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Destroying the gender binary to become & #39;the abstract personification of softness& #39; https://twitter.com/TmxChristian/status/1317952238581616641">https://twitter.com/TmxChrist...
I really worry abt this kind of thing because & #39;softness& #39; and & #39;cuteness& #39; do not in themselves guarantee goodness or kindness- they are simply tokens of an aesthetic sensibility which can easily be recruited towards pernicious or manipulative ends
There is a kind of excessive, infantilised bourgouise sentimentality at play here, based on the implicit idea that identifying with & #39;softness& #39;, & #39;cuteness& #39; etc is to disassociate oneself from more & #39;toxic& #39;, more & #39;traditional& #39; forms of self-presentation
Also at play is the idea this represents a kind of liberated self away from the strictures of traditional gender presentation, liberated by virtue of opting for *this* particular aesthetic over the that, the former being & #39;more true to the self& #39; than the latter
But what we see is so obviously a performance, a caricature of real life, in which certain qualities are cartoonishly exaggerated at the expense of others- there is absolutely no guarantee that adopting this persona enables true vulnerability or intimacy
It& #39;s in fact the aestheticisation of these qualities that severs them from the reality of a recognisable human experience, makes them, in effect, into a carapace-like emotional armour all their own, which is all the more insidious for its superficial representation
In a way it reflects the wider fetishism of & #39;empathy& #39; within liberal discourse, which exists as a pretext for legitimising the management of human behaviour + the interpersonal cruelty used to enforce that management, an uncanny & #39;empathy& #39; lost from its sensible context
You can& #39;t expect real empathy from a machine designed to produce & #39;empathic sentiment& #39; (which is what this persona ultimately incarnates) because real empathy requires a sensitivity to the particulars of a human situation
But then what happens if yr scepticism of the empathy-producing machine is taken as symbolic of hostility towards empathy in the same way the empathy macine is supposedly symbolic of real empathy?
