Liberal Americans are going apoplectic because another state has made abortion illegal. Reading the comments of those “shocked” by it, is to encounter some of the most profound cognitive dissonance I have observed in a while. The right to abortion hinges on the right to bodily integrity. What precisely did this dumbest of countries think would happen when it ran roughshod over that most crucial and fundamental of human rights by mandating vaccines? Human rights are hard lines. You do not cross them. Once you do, they cease to be rights and become perspectives. And look what happens when people don’t share yours. You reap what you sow.
We have long reached peak performativity in society. Of course, there has always been an element of performance, and if I could control my reading to just Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, then I would likely give you a nice little overview of the work on this subject. I’m going to have to come back to that as I have a feeling this is going to become a series of posts. I think, if I were a different kind of person, I would be talking about “wokery” right now. I hate that word. I hated it when the self-righteously inclusive self-proclaimed themselves as “woke”, and I still hate it now those without broadly inclusive politics justifiably use it as an insult against those who proclaim broadly inclusive politics. Even as I type this, there is so much to unpack. What do I mean by “peak performativity”? What do I
I occasionally update my bio page to reflect whatever I am concerned, or feel strongly, about at the moment. However, one thing which has remained the same for many years now is the following statement: there is no such thing as a male feminist. Around the time I first wrote that paragraph, I came across this article and broadly agreed with it, but especially so this quote: Although I believe that men can be pro-feminist and anti-sexist, I do not believe we can be feminists in the strictest sense of the word. Men, in this patriarchal system, cannot remove themselves from their power and privilege in relation to women. To be a feminist one must be a member of the targeted group (i.e a woman) not only as a matter of classification but as having one’s directly-lived experience inform one’s theory. The quote is attributed to Brian Klocke of the National
I used to hate Russell Brand. I say hate, but what I really mean is that I wrote him off as an unredeemable, facile, vacuous misogynist. He became an irrelevance to me. Needless to say, I have changed my mind because he has clearly changed. He is now asking really interesting questions and making really interesting points. He has become someone I enjoy listening to; someone I frequently find myself in agreement with. Really, this post isn’t about Russell Brand, although I highly recommend watching his YouTube channel. This post is actually about myself and an aspect of “cancel culture”: the denial of human growth.
A few years ago (well before COVID), I met a woman in the waiting room of the vets. She had been a community nurse during the time of the AIDS epidemic and she talked about the profound discrimination and stigmatisation that HIV+ people experienced at the beginning of the epidemic, even by other healthcare workers. I don’t remember all the details, but I remember realising that the stigmatisation and discrimination against HIV+ people, and those who cared for them, was way worse than I had realised. For a good while after meeting her, I would come back to her comments and wonder who I would have been at that time. Would I have been her or would I have been the majority who behaved so despicably and callously towards others out of a fear for their own personal safety? I’m pretty certain now that I would have been her, and not