a thought on "the Other"

[tielan]

The phrase "writing the Other" has been bothering me. It makes me think, "So, POC are not like whites, then? They're not just humans with different coloured skin and different experiences but Something Else Entirely?"

The term 'Other' makes an irrevocable distinction between the speaker POV and the people they're speaking about. It encapsulates a 'them-vs-us' attitude that doesn't have any form of rectification. It isolates. It separates. It divides. It differentiates. And it does so in a brutal way that severs all hope of reconciliation or change.

An alternative term? My suggestion would be "Writing The Unfamiliar".

What is unfamiliar can become familiar if one has an open mind, a spirit of acceptance, and a willingness to self-examine. But the Other will never be Like Us because they are Other and we are Not Other. The language itself limits POC to the realm of Not Like Us (where 'Us' is the white presumptive default that reigns in our society).

Friday's thought.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

FWIW, "the Other" is a term from philosophy that was used by anti-colonialists like Frantz Fanon to refer to the people who are socially defined by a group as Not Like Us.

In its original use, it's talking about exactly what you're talking about -- how those definitions are set up and policed, and the power dynamics of defining people as inherently Not Like Us (with "us" as the unexamined default).

So some writers will discuss how groups are "Othered", for example: put into the role of the Other, treated as inherently alien and Not Us.

But I do get where you're coming from, because it seems as if "the Other" has often been used in this imbroglio as if it was a fixed term and as if some people (people of colour, women, people with disabilities, etc.) are inherently "Other" no matter where you're standing, and as if it was a given who "We" are.

Which really misses the point in a deep way.

[/philosophy geek]

[tielan]

So in its original form the term was actually a lampshade? I didn't realise that.

[zillah975]

Which really misses the point in a deep way.

*nodsnods* When I first started reading about "how to write the Other", the word didn't trouble me because that was the context in which I understood the meaning of the word -- that "Othering" is something we do in an attempt to create a Them so that there's a more definite Us, and that it's arbitrary and very, very wrong. I think I was perceiving "writing the Other" as being, in part, a way to...sort of de-Other the text and characters. (Interestingly, I first heard the term in a literary criticism class, so I've always associated it mostly with literature anyway.)

As the conversation has gone on, I've become increasingly uncomfortable as it became clear that that wasn't how a lot of people were understanding the word. I've changed my Delicious tag to be "writing_coc", but I'm not sure I'm any more comfortable with that.

A lot of the language is becoming troubling to me, some of it in large part because it seems to explicitly enforce the status quo - maybe not in its original usage (like Other), but in how it's being used in many of the places I see it. It seems like one thing we're good at is finding ways to turn language around on itself.

[tree]

So some writers will discuss how groups are "Othered", for example: put into the role of the Other, treated as inherently alien and Not Us.

this use is also very much a part of literary theory/academic scholarship in literature as well. Othering occurs in any text where some sort of defined isolation or separation exists. in many cases it's the protagonist who is Othered, but it also occurs in binaries like male:female, human:inhuman, nature:culture, etc.

[/english major]

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I like it. However, might it not be too encompassing? For example, if you were writing about the life of a Romanian peasant ca 1583 that would count as unfamiliar as well.

Maybe a word is needed that expresses a sort of downward hierarchy where the person is used to having an exalted status and hence likely to be unthinking (man/woman, able/disabled, white/POC).

[tielan]

But I don't think that the encompassing nature of the term would be a detriment: after all, if you'll never been a woman, a POC, or disabled, then you're never going to be a Romanian peasant circa 1583, either. Most perspectives that aren't our own are learned from the outside - the except there is disabled, because accidents and disease still hit us.

Maybe a word is needed that expresses a sort of downward hierarchy where the person is used to having an exalted status

I think that's the word 'privilege'.

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

Most perspectives that aren't our own are learned from the outside - the except there is disabled, because accidents and disease still hit us.

_{I know you probably didn't meant it this way but...}

I really hate that attitude when it comes to ableism because it is so dismissive of 'able-bodied' people. That "I had to use a wheelchair for eight weeks because I broke my legs so I know what it feels like" attitude that is just wrong. No, you really don't know what it is like to be permanently disabled. While you might get to find out a little about accessibility when places you usually go are off-limits for a while, that is about all you do share in the experience of.

Temporary disability isn't going to stop you from getting employment. People aren't going to treat you like you're stupid because of it, or think that they can ask you anything they feel like, even really personal stuff like how you manage with sex. Temporary disability isn't going to be something you have to plan your whole life around.

[tielan]

Actually, I did mean a permanent switch from abled to disabled. It never occurred to me that being temporarily disabled was comparable. It might provide the merest sliver of experience, but would certainly fail to encompass all the difficulties - and certainly the social and interpersonal ones - encountered by people who have to plan their whole life around what they can't do but the rest of society can.

Sorry. I didn't make that very clear in my reponse to thelana, did I?

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

I see it like this:

An 'able-bodied' person's perspective on disability is still an outsider perspective the same as a white person's perspective on race is, even though an 'able-bodied' person can potentially switch sides and become disabled through illness or accident - while a white person cannot switch and become a PoC. However, any such person actually ceases to be an 'able-bodied' person and from that point forward is a disabled person learning what it means to be a disabled person. As such, a disabled person can have insider perspective on being 'able-bodied', but that can rarely be flipped over in permanent disability - people don't as a rule go from being disabled to being 'able-bodied'.

The way it was said kind of gave me the impression of 'able-bodied' learning from the inside what it is to be disabled, which infers a temporary condition such as breaking both legs and needing to use a wheelchair, long-term but curable illness, etc.

*shrug*

I may just be talking crap...

[tielan]

I really was meaning an able-bodied person becoming permanently disabled and having to learn a new set of rules that govern their world.

But I see that my language wasn't very distinct on that matter. Sorry.

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

Words are always open to interpretation... ;)

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Yes. Just this.

My experience with physical disability is different, perhaps; even after two years, there's still hope it will end, and the pain is a bit less, and in any case a lot of mobility I still have. I can still walk, for a start.

Edit: By which I mean that my experience of disability is NOT AT ALL like those with permanent and major disabilities, but that I could sort of see through the peephole into what the experience is like.

But people also do this with mental illness, and when things are such that for a while it becomes totally clear to everyone that you are Mentally Ill, it becomes this terrible thing of people asking intrusive questions, and also thinking they know what it's like because they were depressed for a few weeks once.

And I can't find words to tell them calmly that no, that is not the same. Being depressed for a few weeks is not comparable to living, year on year, always with this monster in your mind that's trying to destroy you, watching yourself do things you don't want to do, that you know are harmful to you and hurtful to people you love, being unable to control it, and never, ever having a moment where you can relax, where you can trust yourself, anything.

Not to mention the thing that they do to people like me, with invisible illnesses, and people with visible disabilities, where they don't ever understand that when you say you're not up to doing something, jollying you along or pressuring you to do it because they think you'll have fun if you just go anyway... is bad, and hurtful, because when you don't have the resources to do something, you don't have the resources, period. (Spoons theory is awesome for getting this one across, thankfully.)

Even relatively minor ablist manifestations, like "just try harder" or "concentrate" as an answer to the inability to do things because of ADHD, get deeply frustrating. If I could I would but I am not physically capable of doing that. My brain does not work the same way yours does.

Sorry for rantiness, but, yeah, that touches a nerve.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I think that's the word 'privilege'.

Though how would that be worked into a context like the one you mentioned? Because "Writing the under/less privileged" probably sounds too much like a charity case.

And "Writing without/outside your privilege" is probably too steep a claim. Maybe "Writing from privilege" would work but it seems to put the focus too much on the writer and not on the subject.

[azure-horizon.livejournal.com]

We've just started Orientalism in Literary Theory this week and it brings up a point like this; the term "Other" signifies something 'out of the norm', yet Orientalim and Oriental stories that are accessible to the Western cultures are written outside the Orient.

The term 'Other' is used so liberally in the English language, in Literary Theory because it is a racist (and sexist) set up that thinks it is still in the time of Empire and exploration. The reading list at my uni hasn't changed much if at all for the Theory class in the last seventy years. What does that say?

[tielan]

What does that say?

Very scary things?

I knew that there was a literary reason behind the use of the term, but it's been nagging me throughout this whole discussion, and (stupid me) only just managed to elaborate why.

[tree]

What does that say?

that your uni is very, very behind the times. an enormous amount of criticism has been written in the last 70 years that deconstructs estabished modes of thinking.

[fire-fire-whoo.livejournal.com]

At first I felt very uncomfortable with the phrase "the Other." However, I think that a differentiation is necessary, and I don't understand how it could sever all hope of reconciliation or change. I would be grateful if you expounded just a bit on that point for me.

I think the effect the phrase has depends upon the context, the reader, the given definition, etc.

"Writing the Unfamiliar" is something I take issue with because it implies that, with a little hard work, one can 'know' the "unfamiliar." And once the unfamiliar becomes familiar, the author can cease work, having gained a little knowledge rather than altered his/her views. I think that the striking, and sometimes isolating, quality of the term "the Other" can be beneficial. Many white folks need to feel destabilized, to be pushed out of their comfort zones, and we can start doing that with the language we use.

[tielan]

I pretty much elaborated on my reasoning at the end of the post: that I feel the term "The Other" indicates exclusion and alienation in its definition.

Although I see where you're coming from regarding use of the term 'unfamiliar' and how it might be seen as something that can be reduced down to the mere gaining of knowledge.

See, my view is that the isolating quality of the term "the Other" is more likely to make white people feel that they don't have to attempt to understand POC issues because one doesn't try to understand "the Other" - particularly not in the sci-fi genre. (In my experience of the sci-fi genre, one is suspicious of, and usually destroys the Other before the Other destroys oneself.)

[fire-fire-whoo.livejournal.com]

See, my view is that the isolating quality of the term "the Other" is more likely to make white people feel that they don't have to attempt to understand POC issues because one doesn't try to understand "the Other" - particularly not in the sci-fi genre.

Oh, I see. Terminology has been a big concern for me throughout this whole imbroglio. There are so many elements to consider in the formation of an argument or 'point', at least for me. I want to have foresight when I make a statement, and to be very circumspect. (This is getting tangential.) What I wanted to say, in essence, is that I agree and disagree with you. Very strongly, in fact.

Thanks for the clarification.

[fire-fire-whoo.livejournal.com]

Oh, second thought! (Or fifteenth.)

"...I feel the term "The Other" indicates exclusion and alienation in its definition."

What is this definition? Is this a dictionary definition you're talking about?

[rydra_wong]

FWIW, "the Other" is a term from philosophy that was used by anti-colonialists like Frantz Fanon to refer to the people who are socially defined by a group as Not Like Us.

In its original use, it's talking about exactly what you're talking about -- how those definitions are set up and policed, and the power dynamics of defining people as inherently Not Like Us (with "us" as the unexamined default).

So some writers will discuss how groups are "Othered", for example: put into the role of the Other, treated as inherently alien and Not Us.

But I do get where you're coming from, because it seems as if "the Other" has often been used in this imbroglio as if it was a fixed term and as if some people (people of colour, women, people with disabilities, etc.) are inherently "Other" no matter where you're standing, and as if it was a given who "We" are.

Which really misses the point in a deep way.

[/philosophy geek]

[tielan]

So in its original form the term was actually a lampshade? I didn't realise that.

[zillah975]

Which really misses the point in a deep way.

*nodsnods* When I first started reading about "how to write the Other", the word didn't trouble me because that was the context in which I understood the meaning of the word -- that "Othering" is something we do in an attempt to create a Them so that there's a more definite Us, and that it's arbitrary and very, very wrong. I think I was perceiving "writing the Other" as being, in part, a way to...sort of de-Other the text and characters. (Interestingly, I first heard the term in a literary criticism class, so I've always associated it mostly with literature anyway.)

As the conversation has gone on, I've become increasingly uncomfortable as it became clear that that wasn't how a lot of people were understanding the word. I've changed my Delicious tag to be "writing_coc", but I'm not sure I'm any more comfortable with that.

A lot of the language is becoming troubling to me, some of it in large part because it seems to explicitly enforce the status quo - maybe not in its original usage (like Other), but in how it's being used in many of the places I see it. It seems like one thing we're good at is finding ways to turn language around on itself.

[tree]

So some writers will discuss how groups are "Othered", for example: put into the role of the Other, treated as inherently alien and Not Us.

this use is also very much a part of literary theory/academic scholarship in literature as well. Othering occurs in any text where some sort of defined isolation or separation exists. in many cases it's the protagonist who is Othered, but it also occurs in binaries like male:female, human:inhuman, nature:culture, etc.

[/english major]

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I like it. However, might it not be too encompassing? For example, if you were writing about the life of a Romanian peasant ca 1583 that would count as unfamiliar as well.

Maybe a word is needed that expresses a sort of downward hierarchy where the person is used to having an exalted status and hence likely to be unthinking (man/woman, able/disabled, white/POC).

[tielan]

But I don't think that the encompassing nature of the term would be a detriment: after all, if you'll never been a woman, a POC, or disabled, then you're never going to be a Romanian peasant circa 1583, either. Most perspectives that aren't our own are learned from the outside - the except there is disabled, because accidents and disease still hit us.

Maybe a word is needed that expresses a sort of downward hierarchy where the person is used to having an exalted status

I think that's the word 'privilege'.

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

Most perspectives that aren't our own are learned from the outside - the except there is disabled, because accidents and disease still hit us.

_{I know you probably didn't meant it this way but...}

I really hate that attitude when it comes to ableism because it is so dismissive of 'able-bodied' people. That "I had to use a wheelchair for eight weeks because I broke my legs so I know what it feels like" attitude that is just wrong. No, you really don't know what it is like to be permanently disabled. While you might get to find out a little about accessibility when places you usually go are off-limits for a while, that is about all you do share in the experience of.

Temporary disability isn't going to stop you from getting employment. People aren't going to treat you like you're stupid because of it, or think that they can ask you anything they feel like, even really personal stuff like how you manage with sex. Temporary disability isn't going to be something you have to plan your whole life around.

[tielan]

Actually, I did mean a permanent switch from abled to disabled. It never occurred to me that being temporarily disabled was comparable. It might provide the merest sliver of experience, but would certainly fail to encompass all the difficulties - and certainly the social and interpersonal ones - encountered by people who have to plan their whole life around what they can't do but the rest of society can.

Sorry. I didn't make that very clear in my reponse to thelana, did I?

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

I see it like this:

An 'able-bodied' person's perspective on disability is still an outsider perspective the same as a white person's perspective on race is, even though an 'able-bodied' person can potentially switch sides and become disabled through illness or accident - while a white person cannot switch and become a PoC. However, any such person actually ceases to be an 'able-bodied' person and from that point forward is a disabled person learning what it means to be a disabled person. As such, a disabled person can have insider perspective on being 'able-bodied', but that can rarely be flipped over in permanent disability - people don't as a rule go from being disabled to being 'able-bodied'.

The way it was said kind of gave me the impression of 'able-bodied' learning from the inside what it is to be disabled, which infers a temporary condition such as breaking both legs and needing to use a wheelchair, long-term but curable illness, etc.

*shrug*

I may just be talking crap...

[tielan]

I really was meaning an able-bodied person becoming permanently disabled and having to learn a new set of rules that govern their world.

But I see that my language wasn't very distinct on that matter. Sorry.

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

Words are always open to interpretation... ;)

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Yes. Just this.

My experience with physical disability is different, perhaps; even after two years, there's still hope it will end, and the pain is a bit less, and in any case a lot of mobility I still have. I can still walk, for a start.

Edit: By which I mean that my experience of disability is NOT AT ALL like those with permanent and major disabilities, but that I could sort of see through the peephole into what the experience is like.

But people also do this with mental illness, and when things are such that for a while it becomes totally clear to everyone that you are Mentally Ill, it becomes this terrible thing of people asking intrusive questions, and also thinking they know what it's like because they were depressed for a few weeks once.

And I can't find words to tell them calmly that no, that is not the same. Being depressed for a few weeks is not comparable to living, year on year, always with this monster in your mind that's trying to destroy you, watching yourself do things you don't want to do, that you know are harmful to you and hurtful to people you love, being unable to control it, and never, ever having a moment where you can relax, where you can trust yourself, anything.

Not to mention the thing that they do to people like me, with invisible illnesses, and people with visible disabilities, where they don't ever understand that when you say you're not up to doing something, jollying you along or pressuring you to do it because they think you'll have fun if you just go anyway... is bad, and hurtful, because when you don't have the resources to do something, you don't have the resources, period. (Spoons theory is awesome for getting this one across, thankfully.)

Even relatively minor ablist manifestations, like "just try harder" or "concentrate" as an answer to the inability to do things because of ADHD, get deeply frustrating. If I could I would but I am not physically capable of doing that. My brain does not work the same way yours does.

Sorry for rantiness, but, yeah, that touches a nerve.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I think that's the word 'privilege'.

Though how would that be worked into a context like the one you mentioned? Because "Writing the under/less privileged" probably sounds too much like a charity case.

And "Writing without/outside your privilege" is probably too steep a claim. Maybe "Writing from privilege" would work but it seems to put the focus too much on the writer and not on the subject.

[azure-horizon.livejournal.com]

We've just started Orientalism in Literary Theory this week and it brings up a point like this; the term "Other" signifies something 'out of the norm', yet Orientalim and Oriental stories that are accessible to the Western cultures are written outside the Orient.

The term 'Other' is used so liberally in the English language, in Literary Theory because it is a racist (and sexist) set up that thinks it is still in the time of Empire and exploration. The reading list at my uni hasn't changed much if at all for the Theory class in the last seventy years. What does that say?

[tielan]

What does that say?

Very scary things?

I knew that there was a literary reason behind the use of the term, but it's been nagging me throughout this whole discussion, and (stupid me) only just managed to elaborate why.

[tree]

What does that say?

that your uni is very, very behind the times. an enormous amount of criticism has been written in the last 70 years that deconstructs estabished modes of thinking.

[fire-fire-whoo.livejournal.com]

At first I felt very uncomfortable with the phrase "the Other." However, I think that a differentiation is necessary, and I don't understand how it could sever all hope of reconciliation or change. I would be grateful if you expounded just a bit on that point for me.

I think the effect the phrase has depends upon the context, the reader, the given definition, etc.

"Writing the Unfamiliar" is something I take issue with because it implies that, with a little hard work, one can 'know' the "unfamiliar." And once the unfamiliar becomes familiar, the author can cease work, having gained a little knowledge rather than altered his/her views. I think that the striking, and sometimes isolating, quality of the term "the Other" can be beneficial. Many white folks need to feel destabilized, to be pushed out of their comfort zones, and we can start doing that with the language we use.

[tielan]

I pretty much elaborated on my reasoning at the end of the post: that I feel the term "The Other" indicates exclusion and alienation in its definition.

Although I see where you're coming from regarding use of the term 'unfamiliar' and how it might be seen as something that can be reduced down to the mere gaining of knowledge.

See, my view is that the isolating quality of the term "the Other" is more likely to make white people feel that they don't have to attempt to understand POC issues because one doesn't try to understand "the Other" - particularly not in the sci-fi genre. (In my experience of the sci-fi genre, one is suspicious of, and usually destroys the Other before the Other destroys oneself.)

[fire-fire-whoo.livejournal.com]

See, my view is that the isolating quality of the term "the Other" is more likely to make white people feel that they don't have to attempt to understand POC issues because one doesn't try to understand "the Other" - particularly not in the sci-fi genre.

Oh, I see. Terminology has been a big concern for me throughout this whole imbroglio. There are so many elements to consider in the formation of an argument or 'point', at least for me. I want to have foresight when I make a statement, and to be very circumspect. (This is getting tangential.) What I wanted to say, in essence, is that I agree and disagree with you. Very strongly, in fact.

Thanks for the clarification.

[fire-fire-whoo.livejournal.com]

Oh, second thought! (Or fifteenth.)

"...I feel the term "The Other" indicates exclusion and alienation in its definition."

What is this definition? Is this a dictionary definition you're talking about?