![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ends and means
Nov. 21st, 2006 10:13 amI've been doing a lot of thinking lately on ends and means. Specifically, how to relate to ideas, movements, and those who ''buy in' to them whose ends I tend to agree with, but whose means I can't stomach. Based in no small part on what I'm reading (but in no way exclusively because of that), I'm specifically focused on the identity movements that brush up against me most often, and most painfully, namely feminism, transsexual politics, and to a slightly lesser extent, gay and lesbian politics.
The end goal of each, as I understand it, is to secure dignity, safety, and respect for the definitional constituent class each presumes to address. I'm totally down with that as a goal, without question. I honestly think everyone deserves these things, and work towards the goals when and where I can. I want to be able to work with others towards these goals, because I know as an individual I make very little difference, but I don't know how to engage with systems of thought, experiential and political frames whose means are specifically injurious to me.
Specifically, I'm talking about the idea that humanity is reducible to 'men' and 'women', and that anything definitive can be said about a person based on this assigned and interpreted class membership. Feminism, it seems, is bound to the idea of dimorphic sexual identity, no matter how it sometiems struggles against it. Transsexual politics makes this even more overt, I think, and my problem with gay and lesbian positionality has always been subject position; I just can't swallow the premise to fit myself into the system (this is also true of heterosexuality, for the record). I'm not against others claiming some space in the conventionally defined categories of 'men', 'women', 'gay' or 'straight' for themselves (any more, at least; I think I've gotten over a lot of bitterness), but I am against anyone saying that's just how the world is, for everyone. I want to fight that tooth and nail, with everything I've got, but the wind is often taken out of my sails when I consider that people don't necessarily know better (that often gets into the responsibility and burden of education, but that's another issue). I don't necessarily think it's fair to beat on the ignorant for their ignorance, but if they're hurting me, I'm not sure how to define self defense ethically.
This is very much a conflict in progress. I don't expect tidy answers, and would be suspicious if I thought I had found or created one (totalizing systems and all that). But I am interested in being able to work strategically, furthering the ends as I see them, but without adding my work to means and premises that would destroy me as I experience myself. I just don't know how.
The end goal of each, as I understand it, is to secure dignity, safety, and respect for the definitional constituent class each presumes to address. I'm totally down with that as a goal, without question. I honestly think everyone deserves these things, and work towards the goals when and where I can. I want to be able to work with others towards these goals, because I know as an individual I make very little difference, but I don't know how to engage with systems of thought, experiential and political frames whose means are specifically injurious to me.
Specifically, I'm talking about the idea that humanity is reducible to 'men' and 'women', and that anything definitive can be said about a person based on this assigned and interpreted class membership. Feminism, it seems, is bound to the idea of dimorphic sexual identity, no matter how it sometiems struggles against it. Transsexual politics makes this even more overt, I think, and my problem with gay and lesbian positionality has always been subject position; I just can't swallow the premise to fit myself into the system (this is also true of heterosexuality, for the record). I'm not against others claiming some space in the conventionally defined categories of 'men', 'women', 'gay' or 'straight' for themselves (any more, at least; I think I've gotten over a lot of bitterness), but I am against anyone saying that's just how the world is, for everyone. I want to fight that tooth and nail, with everything I've got, but the wind is often taken out of my sails when I consider that people don't necessarily know better (that often gets into the responsibility and burden of education, but that's another issue). I don't necessarily think it's fair to beat on the ignorant for their ignorance, but if they're hurting me, I'm not sure how to define self defense ethically.
This is very much a conflict in progress. I don't expect tidy answers, and would be suspicious if I thought I had found or created one (totalizing systems and all that). But I am interested in being able to work strategically, furthering the ends as I see them, but without adding my work to means and premises that would destroy me as I experience myself. I just don't know how.
