Saturday 29 December 2018

To Other or not to Other?: That is the Question!


A very creative performer friend of mine recently posted on Facebook just how much he HATED the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. And then a few days later in a different post, a disabled friend proclaimed how disappointed he was that he had finally sunk to a new low in that he had just had sex with a guy who wore Crocs (by the way that guy was me!). Both posts released a torrent of seemingly harmless, supportive hatred from friends and followers. All were in agreement that these subjects were quite legitimate targets for their light-hearted communal disapprobation. Who could get hurt? After all the RHCP are just a bunch of over rated, over-played recording artists! And aren't Croc wearers just seriously fashion challenged idiots? Right?

I wondered just how my sensitive, performer friend would have felt if someone had lanced a 'social media anger abscess' in his direction with the purulent exudate engulfing him and his vulnerable creative offerings. I certainly didn't feel unscathed by the wave of Croc-hatred unleashed by my disabled friend. I ended up pondering just how many times he might have had to endure the discomfort of witnessing 'harmless' disablist sentiments.

It seems like the public articulation of ‘dislikes’ is becoming something of an international pastime, opening up widening chasms between diametrically opposed echo chambers which themselves splinter and fragment!

Essentially, there’s a whole lot of ‘othering’ going on. 

Othering is the process of casting a person (or group) in the role of ‘the other’ and establishing one’s own identity through opposition to and, frequently vilification of this ‘other’

In my experience of facilitating Faerie Sex Magick Workshops, I have found it to be the single most common source of blocks between workshop participants, creating what, at times, seem to be insurmountable barriers to the potential that intimacy might be possible between certain individuals within the group. What’s magickal about the workshop, though, is that the other-ers are meeting together day after day in an emotionally intimate group setting where compassion and empathy has space to grow. And in this context the ‘other’ can be viewed as a potential source of learning; this ‘other’ can begin to be seen as a diverse and complex entity worthy of love and desire, even!

So how might this burgeoning social media-amplified other-ing compulsion be countered? 

First of all, to recognise that it is happening. Secondly to register when it is happening. And finally to decide NOT to define oneself through opposition to any individual or group.

It’s really up to you!

To Other:Verb transitive. The act of holding intransigent exclusionary values as a means of creating blocks which become insurmountable barriers to the potential for an intimacy to develop between the 'othering' human being and 'othered' human being....

If another others you, well, it just feels like poo!
Other another: Judge the book by its cover...

Don't other that other-er!
One way or the other, that other-er's your brother-er

Could you make 'em your lover-er?
It's all down to you!


Btw: No Femmes! No Smokers! No H&H! No Twinks! No Partnered! No Tories! No Trump Supporters! No Brexiteers!

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