A Thought that I'm Pondering...

[bcholmes]

During one of the Class, Racism and the Singularity panels, there was some discussion about the singularity being a fannish escapist fantasy in which the problems of race, class and other identity politics are solved without the solution requiring messiness. Ian H. went further: he asserted that the narrative of a race-free future world is, itself, a racist narrative.

I've been thinking about this question: I've read a lot of talk, both in the lead-up to panels, and at the con, about how to prevent derailing. One panel asserted something that I liked: the idea that the goal is not to have a fail-free universe. The goal is to have the tools and skills to confront fail. Is the question, "how can we prevent fail?" a question that can only have meaning in escapist fantasy? Does it presuppose a future in which our understand of race or class or whatever is so simple that it never leads to conflict of assumptions?

Similarly, is the question, "how can I talk to trans people without ever getting pronouns wrong?" a cissexual-normative question?

Comments

Re: A Thought that I'm Pondering...

[piranha]

for me personally "how can i prevent X" is a daunting question, because i read it as a demand for perfection. (i also snrk at "only YOU can prevent forest fires" -- well, no, i am not omnipotent, and i am certainly not capable of stopping everybody else.) something in me curls up and just wants to ignore it all because i feel i can't do anything about it -- humans are basically failly in that no matter what the endeavour, some people will fail at it.

i prefer "how can i minimize X", because it allows me to tackle a huge job _and_ continue to work on it after i started. yes, it'll never be done, but that's ok because that's life.

Re: A Thought that I'm Pondering...

[bibliofile]

yes, it'll never be done, but that's ok because that's life.

Yes! And that's also why we need tools, and lots of practice -- recognizing typical derailment, and dealing with it.

Brilliant, BC. Thanks.

[redbird]

I'm not sure, but "how can I talk to people without offending them by getting pronouns wrong?" might be a better question. 1) It asks about ways to minimize the problem--and I think in a slightly different culture, "sorry I got that wrong" would usually be accepted, because it didn't follow lots of people insisting they'd been right. 2) It might be useful for people who don't talk to transgendered people, but sometimes use the wrong pronouns for some cisgendered people, some of whom may also get upset.

[emceeaich]

I want to respond to the race and The Singularity™ question in a separate post.

[bcholmes]

I look forward to it.

[serene]

Wow, I really like this. Yummy brain food.

(I've always assumed the answer to that last question is "Maybe you can't, but you can learn to ask people what they prefer, politely and respectfully." Does that sound about right?)

[jiawen]

Similarly, is the question, "how can I talk to trans people without ever getting pronouns wrong?" a cissexual-normative question?

Yes. (Things are going to continue changing, possibilities will continue to expand, and language will rarely catch up.) And thank you for posing that question -- it makes me see in a different way how "tools to deal with fail" is the right goal.

[aquaeri]

I think you're right, there's a lot of stuff all tangled up together in interesting ways here. I haven't done much reading about the Singularity myself, but I've done a bit and my suspicion is that the Singularity is logically implausible, and it could only occur as an idea, and seem like an actual possibility, to someone who was living in a culture oddly like ours - very homogeneous/white, with a strong sense of history/destiny and the whole backing of the Enlightenment and empiricism. I mean, I like me some empiricism but when you really follow it as far as it goes, that whole cultural imperialist white post-Enlightenment thing looks a teeensy bit self-involved.

I want to think some more about your points because I don't think they're the same as mine and it's all very thought-provoking.