Finding The Thing Itself

When I was writing my thesis proposal I was challenged with deciding which aspects of LGBT life to focus on. The “minority narrative” - and I mean this in the broadest sense - is always focused on hegemonic power dynamics and its various consequences. This pattern of storytelling has resulted in a templatization of documentaries that focus on minority people. It has in a sense, become a caricature of itself – a trope. Simply do the following:

1) Name the minority population of interest

2) Summarize its cultural history

3) Frame its fight for cultural heritage/preservation within a filter of struggle

4) Site instances of cultural assimilation as progress (against all odds)

5) Remind the audience that the fight is not yet over

This may seem like a crude assessment of the “minority narrative” - I of course do not wish to down play the realities of discrimination which clearly continues to affect a great many people, but it almost appears as if there is no other discourse in which to discuss the minority. The consequences of difference dominate these narratives; no one appears to illustrate what it actually “feels” like to live in between gender, race and class. The emotions that govern that space, the urgency, the split decisions that one must make when navigating various public spaces – these experiences are most potent to me and are the most difficult to emulate, both in writing and in mediated visual culture.

This “feeling” I believe, is the “essence” that Giorgio Agamben refers to in his discussions of Plato’s Seventh Letter and the nature of “The Thing Itself”. Agamben writes, “Each being,” Plato writes, has three things which are the necessary means by which knowledge of that being is acquired; the knowledge itself is the fourth thing; and as a fifth one must posit the thing itself, which is knowable and truly is.” (2, assumed pg. #) The first three things are the name, the definition and the image, with the fourth thing being knowledge itself – the first three things combined. These are the basic items needed to acquire knowledge. The fifth thing is the realm where my inquiries lie. This I believe, is the space of queer and racial performativity, where the intricacies of intentional and unintentional “passing” - defined as the ability of a person to be accepted as a member of a different racial and/or gender group – can be explored. It is also within this realm that Jacques Derrida’s comments on the “feelings of the mind” in Part 1: Writing before the Letter in On Grammatology make sense in developing my work. He writes, “The feelings of the mind, expressing things naturally, constitute a sort of universal language which can then efface itself. It is the stage of transparence” (11) Thought and “mental experiences” are the most pure form of language. Unhindered by speech and writing. I believe the experience of passing from one gender to another, this “transparence” contains the “essence”, the Thing Itself.

One of the best visual examples of this essence is the film Pi; a story about a numbers theorist who believes everything in nature can be understood through numbers. I am reminded of a scene which shows us that “math is in everything” http://bit.ly/QvaDP . It is here that we see an exchange between the protagonist Max, and a friend, about the secrets of the Torah and its alleged hidden mathematical messages. What I find interesting here is that Max feels isolated and trapped in his own mind, fixated on discovering the truth of nature itself. I liken my gender experience to this scene – feeling out of body, realizing deep down inside that you know something that no one else does, and that you’re understanding of this goes beyond language or communication – it is a gut feeling. A knowing. A sixth sense.

This knowing is the fifth thing, a potentiality. Agamben goes on to say “For everyone a moment comes in which she or he must utter this ‘I can’, which does not refer to any certainty or specific capacity but is nevertheless, absolutely demanding.” (Part 3) This sentence perfectly describes the moment of “actual potentiality”, someone possessing both the wherewithal to actualize a potentiality and the wherewithal not to do so. Potential is the ability to be “ones own lack”, galvanizing an alternate existence. Not just living, but being. Acquiring this fifth thing can only come from giving in to fluidity and mystery, which is in essence, truth.