What is your attitude to difference?

so, do we have something to learn from the charlatan?

i would say, yes, perhaps, from the charlatan most of all, for it is the charlatan that has mastered the appearance of being one of the others. and the appearance is more important than some kind of nebuluous reality, that is open to question anyway. for it is only from the appearance of a quality that we learn, not from the quality itself, which may not be there, it is only there because we project.

but then, do you have the problem of learning from a reality you have just projected? in which case, what have you learnt at all? (perhaps again though, the appearance of having learnt something is more important than the learning itself, after all, it is on such things that identity is constructed)

My projection and her acceptance of it were only a part of her strangeness, the 'socialised' or 'theatralised' part of her strangeness, an entry point to a real difference that it merely represented. And from that real difference I could in fact learn something, I'm sure... if I could find some way to represent it to my understanding. Some medium. (She started speaking to me when I gave her money, but in a language I didn't understand.)

s1ocki, perhaps the 'deviant' sees the conservative as the 'deviant', these are not concrete terms. thats what i was trying to get at in my first post, it isnt always very obvious who is the deviant, who is the conservative and who is the average joe. and to many, they may be the same thing

the construction of the self is as much about the other as the self. a strong conception of the other is romance itself, after all what is that, but romanticization?

Isn't there a discussion to be had here about making a real effort to abandon our own convictions to learn something in a new way, or something new?

I'm not saying it's revolutionary at all, it's capital R Romantic, as I said in the question. But I'm coming to the conclusion that the only thing worse than projecting positive values of an idealised difference onto 'the other' is not doing that. In other words, there's something cool about the exoticisation of noble savages, children, exotics, madmen, all that stuff that Romanticism did and people like Edward Said said we shouldn't do. Because 'the other' can use the perceived glamour as a corridor to us, a conduit through which it can begin to inform us of its real differences. If we throw out that glamour, we may be severing our only positive tie to difference, even if it's a somewhat patronising one.

I think this is the kind of thing David Byrne was playing with when he made 'True Stories'. 'You guys think I'm weird, but from my point of view, it's you who are truly strange.' I don't buy it, and I think the film fails because we don't live in a world of level-playing field relativism where who's strange depends entirely on position. There is still an orthodoxy, a monoculture, a definition of norms, a consensus. The normal people know who they are, and the strange people know who they are. Why, people in Japan even refer to where they live as 'the far East'! What are they far from? From the norm, which, no matter how small a minority actually fit it, can still dominate everyone's perceptions. It's not a sociological norm -- what is -- but a paradigmatic norm -- a model. In the same way that I described myself aspiring to difference, people aspire to normality.

You then get the strange -- but quite common -- situation of someone who's completely bonkers aspiring to be normal, and someone else who's pretty rational aspiring to be crazy, each making up for their perceived weaknesses rather than playng to their strengths.

i think your model works perfectly if assume people as logistical and rational, which for the most part, they probably are. but the danger is a) when they are irrational, confused, inadequately socialized, and this skews perceptions. and b) when they are romantic, and they subvert the notions of difference/normality so they dont have their rigidized societal functions, the notions of difference and normality themselves become subverted, or hybridized.

also, i think difference is an elusive concept, as one can see by the existence of stagnant cliques that found what they were aiming for.

i think difference can be like charismatically led societies, once achieved it is paradoxically defeated, difference is nebuluous, ambiguous, once it is achieved, it is formalized, and the difference disappears into air. difference can surely only be really achieved by constant change. but the appearance of difference can be achieved, and it is possible that the appearance is more romantic and important than actuality anyway, since it is only through appearance that others understand us

Many people tend to have kneejerk responses to things which are different, even before they consider them. I do this myself too, of course, I think a great deal of people do it. So yeah I agree there is something about humans which makes us crave a sort of soma, but as Tracer says (I think) if it wasn't this way perhaps the "different" things would not be different or fun or worthwhile.

I think, Momus, you want to draw up sides, say that most people are in this boring monoculture, and then there are the glamorous outsiders, those who make the world worthwhile. The artist is at the heart of this division for you, I think - you see artists as almost a different order of humanity. Obviously Shakespeare has given far more to the world than I have or ever will, but I don't believe in the artist/non-artist division - I think everyone has some artistry in them, but some have more than others. Like memory, intelligence, understanding, emotional warmth and many other qualities. I can't see childishness or deviancy or sanity or criminality any differently, either. I think labelling some as one of these and some as the converse or opposite is a bad thing, leading to binary measurements of human value, of acceptability.

Anyway, getting back at the question, I think people are generally interesting, and I find more interest generally (I'm being vague because other things in people interest me too) in those who are more different, at least in most ways.

The thing is, normality and monoculture are aspirational. They are 'elsewhere'. They are, in this sense, rather platonic. Their absence from our actual experience (has anybody actually experienced 'normality'?) doesn't stop them from being omnipresent and powerful, just as Asians might find their sense of themselves structured by the idea that they live in the 'far east', even though they're not far from themselves physically. An absent norm is structuring our lives.

(PS: When I use the word 'platonic' I'm referring, of course, to the 'ideas', Plato's suggestion that there is a realm, somewhere else, containing the ideal table, the ideal cat, the ideal tree, of which the tables, cats and trees that we observe are only more or less accurate copies. We now tend to see this realm as being in our own language and myth systems. The fact that we need them to think doesn't mean we can't see how they force us to think in certain ways, ie in binary ways.)

Something else, kinda, just, mmm, not gonna sum up 'identity' for me in a sentence. I think 'enculturation' is a bit abstract, to be fair! Question is whether it's too abstract, ie a category completely divorced from experience.

I said: black American difference has recently had an abrupt change in status. It is no longer 'the designated Other' for the white American. That role is now filled by 'terrorists'. I imagine this is a mixed blessing for the black American community. There must be a sense of 'phew!' mixed with a certain... disappointment.

Dan replied: I think you grossly underestimate the capacity of Americans to relegate people to "The Other", Momus.

But I think there was some misunderstanding of my point. I didn't say black Americans were no longer other. I said they were no longer 'the designated other'. They are now, if you like, just A.N.Other other.

The reason I imagine some disappointment mixed with relief at this promotion / demotion is that when you're the designated other, you get to practise what I'd call an 'imperialism of otherness'. You get to snap up and subsume in your persona a whole range of differences that you actually aren't entitled to.

These differences are lacks in the parent culture, in our example, white America. Does it lack sensuality? Well, you get to incarnate it! Is it orderly and rather dull? Well, guess who's been designated an exciting gangster? The Chinese triads are going to have to work extra hard to scare people now, because, no matter how many people they kill, it's just lines in a newspaper. You're the one that gets to be feared, because you're 'the designated other'. You have every reason to brag about it in rap and hip hop records which sell in their millions to black and white alike, and no reason to practise embourgeoisement. Until the day someone comes along with an even more compelling, even more mythical claim to soak up, subsume and assume all vices and virtues in the 'empire of difference'. A challenger to your dark throne. Black people didn't demolish the World Trade Center or slam planes into the Pentagon. Therefore black people can no longer be the 'designated other', the other that is allowed to be a myth magnet or myth sponge, scooping and soaking up not just the differences to which is entitled -- relevant differences -- but any and all differences that happen to be troubling or enchanting the white majority at any given time.

I go back to this figure of the metonymn, and the idea of representation: when you're 'the designated other', you get to 'represent' all interesting differences. When you're just A.N.Other, you lose that metonymic status. In fact, some of your prized differences are even soaked up by the new Other. 'The ghetto' is now the Palestinian compound. 'The street' is now the Arab street. 'The panthers' are now Al Quaeda and 'the voice' Al Jazeera. (I'm tempted to make a joke about Fox News being the Al Jolson to Al Jazeera's jazz, but I won't. Oops!)

Patterns of activity are not abstractions; they are perceptible, real structures through which we act.

Now, you might argue that these social facts are not facts at all but perceptions of events. I would then remind you that these perceptions can be judged in terms of those events. In other words, if there is the possibility of error then this is because there is something to measure it against. If you map your office by taking measurements of the floor and measurements of the furniture, you know that you've made a mistake when the furniture doesn't fit on your rectangle.

abstract 1 theoretical rather than physical or concrete.

You can't live without theory, but there has to be some cut-off point at which there is data (your waitress' actions) on one side and perception thereof on the other. Otherwise you are making her actions an illustration of the theory, which means that you can prove anything you want. To go too far in the other direction -- avoiding theory and allowing only that data -- is equally untenable, of course.

But in concrete terms, I'm not quite seeing how we're 'acting through structures'...

I don't think this tragedy is quite on the scale of wanting to be a great artist but being a mediocre one, but be that as it may...

As for engaging with the thread - Momus says:

"the only thing worse than projecting positive values of an idealised difference onto 'the other' is not doing that."

But if you're the dominant culture, then projecting values, positive or negative, on 'the other' will in turn limit and define the self-perception of 'the other'. Why should 'the other' accept the assurances of the dominant culture that its projections are positive? It's far more likely not to be the case. There's something very self-serving about the idea that glamourisation of 'the other' will ultimately lead us to a 'real' understanding of what 'the other' is all about. It's more likely to do the reverse, and subsume 'the other' into a preexisting mode of thinking.

America has certainly romanticised the post 9/11 Arab 'other', in a rather dark yet glamourous way of course. How has this helped open up a "conduit through which it can begin to inform us of its real differences"?

not rinsing = concrete
X = abstract

lock up without trial != romanticize
invade and occupy != glamourize
lack of electricity after tomahawk strike = dark

1 out of 3 then

(In our culture there is also a huge gap between 'bestsellers' and 'the rest'. Dollars flow to the 'designated other' in vast disproportion to the number two Other, or the rest.)

Well, they kind of are. I think that the Kilroy episode is probably more indicative of common COTW attitudes towards arabs than anything involving 'glamour' conventionally understood.

Well then, you must have changed your mind because upthread you say: "'the other' can use the perceived glamour as a corridor to us, a conduit through which it can begin to inform us of its real differences."

What's the advantage of informing us of its "real differences" if it doesn't lead to "true understanding"?

I don't think you're thinking politically at all, Momus, as in what it really does to people to be designated as 'the other'. You're thinking as an artist who is interested in using exoticism as one conduit for your art. It's a game of pure subjectivity - in the same way that for Victor Hugo, to give one Romantic example, writing about medieval Paris was really saying nothing about medieval Paris and everything about himself.

You must be a professional critic - they all have this fantasy.

Satre added some interesting stuff to the concept of otherness, as did his 'significant other' (I hate that phrase) Simone de Beauviour.

There are some others, too, if you're interested. My favourites are a bunch of Jewish ethical philosophers...

I don't know how far I'd go along with all the implications of this, but it does open up some interesting ground for thinking about otherness and ethics and stuff.

xposts

...

How about this: people always make mistakes.

Behaviour isn't just about choices. Especially when you realise that choices follow patterns.

Which is the really delicate thing. Yes we follow patterns if you like, but we are not pre-destined. It's just that there are numerous pressures acting upon us. The patterns can easily change.

I will repeat: " think you grossly underestimate the capacity of Americans to relegate people to "The Other", Momus."

The fact that people are concerned that Middle-Eastern terrorists will blow up something in an American city (a concern, I might add, that is much more of an urban concern than a rural one from what I can tell; I have no real concept of how people away from cities are actually reacting to the terrorist threat but friends/acquaintences/relatives I've spoken to who don't live in a major metropolitan area do not feel like they personally are under immediate threat of attack) does not make people on the Boston subway any less afraid of the black teen with the oversized hoodie and the baggy pants sitting across from them. I see this every day. None of this has changed. You are inventing stuff to fit in with the way you want the world to work rather than engaging with the way the world actually does work.

Also, the idea that black people in the US "get to" be the big scary Other that is to be feared, avoided and shunned make work fine and dandy in a recording studio, but is really fucking stupid if you're trying to get a decent table in a restaurant or help from an employee in a department store.

what is your attitude to difference?

Do you believe we have anything to learn from:

The genius?
The child?
The foreigner?
The madman?
The artist?
The traveller?
The pervert?
The loser?
The dissident?
The outsider?
The rebel?
The deviant?
The criminal?

This sort of question contains a basic flaw, in that it implies that all those who fit into one of these categories has an identifiable value and that this value is similar to all others within the same category.

For example, I would say it is possible to learn something from "a rebel", but in some cases their lesson would be as a wholly negative example to be shunned, and in others it would be an inspiration to be emulated, if possible, depending entirely on the thing rebelled against, the reasons for the rebellion and the means through which that rebellion is expressed.

It is no stretch to describe both KKK miscreants and Mohandas Gandhi as "rebels". To believe they teach us substantially the same lesson is senseless.

everyone is different from me and I pretty much love them for it

this is an ecumenical matter.

luv this thread btw.

INDIFFERENCE.