Thursday 25 July 2013

The stigma of agency

Caricatures about fatness are myths arising from certain needs that have been submerged. One is the need to be able to discuss the possibility of change via human agency
The ability to discuss this with people has low status. And those with higher status have used the evasion of that as a method of self defence. More popularly with neuroses-imbalances of the brain and/nervous system. Despite many 'pleading poverty' i.e. protestations about stigmatization of these conditions. We know class makes huge difference in the way people are seen as volitional.

Yes, there's stigmatization of say neurosis i.e. "Why can't you just be positive/stop being lazy," but not in to the same extent as fat people.

There isn't that hegemony of everyone seeing things from the same direction. Seeing what you eat and your level of activity as pertinent. Some minds can accept that there are things between pure elective 'free' will and coercion from others.

And that sometimes it's not either do or don't exercise will. It can be that you want to but can't. Because some thing or things are in the way/stopping or halting either your will, or what flows from it from functioning.

Sometimes your agency is released in a wholly indirect manner, which is how many compulsions are created in the first place, indirectly.

Being able to resist the stigma agency can acquire, is perceived as indicating the social value and worth accorded you. A marker of your position and status. Plus the extent of support and protection you receive from others.

Thereby, how 'untouchable' or up the social rung you are. Though the primary complaint is fat people are evading responsibility.

In truth, our seeming inability to evade being dumped on in the way we are, marks us out as not being high enough in the social pecking order to avoid being lumbered in the first place.

There's a sense of anxiousness that we do not evade this as it feels to some as if its been squeezed out of out easy reference in other aspects of human experience.

This has caused such direct voicing of it to acquire a sense of taboo.

Hence the perplexing declarations of the courage and bravery of people who insist fat people are greedy and lazy. No one ever insists anything else. Emotionally, the aim of that sentiment is elsewhere. At those who are seen as having more kudos. But done through those who are seen as having less, fat people.

Awareness surrounding more crude prejudice is seen, rightly or wrongly, as a form of social favour, hence the presumption that the surface unacceptability of racism =BP are untouchable, attitude.

The main reason agency has been squeezed out elsewhere is understandable. Look at what's happened to fat people! It leaves you open and unguarded to take endless hits. It gets so you feel at on edge, even within yourself.

It makes you guileless and disconnected from yourself and your feelings. The endless micro aggressions bog down all but the most minute of conversations. You become a stranger to the people you identify with. The subject becomes traumatic to the point of feeling like self abuse. 

And little is achieved.What has 'obesity' achieved? Who comes to this for ideas on how to progress, what innovations has it come up with? How sophisticated is the discussion surrounding it? And what has happened to our ideas about food and eating?

This is exactly what people are seeking to avoid via the suspension of agency, to avoid that happening. With people who are say, actually ill neurotic or vulnerable, this would be a direct threat to their existence. With people who are as sane as anyone, it can begin to produce symptoms of neurosis. Which then become pointed to as evidence of "obese pathology."  Hence, agency is quashing is the lesser of evils.

Taking the blame has always been a lower status burden, the old music hall lyric;
It's the same the world over, it's the poor what gets the blame and the rich that get the pleasure.
As we see though, when you repress necessity, it's forced underground and comes up where the earth is constantly torn up and soft.

Fatness.

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