Sixth Post!
Nov. 5th, 2022 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hoisinsauce posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
secretfanspace"The thing about illegally breeding fire-breathing possums is that you gotta keep a bucket of water handy."
*Those fools! Fire-breathing possums are greasy; water will only feed the flames! Oh, if only I could tell them of my empire...*
(Context: https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/1839.html?thread=2678831#cmt2678831)
Talk fandom! Making things! Reading, writing, drawing, whatever! Miscellaneous life chatter! Meme's happy to see you again!
(start a comment thread by replying to this post)
*Those fools! Fire-breathing possums are greasy; water will only feed the flames! Oh, if only I could tell them of my empire...*
(Context: https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/1839.html?thread=2678831#cmt2678831)
Talk fandom! Making things! Reading, writing, drawing, whatever! Miscellaneous life chatter! Meme's happy to see you again!
(start a comment thread by replying to this post)
Re: Interesting Things
Date: 2023-01-13 07:42 pm (UTC)>> We will have to suspend our normal mental procedures, which seem almost integral to all our social interactions, of deciding for ourselves what type of person someone else is. We will have to learn to accept as authoritative the labels that people take for themselves, particularly in matters of sex, gender, and sexuality. This means believing, or at least acting as if we believe, that people know the type of person they are.
Another interesting contrast in the article -- which outlines some interrelated work but whose final conclusion is limp, limp, limp --
>> In both Nietzsche and Girard’s case, this insight into the structure of our taxonomic thinking—that I can only accuse those whom I in some way am—leads to reactionary and fantastic hopes for messianic delivery.
>> One should, Bloom says, know one’s own type (Jew, homosexual, philosopher, etc.) and remain at a “playful distance” from those outside it, with “no expectation of essential progress” toward a world in which the sort of people we are can be publicly recognized and respected. No messiahs, and no end to paranoias and persecutions—but, in the shade of deft silences, the possibility of cleareyed fellowship with one’s own kind.
No wonder he has no idea about what women find appealing about m/m fic or manga and assumes any such fan must be sexless and obese 🙄. It's important to stick to your own type!!
Anyway snobbishness is a quality I prize dearly among my friends. It only becomes a character flaw if combined with parochialism and a lack of curiosity.
Anyway, what the heck is this bloke doing in North Macedonia? Literary criticism?
Re: Interesting Things
Date: 2023-01-13 08:00 pm (UTC)I was torn on the ending because on the one hand I think it's a miserable, pessimistic cop-out, and could lead grim places. Otoh I know that *feeling*, though my "type" there would be something more personality-based like "artist" (or even "thinker" lol). I'm resigned to being in a minority of likeminded folk that will never have the goodwill of the mainstream, and that therefore the best I'm going to get is finding a handful of others who click with me. So I do get where he's coming from on that. Don't think it's a good message to spread, though; if nothing else, too much room for fucked up interpretations.
It's a shame he led with the yaoi stuff really (even if I can't really hold it against a gay man for being bothered by it) and the petty sexism because it puts the reader at an emotional distance from him and makes it harder to read it charitably. I initially read that ending like "oh fuck off" and then went back and realised that in practice that was actually exactly how I thought about those things where I'm in the minority. xD
Re: Interesting Things
Date: 2023-01-13 08:25 pm (UTC)The opening was a calculated choice in a piece about judging others' types, and I can admire the effect even if it makes me roll my eyes. It only becomes an irritating decision when combined with the ending, where he admits that he isn't even curious about the foreign impulse and enjoys judging from the sidelines.
To a certain extent, yes, I don't think it's reasonable to expect cleareyed acknowledgement from a majority culture that doesn't have the tools or background to understand you, and the full-fledged attempt to dismantle hierarchies by abandoning all judgement has clearly led us to a hellscape. But there's a big range between "stick to your own", "unblinkingly accept others' representations of their selves", and "Jesus will save us". He kept on bringing up Marx -- what did Marx say, big boy? He probably didn't dig into it because he couldn't have dismissed it as messianic thinking and so it would have ruined the end to his think piece.
It's prime college newspaper editorial fodder. Interesting and making erudite references but incredibly shallow.
Re: Interesting Things
Date: 2023-01-13 10:13 pm (UTC)Lol yeah I did think it was mostly a vehicle for him to namedrop (authordrop?) things he'd read. I thought the piece gestured at a lot of interesting ideas to follow up without getting into them itself. Jumped around too much. But it gave me some pointers for other stuff to read, and I'd been thinking about characters-as-types in literature, recently, so I still found it interesting.
Re: Interesting Things
Date: 2023-01-13 10:20 pm (UTC)For my own part, my biggest beef with it was how he used hating on a woman as a framing device. Awful title, and unecessary. It's scattergun and self-congratulatory but that wouldn't have rubbed me up the wrong way so much if he'd been less of a dick. But sometimes it's more fun to chat about a piece that prompts mixed feelings, so hey.