Monday, May 08, 2006

The Revolution Will Not Be Satirized

So several people including piny at feministe have been fisking a particularly egregious example of fuckwittery (follow the link for original link), the highlight of which being:

So long as there is this idea that presenting or living in a certain way means a person ought to “transition,” or ought to “change sex,” or ought to “identify as” one sex or another, there will be no revolution. There will simply continue to be human beings conforming to gender stereotypes and identifying as “men” and “women” on the basis of how male heterosupremacy has defined those stereotypes.

I (among others) had been so busy with the transphobic assiness (oh, damn those oppressive transsexuals ruining everything! real freedom from gender roles means doing what I tell you!) that until now I hadn't really been focusing on the "revolution" bit, per se. I don't know how I could have missed it. I guess in the general WayBack Machine-ness of it all it just seemed like one more detail, but...

God. She's really not being ironic at all, is she?

The Revolution. THE. Revolution. You know. The one where we finally get it alllll right, all in one fell swoop. Oh, stop looking so concerned! And you, STOP LAUGHING. You'd better believe we mean it this time, and everything's going to be SO FUCKING WONDERFUL, you'll just shit. You'll see. We've been tightening the theory and practising the practice. We have better texts than all those other revolutionaries, and better soldiers, and a MUCH better vaguely outlined utopian ideal, the description of which takes up nearly three footnotes at the end of the twelve-volume encyclopedia of the Wrongs Of The Oppressors. We have passion. We have purity. We have determination. We have spatulas.

I can't wait.

15 comments:

Milo said...

Quinn once wrote about the problem with utopian thinking, and it was essentially this: Utopian thought requires human being to be better than they already are. "If people would just.."

I think that's what people don't get. Utopia must, by it's very nature, be a constantly shifting thing. It must account for human failings, and create a way for current social ideals to improve while still working around those failings.

Just my thoughts.

belledame222 said...

The reason Heart's reasoning makes not the sense is because imo it's completely disingenuous, albeit perhaps not entirely consciously so. Feminists of that ilk have no interest in getting rid of gender differences; if we did, there would cease to be a need for them, and that's simply unthinkable.

And that dovetails nicely into "revolutionary" thinking in general, istm. There's a reason the phrase "permanent revolution" had to come into being: it belies not only the admission that gee, maybe this overhaul of class hierarchy might be trickier than we thought, but (I think) that its proponents simply never were/are all that interested in living "happily ever after." The goal is not to achieve utopia at all, at least as most people probably think of it; the goal is to crest as long as possible on the high of righteous fury and combat.

antiprincess said...

a true revolutionary wouldn't dream of using a spatula.

a true revolutionary would use hir tongue, free from the long wooden and rubber arm of the spatulopatriarchy.

everyone knows that I can't believe I have to explain that to you this isn't fweebah 101 you know...

the revolution will SO be satirized! here, watch!

Gucci said...

Dear Ms. Belledame,

Last chrismas vacation me and my momme and dad had a revolution. There was a lot of blood and sumthing importent happend to the tree.

My father lost his glasses and momme she burnd the hair off her head and put dresses on my dad plus a jackit. And she made dinner for the barber. Then she made the nayburs put her dresses on to. Then dad made dinner so we cood throw to the good guys pepole down stairs to eat.

I like revolution so much I learnd to spell it in the dictonary.and I was sad becuse then we had to go back to school in pants.


Alex

belledame222 said...

wat R U waring Now?

rey said...

Yes. It's all true. And the spatulas are the key to this revolution. After all...

UTOPIAN IDEALS

is an anagram for...

SPATULA I DIE ON

Proving the interconnectedness between those willing to sacrifice their lives and the kitchen utensils they will us in order to obtain sexual freedom for all.

belledame222 said...

!!! oh, you're GOOD. did you come up with that anagram?

antiprincess said...

I know, right? Rey is the queen of my world!

belledame222 said...

I know, that's what I found so fucking infuriating over there. She's all like, no, you misunderstand; I simply don't approve of your lifestyle uh decision to transition because I don't believe being "masculine" should have to mean you have a male body and thus uphold the binary gender system. and Piny's all, for the billionth time, that's NOT WHY I'M DOING IT, and there are a thousand different ways in which to be transgendered and/or transsexual, wouldja stop with the oversimplification already?! I keep telling you and telling you! and it's like, blah blah blah GINGER. there is absolutely nothing more aggravating than people who 1) try to tell you they know better than you who you are and what you should be doing with your life (especially something as intimate as your own body, for fuck's sake) and 2) although they seem to be generally capable of conversing like a normal person, suddenly turn into the Compleat 'Bot when you try to tell them something that doesn't fit what they've already decided. "Does not compute. -whirrrrr-" augh. i really shouldn't let it get to me so, I expect.

belledame222 said...

The other problem with the Revolution, of course, is that no one ever seems to have any but the vaguest idea what the "happily ever after" part looks like. At best, it looks pretty much like whatever the Revolutionary in question has deemed Good For All.
Freedom means doing what I tell you!

"After the Revolution, you will all eat strawberries and cream, and you will LIKE strawberries and cream!!"

Or, completely dependent on human nature suddenly becoming far far different than it currently is, without any tools except the intellectual (by which I mean "rhetorical, from the neck up," not so much that it's necessarily rilly smart) with which to implement it. And little to no self-awareness, no attention to one's dark and squishy, irrational hidden bits, except to shove them ever more savagely away, wielding the Bat Of Moral Righteousness. Yeah, that'll work. It always does.

rey said...

On the serious side, I think that revolutions are all about the journey (not to sound like a reformed actor, which I am). They're meant to be the first big step in a great change. If there were some absolute end, then that would just demand another revolution. In other words, the first in a series of changes.

But that's entirely philosophical and not as concrete as the rest of the arguments here.

On the satire side, I love anagrams. And, yes, I came up with that one myself. Anybody a LOST fan? They've been having a lot af anagrammatic fun...

Ethan Rom = Other Man
Gary Troup = Purgatory

Neat!

belledame222 said...

I think the change is constant, will it or no. I think often times the political idea of "revolution" is a way to try to create one of those bigger waves. thing is, the theory comes *out* of the zeitgeist that's already there; and any actual popular, mass uprising pretty much has to be...organic, I want to say?

I guess what I'm saying is: once you're at the point of "god, the People are too stupid/sheeplike/brainwashed to revolt even though it's clearly what They need; clearly those few of us who Understand are gonna have to do it or nobody will"...you've already lost.

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