"Say your name is Joe but I insist your name is Jean." [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://www.getrevue.co/profile/juliusgoat/issues/sabotage-part-10-the-supreme-problem-1420742


Say your name is Joe but I insist your name is Jean.

Let’s say you believe your name is Joe because that’s your name.

Let’s say I insist your name is Jean because I believe I have the right to name you because of who I understand myself to be, and you do not have the right to name yourself because of who I understand you to be.

Let’s say this plays out in a number of other beliefs I have about your identity, and the way you choose to live. Again and again, you establish yourself on your own terms, and again and again I refuse your self, in a way that makes it clear that my ability to accept or refuse you is a core part of how I see myself.

Perhaps you’ve seen this scenario play out in thousands of different ways, and wondered:
What is that?

I’ll tell you what it is.

It’s supremacy.

It’s a belief that I am supreme.

I am demonstrating a popular core belief that there are people who matter, and I am one of those, and there are people who do not matter, and that you are one of those. I am attempting to impose a reality founded on that belief, under which I am the one who gets to define you, and your right to exist is not a foregone conclusion but something that will be established and mediated by what I and other people who matter are comfortable allowing. I’m establishing that my understanding of who you are is more important than your understanding of who you are. I’m establishing my license to permit you to exist.

*snip*