Reading over my posts over the semester, it’s clear to me that I am always considering the potential counterargument or reaction to the pieces we’re reading in the context of people in my life I usually have debates with — mostly it’s with a member of my family, but it’s oftentimes another Davidson student. I usually read to anticipate their argument so I am able to have a comprehensive discussion with them, ideally without playing into the expectations they might have for the way someone of my ideology might argue. This was apparent in my first post about Cardenas, where I applied her argument about the fundamental violence of capitalist heteropatriarchy to the rather cynical discussion I was having with a student the same week. I think it’s really helpful to have her framework ready to call upon when somebody does make the argument that humanity is fundamentally violent and therefore oppression is inevitable. That reasoning can be very damaging and takes the responsibility away from us, especially those of us with access to information like we’ve been given in this class.
A similar application of this material was apparent while reading my post about the Killjoy Manifesto, as I am often faulted in my family for destroying the peace at the dinner table by “picking fights” when a parent or sibling says something dangerously problematic. I think I was focusing on the theme of hope in my post because it’s often been a point of contention within myself when the result of taking the stance is my own feeling of despair, which makes me wonder if it is worth the headache at all. Her writing about intrinsic joy becomes even more crucial in the time we are living in now — there is no shortage of heated debates to be had about the responsibility to our communities during a pandemic, but we must still strive for some type of balance between the consumption of emotionally-draining media and the appreciation for the simplicity of life itself. As we’re reminded of now, it could all be gone in a moment.
Overall, I’m satisfied reading over my posts and pleased by the way I’ve connected themes from my own life and applied that knowledge to my digestion of class material, and vice versa. My natural inclinations are to ask what these underlying thought processes lead to and who they will disproportionately affect, all while considering how I can meaningfully incorporate this knowledge into discussions I have in my personal life. I’m grateful for the exposure to the theories that encapsulate our experiences dealing with modern technology; so much of it can fly undetected, but once we’re made aware, we begin to see it everywhere.