Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Political Shows of Love?

There is a way in which love can cover up difference and politics. In the kinship groups we know as families, love can parade as a binding force but can serve just as well as a vehicle for guilt and reproach, of reaffirming social rules and roles and establishing clear boundaries of what is permissible and what is not, not to mention an opportunity to establish who holds authority. Love also functions to cover up these operations and to obfuscate them, complicating any kind of resistance and rendering it irrational or unjustified.

I say this because being human means being a part of communities which contain but often cover up or marginalize difference, and if we refuse to accept that difference and create a space for its vocalization and reconciliation, then we are not permitting room for the natural occurrence and resolution of politics as it confronts us as human beings.

Because we are human, we are political. Giving up on politics, or, put another way, not acknowledging difference and creating spaces for its reconciliation, is akin to stifling the very thing that makes us, and separates us (but also unifies us) as humans. It is everywhere, with us always, and so we should never forget it.

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