Of course I like the name Shahrzad very much and am considering adopting it myself. In Arabic class my name was Ouidad but Ouidad is now a hair salon in New York and I am not. Here is Shahrzad:
“The record of the feminist movement worldwide shows that the struggle for liberation is multidimensional, with numerous platforms and strategies. Moreover, this struggle is intertwined with other movements which aim at the democratization of society – movements of the working classes, ethnic groups, race groups, etc. A dialectical perspective sees unity and solidarity in this diversity. It will not optimistically look for a universal alliance among all human beings. But it assumes that there is no insurmountable divide separating the women of the world. No doubt there are different meanings or expectations of freedom, democracy, and socialism, but alliances can be and are being made among those who share a common understanding of liberation. The world is divided, for example, on who should decide women’s reproductive choices. Women unite or divide on this issue regardless of their location or religion. In the Beijing conference, the Vatican and the Islamic Republic united on strategies for the control of women, while women of different cultures, colors, and religious canons united against the conservative front.
“Postmodernism treats universalistic principles as inherently oppressive, even totalitarian. But the equation of the universal and the global with “totalization” or, more particularly, with totalitarianism is at best simplistic. Totalitarianism as a political phenomenon has nothing to do with the scope of generalization. Just as universalistic principles can be liberating, small-scale narratives can be extremely oppressive. Nor is totalitarianism related to size or geography. It can appear in small-size locations such as a family, a court, a classroom, a village, no less than in large-size spaces such as a city, a country or a whole region of the world.
“The feminist movement does not become totalitarian simply by forging alliances on the national, regional, or global levels. Such alliances are not incompatible with mutual respect for cultural differences, and the cause of liberation is better served if our practice is not constrained by theoretical positions that fragment and weaken our agency. Stoning a woman to death in Bangladesh should and can be seen as an assault against women everywhere, and it should and can spur us to think and act in North America.”
Those are the last three paragraphs. Read the whole article.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Totalitarianism as a political phenomenon has nothing to do with the scope of generalization.
This is true — and one wonders the degree to which the postmodern’s opposition to universal principles is based upon an linguistic and associative mistake.
On the other hand, I think the post-moderner steps cautiously because he or she
1. is no expert in relating to the emotional scope of existence
2. has an allegiance of a sort to the spectacle and theoretical option of sado-masochism, in its broadest appeal.
For instance, the postmoderner might question to themselves: “Who am I to say that being stoned to death is not an inherently pleasurable situation for an Islamic woman?”
To close the door on any possibility for freedom via the dynamics of S&M is anathema to the postmoderner and against his or her ethics.
Certainly there are those who want to impugn me for making such heavy handed statements (as above) about a movement or a group of people.
However, I would like to clarify something: I didn’t write the post above. Nobody did. Quite likely I was busy preoccupied elsewhere by some issues of quite a different nature than those that the writer is concerned about in the post above. The fact that this post appeared in either timely or untimely fashion (who can be sure?) has nothing to do with me.
“…one wonders the degree to which the postmodern’s opposition to universal principles is based upon an linguistic and associative mistake.”
A great degree, I would say.
Dynamics of S&M, yes: it really does seem so!
A great degree, I would say.
This is linked in, then, with the paradigm of Lacan, which implies that thinking in linguistic terms alone is the mark of the mature individual.
Yes. But I have decided it is a mark of psychosis. I’m having this running argument with someone on this. One who is trying to escape his color and perhaps also his sexuality – his whole body – by becoming a figure in language. It is quite striking, especially considering that he spends a great deal of time in the stratosphere (in airplanes) and also on line … and reifies (even commodifies) his visual image and to some extent his speaking voice.
Yes. But I have decided it is a mark of psychosis.
Yes — the loss of power to do reality checks.
Exactly!
But then I think that surely Lacan cannot have meant this when he spoke of entering the symbolic order (loss of the inner equilibrium basis for performing reality checks both on my own behalf and on behalf of others). Surely an internal dialectic remains between a personal level of feeling and the deterministic potency of the symbolic realm of meaning? I guess he would say that it does, in fact — and that the consequent gap is the source of all neuroses. Hm.
Yes – I think that is what he would say. However it is interesting to see people get lost in the realm of words, or lost in that gap. Hm. Currently I am thinking it is a particularly French phenomenon! 😉
But my evidence is anecdotal only – although I do notice in France that people who are not like that do complain bitterly about having to deal so often with people who are like that.
Yeah. I’m starting to develop an interesting psychological paradigm, though, based on the notion of anchoring.
This comes from reading Sam the narcissist’s stuff again recently, looking for ideas.
So I think that if your sense of self is anchored in the public realm, you probably tend towards a psychological structure which in very broad terms (broader than the diagnosis of pathology) you could call “narcissistic”. So Lacan’s paradigm — being as it anchors the correct sense of being to the formal qualities of language — is broadly, narcissistic.
I think that it is possible to anchor one’s sense of self upon an experiential basis (visceral impressions) and upon the need to have an internal sense of emotional equilibrium that satisfies. That may be — broadly — an ‘antisocial’ orientation (like that of the shaman, in the extreme sense). This orientation, however, is not truly antisocial as it provides the only firm basis for genuine solidarity and companionship.
News: Vaknin diagnosed Obama as a narcissist in 2010, by the way: http://youtu.be/7CUp7qdej8g
… I’m not convinced by him on this although S.V. is interesting.