I am in total agreement with what “lbo83235” writes below (I do wish you guys would humour my anthropocentrism and invent a name, not a string, to mask your anonymity :-)). I am not sure how to find the middle ground between the sort of camaraderie — provocative theorising, mouthing off, pulling legs -- I find indispensable to political solidarity (and one hopes, action), and the necessary sensitivity that shag calls for (if I understand her right).
This brings to mind the recent brouhaha over the comedian Tracy Morgan’s anti-gay rant, and what I found to be a strange defence of it. For those not up to speed, Tracy Morgan (who is black; a detail highlighted in at least one defence) is a comedian (of SNL fame; he is also in the cast of the TV comedy show 30 Rock) who took to the stage a few days ago and opined that being gay was a choice and that should his own son come out as gay, he (Tracy) would stab him (the son) with a knife. One line of defence — fairly standard these days — has been “that’s his first amendment right” (this first amendment right, as per these defenders, does not however apply to those — bloggers, etc — criticising him!). Another has been: well, he is a comedian, and he says crazy shit all the time, and that’s what comedians do. A more nuanced version of this argument is that unless we can push boundaries, especially through comedy, we all suffer.
Ignoring the fact that nothing in what (the ironically androgynously named) Tracy said is the least bit comedic, the second defence (the nuanced one) is not much different from requiring that literary houses dispense with writers post haste, and replace them with a million typing monkeys... since not only might the monkeys eventually produce Shakespeare, but heck, what else might they produce that we are now denied, through their unfettered spontaneity? (BTW, I think this Tracy Morgan Theory of Comedy is part of a larger and disquieting trend in human activity that I find akin to the failed logical positivist programme in science/philosophy; but I will postpone, for your well-being, rehashing those old rants of mine).
It seems to me that we are not confined to one of the two poles of unexamined offensiveness or disengagement. Feedback aware rules of thumb and context sensitivity might help us eat the cake and have it too.
Say you were to call the Indian music maker A. R. Rahman a “sand n-word” because he is a talentless hack who is underserving of the attention he gets, it also says something about you and the way you think, and as shag says, it raises questions of what you think about me. It’s kind of like US programmers at an old workplace of mine who used to say, “you can’t outsource *our* work to India because it — unlike menial blue collar work -- is hi-tech. Only we can do this sort of hard stuff”. Now, they would say this to me with a smile, because in their mind, I was part of the “we”. If I had challenged them on this emotionally, they would I am sure have responded exactly with that defence: come on, we are not racist, we were talking about you as well. But the fact that they *chose* to divide the world in the terms they did, told me something about them, that I could not overlook in any future context.
But interestingly, not only do black men call each other “n-word”, but I have noticed in the last decade, it has become acceptable in very particular contexts, for young white men to call black men “n-word” (or at least so it seemed from the few occasions I saw this happening within groups of young men); sometimes even the converse (black teenagers calling their white male friend “n-word”, in a sort of inclusive sense). It seems to have, in the right contexts — and if my observations are not unique — become a term of endearment or camaraderie. In a similar sense, I also see straight young people telling gay friends “Oh, don’t be so gay about it”. It’s all a minefield for sure. Perhaps some of these gay teens put up with it out of fear of being ostracised.
In another sense, if you were to call the same A. R. Rahman an ugly fucker, or for that matter Arundhati Roy a beautiful woman (for there are problems with positive stereotyping as well), what feelings does that evoke in me (being an ugly fucker myself). In my case, it comes down to whether you are objecting to his ugliness or his being a talentless hack. If ugliness is a reason for you to hate someone, then I am fucked.
I realise I am not presenting a coherent argument here. Rather, my hope is to outline — in my own mystical, eastern, rambling but wise way :-) -- the value of context. It would be a sucky world for me, if some of you could not or would not call me an ugly fucker after a couple of beers.
On Jun 13, 2011, at 11:21 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Jun 13, 2011, at 11:05 AM, lbo83235 wrote:
>
>> A meta-level question about the list: Several of the most frequent posters clearly have a long history, and I have no wish to interfere with whatever that means in terms of the purpose and function of the list for them, but is this sort of project - collectively and concretely trying to advance both theory and practice, constructively and in a spirit of solidarity - not the sort of thing a list like this can / should be used for? The list feels like such a minefield sometimes, and I fear even that question will be taken more provocatively than I intend it to be. So, at the risk of seeming overly cautious, I extend apologies in advance for any offense.
>
> That's distressing to hear. I've always hoped this list would be the sort of project you describe. Maybe my moderation style has become to laizzez-faire.
>
I wouldn’t blame it on you. I would wager it's the water.
—ravi