I see no problem with yelling or emotion (it's an emotional topic) so long as that holds true.

Anyway, your remarking on the academic tradition got me to thinking about the various backgrounds of the authors I'd had to read for Language & Politics, a lot of which, admittedly, I don't remember or know so well. I know there was a black lawyer who argued for the censorship of hate speech (Lawrence Summers III, I think), but I remember that because of the explicit "I am black and I'm going to talk about black people being oppressed" nature of the piece. But thinking further I remembered a book I'd started reading outside of class--The Evasion of American Philosophy by Cornell West, which I'm much more inclined to agree with politically, philosophically, etc. It's partly about American pragmatism, of which Peirce was the founder, though I also respect Dewey, who the book is much more about, but it's more than that:

"So just as my earlier texts emerged out of my own political praxis in and my identity with prophetic Christianity, this book consists of my attempt to come to terms with my philosophic allegiances in light of my participation in the U.S. democratic socialist movement (Democratic Socialists of America), my particular role in the American academy (Princeton University), and my existence on the margins of the black church (as a lay preacher).

"This book is principally motivated by my own disenchantment with intellectual life in America and my own demoralization regarding the political and cultural state of the country. For example, I am disturbed by the transformation of highly intelligent liberal intellectuals into tendentious neoconservatives owing to crude ethnic identity-based allegiances and vulgar neonationalist sentiments. I am disappointed with the professional incorporation of former New Left activists who now often thrive on a self-serving careerism while espousing rhetorics of oppositional politics of little seriousness and integrity. More important, I am depressed about the concrete nihilism in working-class and underclass American communities--the pervasive drug addiction, suicides, alcoholism, male violence against women, white violence against black, yellow, and brown people, and the black criminality against others, especially other black people. I have written this text convinced that a thorough reexamination of American pragmatism, stripping it of its myths, caricatures, and stereotypes and viewing it as a component of a new and novel form of indigenous America oppositional thought and action, may be a first step toward fundamental change and transformation in America and the world.

"I write as one who intends to deepen and enrich American pragmatism while bringing trenchant critique to bear on it. I consider myself deeply shaped by American civilization, but not fully a par of it. I am convinced that the best of the American pragmatist tradition is the best American has to offer itself and the world, yet I am willing to concede that this best may not be good enough given the depths of the international and domestic crises we now face. But though this slim and slight possibility may make my efforts no more than an impotent moral gesture, nonetheless, in the heat of battle, we have no other choice but to fight"

no, must've been Charles Lawrence III. which explains me remembering "Lawrence" better, as I had to cite him in a paper.

Anyway, I probably overreacted to this at first. I apologize for that. But if so, I feel like this just shows that we both feel condescended to when neither of us is being condescending (this has happened with me and Jason, for somewhat unrelated reasons). Because sometimes people have power over one another through friendship rather than one person having power over another through domination, and I care what you think of me.

This is bordering on the obvious, but I can only say that I'm not saying you're wrong because you're different, I do think it's possible to discuss race and wealth, though maybe not with you individually if that's how you want to see it. I am not for anyone not complaining. I want there to be critique. I just want that critique to be conscious of what it's critiquing, and what it aligns itself with. In other words, I'm not for people subordinating themselves to hegemony by accepting their role in it rather than critiquing the whole hegemony, including their own role if need be. There are no victims and villains here, though there are certainly oppression and oppressed people. Most of all, I don't want people to accept anything as part of a marginal identity that silences them, denies them agency, or denies them social power. I don't think that's healthy for anyone, but more likely to happen for groups that aren't dominant, and I don't mean to set out "rules for the marginal ones" by it (as if I'm at all in a position to do such a thing anyway--apparently I am in your mind, but I don't think what I say counts for much to anyone else). It's open to critique.

I've apologized for saying a number of things a number of times, and that's all I can do. For like the twentieth time, I don't think you're stupid or irrational. I won't apologize for considering you as an equal who I could discuss such things with, but if you don't want me to do mention it ever again, I suppose I can censor myself for you. But I will write what I will on my own journal. I can lock it for you, I suppose. Would you rather I do that?

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.

Okay, maybe "impossible" is the wrong word - but it has been extremely uncomfortable for me, and I thought for you, to discuss race and wealth with you. And I don't like that, I really don't, and I wish it weren't true, but I think it's not fair for your position to be the unbiased one and my position to represent minorities or whatever, because that's just another way to unmark and mark, respectively.

I don't disagree with anything in your paragraph "This is bordering on the obvious", which is sad if this is what we've been arguing about this entire time. I think it's the specifics that we disagree on, like the forms of critique.

For me, this whole exchange turned long ago into a matter of the way both of us were saying things, and the insults/condescension, than the actual thing we were discussing, but then it was tying into the thing we were discussing. I know I've said things I shouldn't have, but I will also not apologize for pointing out something that I feel is a bias we both have. I won't. I'm not saying that that bias is the end-all and be-all, and I apologize for ever implying that that's all there is to it. I don't believe in determinism either. But see, where you emphasize people not subordinating themselves to hegemony by accepting thier role in it rather than critiquing the whole hegemony, I don't think that's possible until people acknowledge the hegemony. And that may be a fundamental disagreement between us. I don't think we have different end goals. It's pretty clear that we don't. But I think we really disagree about the way to get to the end goal.

I don't want you to censor yourself, and I don't want you to lock your journal for me.

I agree. It has been uncomfortable. I didn't think my position was the unbiased one...still don't. I also don't think you represent minorities, even if you feel put in that position.

Yeah, I do think that we agree for the most part, and I probably did the whole argument a disservice by overstating my position in the beginning.

I know it became that for you, and I'm sorry it has, because it distorts a lot of things, it seems to me (our positions, our respect for one another, etc.). I don't expect you to apologize for pointing out what you feel is bias. I'm really sorry if you think I see you as less able to think about this because of being 'subaltern' or whatever, and that's what hurt me about your pointing this out. I don't think of you that way, but I'm not sure how I can make that clear to you, except by saying that I wouldn't bother talking to you about it if I didn't value your thoughts on it, and apologizing for anything I did that gave offense, though I really never had any intention of doing so.

"But see, where you emphasize people not subordinating themselves to hegemony by accepting their role in it rather than critiquing the whole hegemony, I don't think that's possible until people acknowledge the hegemony. And that may be a fundamental disagreement between us."

Depending on what you mean here, I'm not sure I actually disagree. I'm also willing to consider other ways of 'getting to the end goal', because I don't think it's an easy thing to get to.

Good. I won't, then.

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intertribal.livejournal.com - 2008-05-26 22:18 (UTC) - Expand

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royinpink.livejournal.com - 2008-05-27 01:21 (UTC) - Expand

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royinpink.livejournal.com - 2008-05-27 18:36 (UTC) - Expand

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royinpink.livejournal.com - 2008-05-27 19:12 (UTC) - Expand

And in fact, yes, I should and do see this happening, though I was trying to explicitly acknowledge that I don't see you the way you are taking me as seeing you instead of pointing it out and going, "Look at you! You're behaving in a subordinated way!" which only seemed counterproductive. But yes, what you're saying here is all very similar to what Bourdieu says.

And this is something that I should not have said - I shouldn't have made an assumption about the way you see me. I don't think that you see me with some kind of bias, I really don't. I think that in many ways the bias is all mine. I feel like... we are under the weight of history, and I think maybe I see it and you don't, and then what happens is you seem to have the unbiased, without-history position, and I'm the one that's dragging in all the muck, when in fact I do think that you're coming from a history too, and I don't think that is wrong, is the thing, I think history has to be acknowledged, as I said above, but I think this is coming from my own personal need for a history that I don't have and that I don't feel.

But anyway, what I mean is, I'm sorry for implying that I knew what you were thinking about me, because I don't, and I don't think you are an evil hegemon, I just don't think you're a clean slate, because no one is. That's why I said I FEEL that you are arguing from a hegemonic viewpoint. It is all in how I FEEL it is coming across, not in how you ARE. And yeah, that is more my problem than yours, but it's sort of a mutual problem because we all live on the same planet and we are all products of the past as well as individuals who are capable of making our own choices for the future.

I think I behave in a subordinated way. If you had said that to me it would not have been a surprise.

...I really could not agree more. I appreciate your apology, and I'm sorry for what I did to contribute to the "mutual problem."

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royinpink.livejournal.com - 2008-05-27 01:24 (UTC) - Expand

but I suppose you already know i'm sick and tired of being ashamed of myself for you, for wanting to be brown-eyed and dark-haired and less fair-skinned for you, for not saying what I think for you. I reserve the right to accept and define myself just as much as I insist that you do yourself the same favor.

I don't know where you got that. If I gave you that impression that you needed to be different, I'm sorry, and I was an immature middle schooler at the time that was, yes, insecure about my own identity and feeling the need to reassure myself that it was okay to be who I was.

I probably shouldn't have brought this up, though I guess it says something about why I was easily insulted/hurt on this point. I still remember some of the things you said and wrote then, I won't deny they've stuck with me, and at the time what I most wanted was for you to like me and accept me and believe I cared about you, and that seemed to me to mean not having the life I had. But, as you say, that was middle school, and I'm sure I said a lot of immature things as well, that I regret. And we were both insecure, in our own ways. Anyway, I do realize that you've grown up since then. Sorry for this.

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intertribal.livejournal.com - 2008-05-26 22:19 (UTC) - Expand

Please believe me. I love you.

That's all.

I love you too.

I'm glad.

I was starting to get very scared and sad about all this.

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intertribal.livejournal.com - 2008-05-26 22:21 (UTC) - Expand

...I think most of the frustration here is stemming from both 1) not trusting one another, and 2) not respecting ourselves (both of which are the only ways that anything either of us has said that seems insulting can actually have an effect). So please, respect yourself, and I will try to do the same. I think both of us are just as capable of being wrong as being right, we actually agree on a number of points, and even if you were wrong, that doesn't mean I would lose respect for you. I hope the same is true of myself (if I couldn't be wrong, I probably couldn't learn and would be significantly less intelligent, in any case...despite the fact that I'm actually terrified of being wrong). Also, I find that when I'm confident in my own knowledge and ability, I have an easier time asking questions, admitting to being wrong, and arguing in general. Anyway, I really hope I haven't offended you for life or anything, because I'd be very sad to think I'd ruined the only friendship I've managed to maintain in my life with so little effort. Please believe me.

And I know the feeling (of being talked down to--happens when I talk to steve sometimes), but really, me talking down to you would be not bothering to seriously have this conversation at all, just saying, "no, no, you don't understand yet. you'll get there eventually." as if you weren't capable of it, or even worse, "Yeah, sure, that's good. You're doing good things in the world," and not even bothering to say if I disagree, which is I suppose how a lot of the world gets by, on little white lies.

I'm trying to be honest and open, but I do apologize for offending you, and for not making it as clear as it could be that I do both respect your opinion and invite you to share it, as well as value you and your friendship generally (and for anything I've said that has not made that clear, incl. the phrasing of some sentences, for being sometimes too quick to be insulted, etc.). I just refuse to back down unless I'm genuinely convinced, and I don't see anything condescending about that.

there may be problems with that formulation of condescension. i could probably point to a couple things I said that seem condescending myself. I've already apologized for them, but just know that they don't reflect what i think of you as a person.