tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post1066087609067059309..comments2023-12-06T04:34:53.474-05:00Comments on Works Cited: On the "neoliberal rhetoric of harm"Nataliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07898457401179147102noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-28485527064265625982014-07-08T13:26:04.780-04:002014-07-08T13:26:04.780-04:00Shifting between individual and systemic concerns ...Shifting between individual and systemic concerns always seems like such a strange battle. Either way every person is still a cog in a machine, and yet simultaneously every 'human' is supposed to be an island. So millenials, being social creatures, need other beings *gasp*, yet we can knock them for having basic emotional needs, ironically reinforcing the most alienating aspects of chronic individualism.<br />It's as if what is left is a zero sum game. While everyone is arguing the minutiae of simulacra the territory is in tatters. So what can I do? Acknowledge people both as individuals who actually exist, and the systemic issues and social affect they take part in. How else do I learn about structural issues other than by listening to what individuals are saying? I can't erase the subject from writing, as if any model is free from mental processes and subjectivity.<br />And how often have I conversely seen rape victims maligned by neoliberals who care not one whit about subjective harm unless it affects them personally?<br />So perhaps I'll observe how the two sides intertwine, without dichotomizing them. Others can declare that something being a potential and partial enabling condition of another thing necessarily makes it inseparable, and critique impossible. Either way, thanks for this write-up that injects some much-needed pragmatism into the argument, and for the recommended readings.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-6143296536363953812014-07-07T23:14:48.171-04:002014-07-07T23:14:48.171-04:00Thanks for so clearly countering where Halberstam&...Thanks for so clearly countering where Halberstam's arguments fall short. I had intended to reread their piece to unravel what it was I objected to on the first reading, but you've done that work for me. Beautifully. And I'll definitely check out the books on postmodernism and cynicism you recommend. I remember as an undergraduate having a literary theory teacher actually approach me and try to convince me I was too smart for social justice activism. "Nothing matters anymore," he said "except theory. And fashion." It's fascinating how you've caught Halberstam playing both ends of that game. CDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-78423292303268219662014-07-07T20:19:32.584-04:002014-07-07T20:19:32.584-04:00Although Halberstam acknowledges that s/he does no...Although Halberstam acknowledges that s/he does not insist upon one gender pronoun definitively or at all times, I find it significant that you decide to gender JH female and then proceed to accuse JH of undermining feminists and their feelings by demanding that they "man up." It seems disingenuous to impute misogyny to a person whom you implicitly decline to see as "actually" masculine, at least in part.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-44298100571837609722014-07-07T15:45:26.137-04:002014-07-07T15:45:26.137-04:00Thanks for this, I found it really thoughtful. Es...Thanks for this, I found it really thoughtful. Especially the development of how critiques of neoliberalism can become sexist: <br /><br />"The forms that Halberstam critiques—safe spaces and trigger warnings, specifically, but also psychologization and subjectivity—really are forms through which neoliberalism can operate; indeed, maybe they are primarily modes of individuating harm and defusing structural critique. But they are also deeply feminized, as Gayatri Spivak pointed out in a famous reading of Freud's line, "a child is being beaten," and have the double-edged power of interiorizing (rendering unavailable to structural critique) and acknowledging women's psychology as complex. When neoliberalism takes feminized forms, it is difficult to attack neoliberal forms (here, subjectivization, safe spaces) without being flatly sexist. And the form that Halberstam's critique takes seems to me to succumb to that difficulty."<br /><br />I wonder what 'sexism' means when it has been taken up in the neoliberal context in this way. Where are we left when neoliberalism renders critiques of it subject to critiques of sexism in a way that win neoliberalism a new kind of power by being able to dub its critic sexist? I think you've got to the heart of something deeply troubling here.Adriel Trotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13969910758619028756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-20523899853909519672014-07-07T15:38:16.074-04:002014-07-07T15:38:16.074-04:00To, Anonymous who thought the writer got "pro...To, Anonymous who thought the writer got "pronoun wrong". Unless there is something definitive more recently, it doesn't seem that either would be "right" or "wrong". In JJHalberstam's own words :<br /><br />Well, a few reasons: first, I have not transitioned in any formal sense and there certainly many differences between my gender and those of transgender men on hormones. Second, the back and forth between he and she sort of captures the form that my gender takes nowadays. Not that I am often an unambiguous “she” but nor am I often an unambiguous he. Third, I think my floating gender pronouns capture well the refusal to resolve my gender ambiguity that has become a kind of identity for me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-52176567855130068422014-07-07T14:35:27.522-04:002014-07-07T14:35:27.522-04:00perhaps I'm misreading, but your pronoun for J...perhaps I'm misreading, but your pronoun for JH is wrong. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5967476903991259470.post-71395334008670600292014-07-07T12:50:10.765-04:002014-07-07T12:50:10.765-04:00What a great piece! Thank you -- I think it is ele...What a great piece! Thank you -- I think it is elegantly written, and engages the Halberstam post beautifully, while objecting to many of its arguments. Tenured Radicalnoreply@blogger.com