From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: New queer terminology
Date: 17 Aug 92 02:37:57 GMT
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison


In article <1992Aug17.015230.2547@cis.ohio-state.edu>
amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky) writes, and
rightly so, I think:

>now nelson tells me that, in his estimation at least, i am
>not entitled to use several of these words for myself,
>because they describe people with admirable qualities that i
>do not possess, and (because of my age and life experiences)
>cannot.  i am insulted beyond words.

Well, pending hearing from the man himself, I'm thinking
about how this might have come to pass.  Most certainly not
from evil intention; that I could never believe of Nelson,
whom I think I know as well as a long exchange of letters
affords me.

It's a tricky subject to touch upon, but I think it's in
part a generational thing.  Taking a generation as roughly
30 years, it's really more like a half-generational thing,
since he mentions early 20s and mid-30s.  

But each generation seems to *need* to distinguish itself
(note well, itself, that is, we're not talking about what
historians do) from the context it most strongly identifies
with its parents (which explains the half part).

It would be too facile, I think, to just wave our hands and
say, "they've always done that," though to a certain extent
that's true.  I think it's the *need* (I don't think that's
an illusion on my part) to define oneself as somehow really
quite different from what came before.  This is not an easy
task, since one of the most useful ingredients -- historical
perspective -- is generally not readily available.

Indeed, therein lies much of the motive force for my own
objections to Nelson's distinctions: they play pretty fast
and loose with history, more or less assuming that nothing
of any great import preceded what young people know about
first-hand.  Now I happen to think that's not a worthless
point of view, but it is a problematic one, at best.

I say this because if I've learned anything, it's that what
really counts (for me; I leave the generalizations to
others) *must* be part of one's *own* experience.  By this I
don't mean you have to have suffered (or whatever), but I do
mean that you have to have internalized, somehow, and with
sufficient emotional and intellectual force, the suffering
(or whatever).  The history somehow has to be *in* you, part
of you, before it really counts.

Without making excuses for Nelson, I can see how what he
understands as "gay" (leaving aside that I don't think he
understands it very well) might not include much of what a
person older by fifteen or more years might know first-hand
from associations with the word and its many realities.

It remains, if that's right, to understand what could have
motivated him to try to strengthen his sense of identity in
the generation he calls queer *at the expense of* what he
calls gay.  I don't think he *had* to do that, but it looks
like he did think so.

As I said in my earlier posting, I doubt this *at the
expense of* part entered his conscious thinking at the time,
though to my eyes it's undeniably present in his remarks.
And apparently to Arnold's eyes too.

<> The Kinsey scale less its sexual orientation content is
<> simply an empty scale, a set of consecutive numbers. 
<> Scales can be used for lots of things.  Scales are used
<> in music.  And fish have scales.  There are also the scales
<> of justice. -- Rob Bernardo (rob@mtdiablo.concord.ca.us)

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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