thinking

Ruminating on the politics of the individual and queer theory...

Sexual identity as we know it has developed in relation to the dominant social, political and economic forces. To this effect, the sexual identities we have cultivated are not just about sexuality (and in this regard I think i disagree with Butler). They are also about social change, class struggle, racial equality; essentially they have evolved as responses to the prevailing discourses of our society. Form that perspective, many of these “alternative” performative acts are about protest.

But then I consider Baudrillard and his theory of simulation which reduces sexuality and seductive identity to a representation of constructed reality. (Constructed by who? I still don’t quite know)

In the study of actual identity politics, L.A. Kauffman wrote that identity is central to the practice of politics, supporting the central idea behind feminism (and queer theory) and the idea that the, “personal is political”. But we seem to have moved on from there to the point where self-transformation is now equated with social transformation. We have shifted to a point where politics in only about the personal and fails to engage in any discourse about the actual systems of domination that are instructing the personal.

I don’t think we should make queer theory political. Mainly because I believe there is a very distinct difference between the performative acts that we engage in to display our gender and identity and the actual instinctive sexual acts we engage in. Sexual acts are not identity. But we have confused this point. And I think ultimately the characters of LBGTQ are enacting the contradiction between the public world of production and industry and the private world of consumption and pleasure.

We should move towards removing the personal from politics, for now, and instead focus on the actual systems of domination that are driving our culture into these various roles and performative acts. Specifically, I think we should turn our political spotlight onto capitalism and look at how the discursive power of capitalism has shaped every part of our lives and continues to do so. In that respect I believe that communication, as a political tool, can have great power simply because it can help us to become aware of the prevailing discourses that exist in our society and help us to understand more about the fact that our reality is constructed, that we are actors in framework that offers only the options that perpetuate the existing power structure. On the flip side of that, government can use communication as a tool to repress and suppress simply by the choice of language used in policy and law making. Communication channels and flow, free market of ideas, free speech - all of this is related and central to our sense of identity and tells us whether we are performing an acceptable act of identity, or a radical one.