Citing: am I who you say I am?

Something marvelous from blah-feme:

To be referred to, to be quoted, sorted, circumscribed by the gesture of the upturned commas, single or double: what does this mean? To be linked to, to be pointed at, made part of a discourse, drawn in, made party to it, beholden to it, responsible, culpable? A with-writer, a conspirator, a friend? To reference, be drawn in, made party to..... this is a dizzying thing, a moment of radical alienation (is it me? Really? Am I really part of this – am I here at all in all this?). To reference, to draw in, to conjure up, to evoke.... oh this of all things, this more than anything is to make neurotics of us all.

Comments

[Paranoid Android]

yeah, this is so true, I remember instances from my youth where someone would label me a Marxist and I would slowly come to identify with the tag though I had never considered myself a Marxist before that. And of course I would try to adjust my beliefs apres coup so that so they would be consistent with the stereotypic Marxist mirror-image I was receiving from the others. Just like Althusser's policeman yelling at the passer-by: hey, you there! How can one avoid this mindlessness of the imaginary? Through identification with a strong symbolic authority or through ever more fragmentation and flexibility? I guess the former would put me in the Hegemony camp and the latter in the Multitude camp, hahaha. Inescapable heaviness of tagging!

[blahfeme]

oh you fatterer! Thanks. It's pone of those thoings that seesm to get everyone goin - the idea that 'I' might have a life in text. It really fascinates 'me' (as it were) :-)

[blafeme]

oh dear - talk about typo-tastic!

once again with feeling:

oh you flatterer! Thanks. It's one of those things that seems to get everyone going - the idea that 'I' might have a life in text. It really fascinates 'me' (as it were) :-)

[Jodi]

blafeme--any time! I also love Paranoid Android's phrase, inescapable heaviness of tagging.

[pebird]

My God, I was acknowledged in Zizek's Politics! How did that happen?

I am a referent. I can retire now.

[Jodi]

Glad you got the book!!

I went back through my Z posts and looked at who was engaging them, making points, asking questions, raising challenges, all that good stuff that helped me think through the book. I appreciate your help.