~~ i stand corrected.

[reenka]

remember how i had that whole ranty-rant about homophobia-in-slash a few days ago? i was pretty sure i wasn't being silly and my points were valid. i read lots of other people's entries and while i saw they had good points, none of them really -swayed- me.

i'd just like to state (for my own record) that i stand behind penelope_z's post 100%. it's just one of those times i'm happy that i wasn't thinking straight, because the pleasure of suddenly having things become clear is always immense for me. when it was using definitional arguments-- ie, what hatred is, what slash is, what the statement "i hate slash" entails, it all did absolutely nothing for me. semantics never really swayed me.

but this-- this is an example of an argument that works for me. philosophically grounded, emotionally resonant, touching on things i can identify with both positively and negatively. not so much driving home one point (ie, saying this means that), but rather setting up a whole situation in which the point becomes a natural conclusion based on several concurrent elements that work together.


i would actually congratulate everyone on their contribution to the debate-- ivyblossom and nothingbutfic and marvolo and vanityfair and even eleveninches. but the thing about penelope's essay that makes it different is a personal one-- simply said, i can identify with it. it's not so much about ideals and definitions, so much as about how i experience these ideals and ideas and so on, and simple extrapolation as to how -others- experience them. it takes the word "homophobic" outside of the realm of "us" vs. "them", and questions the ethics of both sides.

we are also at fault, we are also not innocent. it's a spectrum. there is no "big bad homophobe" and "pure and good slash-loving citizen". that was a crucial point, for me. this fuzziness-- this ability to look critically at ourselves as well as the others, that's what opened up my mind on this. i was always -wanting- to have the arguments i disagreed with on some points work for me, they were just not constructed in a way i could get behind. there was a tendency to get on a high horse of some sort, a tendency to proselytize which i cannot dissociate with the very -act- of unambiguously calling "them" homophobic. them, who make that statement. that just doesn't wash with me. it's not enough to condemn a statement, for me.

if someone is homophobic, it's not something i'm going to use a statement to prove. for me, it needs to be a "state of mind", a state of emotion sort of argument. also, the whole thing about using politics and activist ideals to back it up doesn't work because unless i can personally connect with those politics 100%, you've lost me. and well, i don't connect with -any- political agenda 100%, simply because it's an agenda. i dislike agendas. i dislike categorical usages of ideals in order to bludgeon or attack or defend. making it a war of words, a war of ideals. it's not a war-- because really, it's as much internal as external, and i can't believe right and wrong are as polarized as all that.

anyway. i don't exactly -retract- everything i'd said categorically (since that'd go against my whole shtick, here), but i just wanted to squee, because reading something that makes that much sense to me makes me happy. it's not that i've been converted, but that i've been shown by example that this is what i didn't know i've thought all along. and that's the ideal argument, as far as i'm concerned. something that unfolds a subject for you, something that clarifies and explains rather than arguing and defending and basically using rhetoric to make a point from a position of authority. the thing that i love about penelope's essay is that it doesn't assume a position of authority, which i feel is a breath of fresh air.

i seriously hope i can one day write essays that well, really ^.^

Comments

[starlitefaerie.livejournal.com]

And I agree with you, completely, that her arguement really does sway me quite a bit and it is brilliantly executed and the like. But still. As my girlfriend doesn't like slash of any kind (girl/girl or boy/boy), I tend to feel that it isn't necessarily a question of homophobia. It can be and it often is, but I do think that even if only two people in the world who don't like slash aren't basing that on homophobic-feelings - they just don't find it interesting, let's say- there's still those two people. It is just preferance and opinions. But. Fantastic arguement. I wish I could argue my position even half as well. Wow. Thank you for that link.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

heh. i think that your girlfriend is probably covered in the "it's okay to not -care-" clause, if all it is is that she doesn't find it -interesting-.
heh.
man, i can't believe i wrote a whole post praising someone else's post. *laughs*
suuuuuch a fangirl ><;;;

Re:

[starlitefaerie.livejournal.com]

yeah. i mean, i don't understand her. i'm all for movies with boys kissing boys and girls kissing girls. but i love her despite her madness.