my ramblings

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

[Trans]Homonationalism?

Adding biopolitical capacity to the portrait, Aizura writes that this trans citizenship entails “fading into the population . . . but also the imperative to be ‘proper’ in the eyes of the state: to reproduce, to find proper employment; to reorient one’s ‘diff erent’ body into the flow of the nationalized aspiration for possessions, property [and] wealth.”7

...

I explore this conundrum for trans bodies through the ambivalent and vexed relationship to disability in three respects: (1) the legal apparatus of the ADA, which sets the scene for a contradictory status to disability and the maintenance of gender normativity as a requisite for disabled status, one organized through hierarchies of race; (2) the fields of disability studies and trans studies, which both pivot on certain exceptionalized figures that may delimit their entanglements; and (3) political organizing priorities and strategies that partake in transnormative forms not only of passing but also of what I call “piecing,” a recruitment into neoliberal forms of fragmentation of the body for capitalist profit.10 Fi nally, I offer a speculative imagined affiliation between disability and trans, “becoming trans,” which seeks to link disability, trans, racial, and interspecies discourses to acknowledge porous boundaries constitutive of the overwhelming force of ontological multiplicity, attuned to the perpetual differentiation of variation and the multiplicity of affirmative becoming

-The Right To Maim, Jasbir Puar

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

I am probing what kinds of slow deaths have been ongoing that a suicide might represent an escape from. In order to “slow down” the act of suicide—to offer a concomitant yet different temporality of relating to living and dying—one must slow down the speed of encounter, as speed itself might be understood as debilitating. These temporalities of speed and slowness are thus convivial, not antagonistic. Berlant’s piece on slow death discusses the most prevalent health problem in the United States, that of obesity.35 I cannot do her formulation of temporality and living ad-equate justice here, but I would like to highlight the following aspects of her argument that I find compatible to—indeed generative for—my own thinking. Berlant moves us away from the event of trauma or catastrophe, proposing that “slow death occupies the temporalities of the endemic.”36 This echoes the transformation of the epidemic into the endemic whereby, for Michel Foucault, writing in Security, Territory, Population, “death be-comes durational.”37 Displacing military encounters, genocides, and other discrete time frames of traumatic events (though later in this book I con-test the formulation of these happenings as discrete), slow death occurs not within the time scale of the crisis, not of the event of the suicide or the epidemic, but in “a zone of temporality . . . of ongoingness, getting by, and living on, where the structural inequalities are dispersed, the pacing of their experience intermittent, often in phenomena not prone to capture by a consciousness organized by archives of memorable impact.”38 In this nonlinear temporality, for it starts and stops, redoubles and leaps ahead, Berlant is not “defining a group of individuals merely afflicted with the same ailment, [rather] slow death describes populations marked out for wearing out.”39 That is to say, slow death is not about an orientation toward the death drive, nor is it morbid; rather, it is about the maintenance of living, the “ordinary work of living on.”40 Slow death is, quite simply, “a condition of being worn out by the activity of reproducing life.”41 As Ber-lant notes, this puts living and dying into a specific zone of proximity and precarity: “While death is usually deemed an event in contrast to life’s ‘extensivity,’ in this domain dying and the ordinary reproduction of life are coextensive.”

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

In this regard, “It Gets Better” presumes the end, the aftermath of the aids crisis, rather than any homage to its ongoing deleterious effects or current situation. The move from aids as death to homosexual life also mirrors moves from sex and public sexuality to kinship and its privatized familial forms and from the state as the site of redress to the market as the site of the actualization and realization of the queer self...

Several writers ask what is forgotten in the push to imagine “gay youth” as exceptionally susceptible to bullying and more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers.29 Lau-rel Dykstra worries about seeming unsympathetic by questioning this oft-cited empirical “fact,” pointing out that Aboriginal youth in Canada and the United States might in fact have a higher suicide rate than queer youth.3...

From this vantage, igb reflects a desire for the reinstatement of (white) racial privilege that was lost by being gay, one that is achievable through equality rights agendas like gay marriage and participation in neoliberal consumer culture. In other words, igb is based on an expectation that it was supposed to be better. And thus igb might turn out to mean, you get more normal.

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

Rereading The Right to Maim

"One such instance of re-scaling occurred in Ravi’s trial, where it became unclear whether erasing one’s texts automatically insinuated an erasing of evidence. Events are thus data-driven, informational as well as experiential, the digitalizing of in-formation rotating in the loop between memory and archive. Facebook, Twitter, and numerous other documentation technologies that seduce the securitization of memory can no longer be constituted as simply extracur-ricular activities.18 Rather, they have been incorporated and normativized into quotidian rhythms of communication, information dissemination and retention, and the affective tendencies and habituations of bodies.19

Exhortations of protest regarding the encroachment of privacy abound, even as the offering up of one’s privacy becomes the very currency of proven competency and proficiency of the usage of these technologies, not to mention of modern-day storytelling of the self. This contradiction of the neo-liberal subject—of wanting one’s privacy while being increasing impelled into circuits that might seemingly reward for revealing what that privacy shields—is not only bred of the sense of orchestrating how, when, and where such intimate privates are crafted and rejected. Rather, the neo/lib- eral “right to privacy” seems to coexist—because of rather than despite these contradictions—with desires for intimacies, intimacies that cannot be determined or defined alone by relations of proximity or experiences of intrusion. The seemingly contradictory unfolding of Clementi’s sui-cide, involving both the violation of privacy through the video-camming of sexual activity and his announcement of his suicidal intentions in a chat room and on Facebook, are actually co-constitutive elements of this modern paradox of privacy and intrusion."

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

"On average, the Big Five test was about twice as accurate as the MBTI-style test for predicting these life outcomes, placing the usefulness of the MBTI-style test halfway between science and astrology—literally. When we tried predicting these same life outcomes using astrological sun signs (e.g., whether someone is a Pisces or Aries), we achieved zero prediction accuracy."

Personality Tests Aren’t All the Same. Some Work Better Than Others

A popular personality test beats out astrology but trails far behind scientific measure of personal traits

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism

"A romantic revolt against the "ills" of modern society, industrialization, urbanization, materialism, and rationalism, volkisch culture yearned for mysteries, irrationality, nature, and heroic legends. Constructing a counterorder by idealizing rural life and inventing traditions of the past, volkisch ideologues rejected democracy and egalitarianism, upholding instead the values of hierarchy, nobility, and spirituality. Fragmented according to orientation, volkisch activists engaged in sun worship, rune magic, nudism, pagan traditions, race mysticism, vegetarianism, herbal medicine, biodynamic gardening, and excursions into nature or sites of ancient "German" presence.

...In 1935, Himmler incorporated the Ahnenerbe Research Institute of Indo-German Prehistory and Archeology as an SS department and made its scholars uniformed SS officers. The main objective of Ahnenerbe was to explore the geographical distribution of Aryan man and account for his material and spiritual accomplishments throughout history...among the occultists enrolled in the SS was Austrian Karl Maria Wiligut...claimed to be the direct descendant of a royal family line of god-kings that ruled the ancient German nation...The Wiligut family secretly cultivated the Ariosophic legacy, but at the brink of national rebirth, an evil conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons sought to annihilate esoteric truth as evidenced by the outcome of the Great War.

The WotaNSVolk project is cast as a continuation of the Ariosophic effort. Pagans often focus on Ariosophic themes suh as blood mysteries, lost worlds, immortal Aryan sages, or the Ultima Thule mythos of Aryan origins. To some American pagans, this fascination is bereft of any political ambition. To others, Ariosophic paganism is part of a neonationalist project aimed at establishing a transatlantic white homeland."

-Mattias Gardell

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

White Supremacy in Paganism: Cannot be separated. Concepts of race and ethnicity are explicitly tied to modern maintenance of white supremacy! + Paganism explicitly ties ancestry with tradition together (ethnonationalist) = if you are white, it becomes about celebrating your (white) heritage. White people borrow from Celtic/Norse/Greek traditions because you see yourself as white and so all white traditions are equally up for grabs regardless of any actual familial connection.

"Broadly speaking, there are three types of new religious categories, each differing in its orientation and mode of organization: (1) the New Age scene, which is open and constantly transforming, populated by individual seekers who freely choose from a multitude of spiritual techniques and ideas offered by religious entrepreneurs; (2) new religious movements ("sects" or "cults"), which possess hierarchical organizational structures, systematic doctrines, and high missionary ambitions; and (3) pagan groups, which are autonomous or federated local communities with low missionary ambition, revolving around reconstructions of premodern pagan traditions...The rise of paganism has much to do with roots, identity, and urban man's romanticized notion of nature and "natural life."...paganism can be distinguished by its emphasis on traditions of the past, local communities, and tribalism...In envisioning the future in terms of the past, the pagan effort to revive or reconstruct premodern religious traditions not infrequently runs into ethnocentric considerations probably unknown to premodern man. Are techniques developed in Sioux spirituality open for everyone to explore or should this be considered "religious theft"?...

While many pagans consider any ancient tradition to be open to anyone irrespective of race or ethnicity, many heathens (who form the subject of this book) claim tradition on the basis of ethnicity or race."...Despite racial pagans' claims of clear ethnic and/or racial foundations for their traditions, there are in fact more inventions of traditions, ethnicities, and races than most racial pagan activists acknowledge. Such inventions often become integral to the articulation of identity in the cultural economy of globalized reality and/or get inserted into the context of a neonationalist project aiming at political self-determination for the racial or ethnic community imagined.

Among pagans who link ethnicity with spirituality, the implicit racist logic is not necessarily acknowledged and may even be denied. Many activists publicly denounce the fascist and racist elements of the pagan milieu and declare solidarity with Native Americans and pagans of every other ethnicity who seek to preserve their traditions in the face of globalization and "imperialist" Christianity."

-Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism by Mattias Gardell

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

reading "Whipping Girl" by Julia Serano

"The media neutralizes the potential threat that trans femininities pose to the category of “woman” by playing to the audience’s subconscious belief that femininity itself is artificial. After all, while most people assume that women are naturally feminine, they also (rather hypocritically) require them to spend an hour or two each day putting on their faces and getting all dressed up in order to meet societal standards for femininity (unlike men, whose masculinity is presumed to come directly from who he is and what he does). In fact, it’s the assumption that femininity is inherently “contrived,” “frivolous,” and “manipulative” that allows masculinity to always come off as “natural,” “practical,” and “sincere” by comparison."

[saturatedsinset]

the everest climbing industry is a manifestation of neocolonialism and i know im not talking to anyone actually considering doing it bc we are all broke and on tumblr but like. by climbing everest as essentially a dick-measuring contest with God you are directly subjugating the sherpas who do all the hard work for starvation wages

[saturatedsinset]

this whole "showing dominance over nature" concept rears its head a lot, is talked about in reference to stuff like people making large impressive buildings, but it's also present in the everest industry. but what tourist everest climbers are actually doing is exploiting an underclass of workers in the global south

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

Getting really annoyed at chronic pain online spaces recently because of the underlying cultural assumptions in those kinds of spaces.

One of those being the Western belief in scientific progress and subsequent entitlement to it. I think I see this assumption across almost all political spheres, where people not just want but expect others to devote their lives to studying cures and treatments for certain disorders. We expect there to be upward progress, and don't seem to realize that loss of technique and knowledge, not just growth, happens in all fields.

Another is the idea that there ever was sufficient medical knowledge and therapeutic options to treat most conditions. This is a lie I was fed, and like, this was never true. Doctors can treat like bacterial ear infections in most people, but why did we make the jump from that to thinking they could treat chronic pain? Doctors have never been able to safely treat chronic pain.

The last is the entitlement to a healthy mostly pain free body that will only break down in old age or in neglect. This is a recent entitlement I think that comes down to American wealth. The reality is that it has always been normal for many if not most people to live with chronic pain; the idea that this is somehow abnormal is wild to me. Having a mostly abled body is only possible in a setting of immense privilege, often financial wealth which in America is contingent on the debilitating of the people in the global South. I wonder if in the same way Americans begin to freak out about not being able to afford college, own property, etc, if chronic pain sufferers in America are fundamentally just freaking out about the loss of our unjustified and unwarranted American dream.

It's embarrassing to realize how even the perception of my pain is wrapped up in so much privilege, which is probably why I'm getting so annoyed at others, because I'm ashamed of myself. At first, I wanted to be heard, and believed, and I think that's valid. But also, I must admit it's harder to deal with pain when I think I'm entitled to a pain free adulthood, when I think I'm entitled to medical treatment and the scientific drive to develop such treatments.

[vaporize-employers]

really tired of seeing the idea that women & girls are less likely to be diagnosed with autism because it "presents differently" so widely accepted even in progressive spaces

it is also widely accepted that women get raises less often because they don't ask as much as men. this is objectively not true.

it is also widely accepted that women are more talkative than men. this is objectively not true.

it is also widely accepted that women are taken less seriously when speaking because their speech patterns are associated with a "lack of confidence". this is objectively not true. [1][2][3]

every time we talk about gender discrimination, people look for an explanation that starts with women's behavior.

and every fucking time, actual research shows that across the board, women actually don't behave that differently from men.

women aren't diagnosed less often with autism due to "presenting differently". it's gendered medical neglect, and weaponized diagnoses disproportionately applied to women (e.g. BPD, HPD, bipolar, etc.)

[greatwyrmgold]

Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science

English is the dominant language in the study of human cognition and behavior: the individuals studied by cognitive scientists, as well as m

[silverpolish]

my goal for 2025 is small simple and clear: change my whole entire life

[sivavakkiyar]

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans Mitchell

[beguines]

Omar Sakr, Non-Essential Work

[maowives-deactivated20241215]

The Trouble with Wilderness by William Cronon

This article is very articulate imo in discussing the constructed and reactionary and specifically settler-colonial nature of the concept of "Wilderness" that liberals seem to take so much for granted as an essential, uncreated thing.

[librarycards]

Within neoliberalism nearly all bodies are referenced as debilitated and in need of market commodities to shore up their beleaguered cognitive, physical, affective, and aesthetic shortcomings. Neoliberal bodies, in this sense, provide opportunities for treating the individual topos of biology as, in-and-of-itself, a site of perpetual improvement for market- based exploitations and informational/affective resource extraction.

Consequently, “incapacity” has become an increasingly fluid, shorthand term for individual citizens’ responsibilities within biopolitics for their own body management. Jasbir Puar refers to this tactical expansion of impairment as a central feature of “debility” in her essay “Prognosis Time” (163). Neoliberalism comes replete with an expansive sense that we are all living in relation to the arrival of a prognosis of the pathology-to-come. Second, despite this neoliberal expansion of debility as an emergent characteristic of all bodies, its overdetermined application to an insufficient every-body surrenders the lived alternatives developed by disabled people navigating a world organized around narrowly devised norms of capacity, functionality, and bodily aesthetic. In the chapters to come we will refer to those disabled people who by paradoxical means gain entrance into late capitalist cultures as “the able-disabled”—those who exceed their disability limitations through forms of administrative “creaming” or hyper-prostheticization but leave the vast majority of disabled people behind. Likewise, we also discuss the utility of this new formation of tolerance (i.e., inclusionism) being advertised globally as an exceptional constituent property of extra-national diversity narrated as prematurely accomplished in neoliberal postindustrial nations as “ablenationalism.” Both “the able-disabled” and “ablenationalism” develop as late twentieth-century neoliberal strategies for the tightly regulated entrance of people with disabilities into neoliberal economies through what Michel Foucault refers to as “biopolitics” (History of Sexuality 141).

David T Mitchell & Sharon L Snyder, The Biopolitics of Disability: Neoliberalism, Ablenationalism, and Peripheral Embodiment.

[emphasis mine]

[whatdoeschronicevenmean]

Orientalism in Alternative Medicine

Ayurveda

"The branding of ayurveda as a market strategy for the health consumer has become an important factor in the creation of ‘New Age orientalist desire’. Using Vedic Village as a case, this paper shows how new age orientalism has been spread in modern India to middle class professionals, entrepreneurs and overseas health tourists. With this representation, ayurveda has become a wellness therapy instead of a means to restore health, and affluent people can now buy a package of ‘ayurvedic healthy life’ without changing their lifestyles. In addition to Euro–American health tourists, emerging middle class professionals and entrepreneurs in modern India have also become an integral part of the process of ‘new age orientalization’. This paper concludes that the commodified version of ayurveda, which has been developed in the West as part of ‘wellness and spa culture’, has become popular among the affluent middle class in India and abroad today, and through this the West has claimed and justifies authority over Eastern medicine." Islam, N. (2012). New age orientalism: Ayurvedic ‘wellness and spa culture’. Health Sociology Review, 21, 220 - 231.

TCM

"Chinese medicine came to Canada during the twentieth century in the hands of ethnic Chinese immigrants. This paper investigates the key features of professionalized Chinese medicine practice in the city of Vancouver, which lies in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The methodology adopted for this research involved face-to-face interviews with practitioners and the scrutinizing of webpages of various institutes and clinics offering Chinese medical services. In order to comply with regulatory requirements, the practice of Chinese medicine has been professionalized according to western biomedicine, ignoring the historical development and cultural connotations of this ancient system of health and wellness. Many practitioners in Vancouver do not speak Chinese, share Chinese culture, and have never been to China. The education and service delivery under Chinese medicine specialties have focused exclusively on curative care and have disregarded the preventive and moral regimen. A consumer class has developed across the city and the holistic content of Chinese medicine has become a selling point. This paper concludes that the commodified version of Chinese medicine that has so far been developed in Vancouver as part of its professionalization echoes neo-orientalism. The West has intervened in the formalization process of Chinese medicine practice, justifying authority through the process of non-disputed inclusion. This is, however, an ahistorical proponent fulfilling new age desires and contaminating eastern healing in the west for profit maximization." Islam, M.N. Professionalization of Chinese medicine practice in Canada: from medical pluralism to neo-orientalism. Soc Theory Health 21, 228–246 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-022-00191-7

The Western Medicine (WM) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are commonly integrated in the contemporary practice of medicine in China. About 90% of the general hospitals and 75% of health centers have TCM departments. TCM is a holistic medicine that has been practiced for 5,000 years, and it is still popular in China and the world. TCM is based on the concept of maintaining the balance of 2 forces within the body called Yin and Yang. They manifest themselves in the 5 elements: fire, water, metal, wood, and earth. Before the founding of the P.R. China in 1949, there were no established TCM hospitals, but only private pharmacies operated by TCM doctors. To protect TCM as a national treasure of China and provide affordable medical services, the central government initiated a TCM hospital system since 1954. Since then, TCM hospitals in China have remained committed to not only medical care but also the social and historic cause of reviving TCM as an important part of Chinese cultural heritage. 93.9% TCM hospitals were set up after the Reform and Opening-up Policy of China. Integration of TCM and WM in Hong Kong provides a valuable reference for the development of integrative medicine in the world. Zhou, H. (2021). The Evolution and Role of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Healthcare System and Integrated Medicine in China. In: Islam, M.N. (eds) Chinese Medicine and Transnational Transition during the Modern Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9949-1_3