We do live in a discursively constituted, culturally mediated environment as postmodern Westerners and narrative does tend to be where one looks when one is trying to discern the grounds of classical Western metaphysics. But “narrative” does not equal “not real” or “not binding” or even “voluntary” or “at somebody’s whim.”
I realized that in the reams of cultural histories that have been written, at least in any language that I can currently understand, the universe is assumed to rest upon eternal principles that almost everyone can participate in by virtue of their full assent to the gender to which they were assigned when born
I’ve been thinking for a long time about my own sense of almost complete alienation from the white Protestant suburbanism I myself came from and that is often thought of as the neutral American identity against which all others are measured. For some time I’ve been thinking and sometimes acting on the question of how it is that I can figure my own deeply-felt need to find a time and place in which I might belong without engaging in the sort of cultural appropriation that makes the Other a source of commodified artifacts.
By eriktrips
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Posted in autobiography, ethics, nonfiction, philosophy, politics, ptsd, US
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Also tagged American history, autobiography, culture, discourse, ethics, European history, indigenous rights, language, Neolithic revolution, politics, postmodernism, reading, restlessness, spirituality, textuality
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in order to address the experiences of another, we must humble ourselves before their complexity and before our own. We might use what we know of our experiences to empathize with another, but it is imperative not to universalize those experiences, and not to disregard or try to dispose of those differences that will always exist between discrete ways of getting along in the world.
By eriktrips
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Posted in ethics, nonfiction, philosophy, queer, transgender
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Also tagged culture, education, ethics, experience, gender, language, nature vs nurture, pedagogy, recognition, teaching, transgender
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why should garishness get all the glory if making the bed is not its own courageous act what with danger beating softly across the loose weave of the very blanket which takes care of you at night.
By eriktrips
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Posted in autobiography, ethics, fiction, nonfiction, philosophy, poetry, politics, queer, transgender, writing
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Also tagged autobiography, ethics, experiment, language, queer, transgender, writing
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“why did you watch it if you
did not like it.”
“I thought you liked it.”
This was what I was going to post on the 11th after I had been on the train all day sleeping but I fell asleep in the middle of writing it. Sometimes sleep just leads to more sleep–you know how that goes? Two [ed.: yeah three since this one passed too] days pass without an [...]
ahhh. whatever other life forms there may be in this universe or in other universes, I hope they are able to experience something as unambiguously and uncomplicatedly Good as cool sparkling water. someone somewhere probably thinks the same thing about boiling ammonia. Because this is another post on the same topic but I want to [...]
By eriktrips
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Posted in activism, Agamben, buddhism, ethics, Nietzsche, philosophy
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Also tagged activism, books, buddhism, culture, direct action, eternal return, ethics, exposure, four thoughts, irreparability, karma, nothing, responsibility, spirituality
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I had meant to come back and finish the fourth thought last night but I ended up doing something else. what was it? oh. I shaved and showered. wo0t! I need to finish The Buddha at War because I think it might have some more interesting things to tell me. I just looked at the [...]
By eriktrips
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Posted in activism, Agamben, buddhism, ethics, Nietzsche, philosophy
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Also tagged activism, books, buddhism, culture, direct action, eternal return, ethics, four thoughts, karma, nothing, responsibility, spirituality
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So I got some sleep and some coffee and reread the third chapter of Sachs’ The Buddha at War (and that apostrophe at the end of Sachs indicating possession? that used to be grammatical. I was taught that with names ending in “s,” one could either add an apostrophe-s for possession or just the apostrophe. [...]
By eriktrips
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Posted in activism, Agamben, buddhism, ethics, Nietzsche, philosophy
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Also tagged activism, books, buddhism, culture, direct action, eternal return, ethics, four thoughts, karma, nothing, responsibility, spirituality
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