>Bryan,
>
>Ok, here's an argument: Juan says he "hates homosexuals". What is he
>actually saying? He hates (dislikes, is repelled by, despises) all
>individuals within a category he labels "homosexuals".
But everyone else is doing the same thing to him! They hate
anyone who falls into the category of "homophobic".
>There are two major problems here.
>1. The category: Who is a homosexual? Somebody who has sexual relations
>with people from the same sex? or the same gender? what is a sexual
>relation? are we talking about attraction or does the individual need to
>have sexual intercourse in order to be a member of Juan's category? if so,
>what kind of sexual intercourse and to what extent? My point is that we are
>all constituted and constitute ourselves within a sexual field (forgive the
>spacial analogy) which is not bipolar and even if it were bipolar, who
>would decide on the cutoff point. But Juan feels authorised - or rather
>authorises himself - to unilaterally equalise the irreductible difference
>and singularity to a point where he feels confident to create the category
>of "homosexuals". This is a fairly violent operation by which he reduces
>difference to sameness. Juan creates a subjectivity which is based on a
>sexual behaviour, even worse, Juan's own
But the same is true for his attackers. They imbue themselves
with the authority to create a bipolar system between acceptance
and homophobia. They then proceed to hate, exclude, and
humiliate anyone who calls homosexuality wrong. Just as Juan
does with homosexuals.
>2. Hatred: Juan "hates". Juan's hatred denies every member of his category
>his respect for their choice (or constitution). He negates their
>subjectivity which he himself created. Declaring himself to be the
>universal judge on categories, he denies every member of his category the
>very subjectivity he performatively sollicits for himself. But hatred is
>more than that, it stems from an aggression Juan harbours against that
>which is different from himself, which is different and he turns into
>radical otherness.
But they deny him the right to constitute himself as a homophob.
>Now of course, you're going to say that I haven't provided you with an
>argument of why it is WRONG. Well, there is simply no theoretically sound
>deduction that would sustain the wrongness of Juan's aggression. Of course
>one could call on norms and argue that Juan is not behaving in
>correspondance with our contemporary social norms, but then you would
>rightly ask whether in this case it would have been "right" to be a Nazi in
>Germany between 1933 and 1945. The question here, again, is not about RIGHT
>or WRONG in an absolute sense, nor of some kind of validity, but one of a
>personal ethics. The only thing we can do is showing the intolerance and
>absurdity in Juan's judgement and this is exactly the function of critique.
Then let us apply the same standard to those who attack
homophobia. It seems obvious that they have parrallel hatreds.
The anti-racist is as bad as the racist. The ant-homophob as
bad as the homophob.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>
>Ok, here's an argument: Juan says he "hates homosexuals". What is he
>actually saying? He hates (dislikes, is repelled by, despises) all
>individuals within a category he labels "homosexuals".
But everyone else is doing the same thing to him! They hate
anyone who falls into the category of "homophobic".
>There are two major problems here.
>1. The category: Who is a homosexual? Somebody who has sexual relations
>with people from the same sex? or the same gender? what is a sexual
>relation? are we talking about attraction or does the individual need to
>have sexual intercourse in order to be a member of Juan's category? if so,
>what kind of sexual intercourse and to what extent? My point is that we are
>all constituted and constitute ourselves within a sexual field (forgive the
>spacial analogy) which is not bipolar and even if it were bipolar, who
>would decide on the cutoff point. But Juan feels authorised - or rather
>authorises himself - to unilaterally equalise the irreductible difference
>and singularity to a point where he feels confident to create the category
>of "homosexuals". This is a fairly violent operation by which he reduces
>difference to sameness. Juan creates a subjectivity which is based on a
>sexual behaviour, even worse, Juan's own
But the same is true for his attackers. They imbue themselves
with the authority to create a bipolar system between acceptance
and homophobia. They then proceed to hate, exclude, and
humiliate anyone who calls homosexuality wrong. Just as Juan
does with homosexuals.
>2. Hatred: Juan "hates". Juan's hatred denies every member of his category
>his respect for their choice (or constitution). He negates their
>subjectivity which he himself created. Declaring himself to be the
>universal judge on categories, he denies every member of his category the
>very subjectivity he performatively sollicits for himself. But hatred is
>more than that, it stems from an aggression Juan harbours against that
>which is different from himself, which is different and he turns into
>radical otherness.
But they deny him the right to constitute himself as a homophob.
>Now of course, you're going to say that I haven't provided you with an
>argument of why it is WRONG. Well, there is simply no theoretically sound
>deduction that would sustain the wrongness of Juan's aggression. Of course
>one could call on norms and argue that Juan is not behaving in
>correspondance with our contemporary social norms, but then you would
>rightly ask whether in this case it would have been "right" to be a Nazi in
>Germany between 1933 and 1945. The question here, again, is not about RIGHT
>or WRONG in an absolute sense, nor of some kind of validity, but one of a
>personal ethics. The only thing we can do is showing the intolerance and
>absurdity in Juan's judgement and this is exactly the function of critique.
Then let us apply the same standard to those who attack
homophobia. It seems obvious that they have parrallel hatreds.
The anti-racist is as bad as the racist. The ant-homophob as
bad as the homophob.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com