THE BLOG OF DISQUIET :Qweir Notions,an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since2008.
Thursday 3 July 2014
Lines of Defence.
Despite the loss of compulsory heterosexuality
there remain other bastions of normality :
compulsory reproduction,
compulsory education
compulsory nationality...
Generally speaking, you are probably right in claiming these as defenses of society. This comment is very provocative. It proposes serious questions, all of which are culture-bound, but not, in my opinion, anthropologically sound. First of all, heterosexuality, I can say as a heterosexual, has always been extremely varied from couple to couple in terms of meaning, frequency, and practices, perhaps compulsory only in Europe, and there only within a limited historical time span. There has never been compulsory reproduction except among aristocracies and the recent middle classes (never the overwhelming poor, and something totally different for farming societies who live and thrive among rutting animals), and education, or what we call education, has become universal only in industrial societies of the last two hundred years, and then, nationality has always been a cultural by-product of language but only recently (last four hundred years) any kind of nation-state identity. I went to Costco two days ago, and I would say that none of the Filipinos, Taiwanese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Saudis, Indians from India, Thais, myriad Latinos or assorted Africans would call themselves "American," and the white middle class wearing flip-flops would not call them so, either. But, everyone's nationality was in question, because we were all in this massive warehouse together, peacefully, and orderly, and respectfully, negotiating traffic jams, and working to help each other get done what we had to do, an understood, accepted and regulated common purpose--consuming. My point is that these categories, most especially "normal," cannot be fixed and never have been. Human life is fluidity and change.
1 comment:
Generally speaking, you are probably right in claiming these as defenses of society. This comment is very provocative. It proposes serious questions, all of which are culture-bound, but not, in my opinion, anthropologically sound. First of all, heterosexuality, I can say as a heterosexual, has always been extremely varied from couple to couple in terms of meaning, frequency, and practices, perhaps compulsory only in Europe, and there only within a limited historical time span. There has never been compulsory reproduction except among aristocracies and the recent middle classes (never the overwhelming poor, and something totally different for farming societies who live and thrive among rutting animals), and education, or what we call education, has become universal only in industrial societies of the last two hundred years, and then, nationality has always been a cultural by-product of language but only recently (last four hundred years) any kind of nation-state identity. I went to Costco two days ago, and I would say that none of the Filipinos, Taiwanese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Saudis, Indians from India, Thais, myriad Latinos or assorted Africans would call themselves "American," and the white middle class wearing flip-flops would not call them so, either. But, everyone's nationality was in question, because we were all in this massive warehouse together, peacefully, and orderly, and respectfully, negotiating traffic jams, and working to help each other get done what we had to do, an understood, accepted and regulated common purpose--consuming. My point is that these categories, most especially "normal," cannot be fixed and never have been. Human life is fluidity and change.
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