Mike,
Thanks for bringing this up.
One reaction I have is I like the pre-Foucault theories of class struggle and national/racial liberation better than Foucault's. So, I'm critical of the effort to generalize "heteronormativity" analysis to these other issues. Also, I'm not very open to categorizing heterosexuality like capitalism or white supremacy, if you follow. I can go with "homophobia" but not "heterosexism". What say you ?
Charles
From: MRDelucia at aol.com
Joanna Bujes continues:
"...but I am puzzled why in rejecting identification as a mode of being one feels the need for the label of "queer". Why do I have to be anything or call myself anything in order to critique a political strategy?"
Well, why did Marx believe that critique of capitalism had to be done from the proletariat position? I think two (related) answers: (1) practical: the proletariat was the only group for whom a criticism of capitalism would be the basis for beginning a new type of social organization (i.e. it was the strongest group with a vested interest against capitalism) (2) theoretical: the proletariat was 'the truth' of the capitalist system; that is, only the proletariat, as the group whose existence consistently shows the lie of capitalist ideology, can reach beyond that ideology.
In perhaps the same way, only a theory which is both explicitly anti-identitarian as well as queer offers a way out of heteronormativity. Queer existence shows the lie of heteronormativity as well as showing the possibility for an alternative. Mike