12.15.00, 8:15 a.m. || someone's always telling you
how
to behave
"Your question is: why am I so interested in
politics? But if I were to answer you very simply, I would say this:
Why shouldn't I be interested? That is to say, what
blindness, what deafness, what density of ideology would have to weigh
me down to prevent me from being interested in what is probably the most
crucial subject to our existence.... The essence of our life consists,
after all, in the political functioning of the society in which we find
ourselves." --Michel Foucault
As an update to the "body politics" of
surveillance, apparently my critique has stirred the latent (er,
or maybe not so latent) homophobia and transphobia of Baddgrrl and her straight
(in the dull sense of the word) pals. One agrees that "transies are freaks," and that he doesn't
"get" what's with the "angry bi chicks who use big words," wear
"freak-ass accoutrements" and refuse
to participate in the white-collar
industry of, um, what--? Office middle-management? Huh. I guess I'm not
"playing ball" or "in the game" or "making something out of myself." Big
thrills in corporate cubicles, and I'm missing out on them all.*
Darn.
Paperson responds, in part, arguing that
such statements are evidence of the governmentality of our culture, an
imposed self-regulation: "presenting that image of you that will get you
noticed by a job hunter, a middle-class mate, all of whom were weaned on
pasteurized milk and sliced bread, being a middle-class exhibitionist,
that good citizen, who, if you read against some of the words and
statements, does indeed FEAR THE STATE." Manifesting as an
unwillingness to step outside the boundaries --and a willingness to
police others who do-- he suggests we all spend more time deconstructing
the "matrix." Yes, he is referencing the film and its utopian
premise -- that the world we think we live in is actually an imposed
cage whose bars are so wide or well-hidden that we don't
recognize our imprisonment until we begin to ask the right
questions. i.e., "What is the matrix? Is this the only reality we have
available to us? Are we really free?"
Or to alternately quote Chumbawamba:
"Someone's always telling you how to behave..." The
question is, do you listen, and internalize the demands and restraints? (Althusser,
you are with me in spirit.) And do you think
this makes you right?
* Please note. I have nothing against office workers. Why, some
of my best friends work in cubicles! I do have something against
corporate capitalism (which is a broad statement, I know, but then
again this ain't against rocket science) and the strict
regimentation of our "work" lives, and I do hold a grudge against the
blatant classism inherent in the suggestion that
"white-collar" connotes a superior occupational status.