Otherness

Over the last week I have been having problems with one of my characters. He didn't seem to be working and I thought it was his name, so it changed it.That failed totally as he became absolutely silent. The DoS as always came to the rescue and recognised the problem immediately. Read Jean Baudrillard's essay, 'The Declination of Wills' that will help. He was right (which irritatingly he does have a habit of being quite often), I suddenly realised what had happened to my character. He had lost his shadow. All the issues I had with him and the concerns about I had about using multiple voices were dispelled and the writing started to flow once again.

But I also started the rest of the section entitled 'Radical Otherness' in Baudrillard's book The Transparency of Evil. This has been a revelation and so thought provoking for someone whose PhD is looking at the representation of sex, drugs and alcohol where I have seen a movement from 'other' to 'normalised' particularly with the representation of cannabis. Baudrillard has suggested the the other is no longer 'there to be exterminated, hated, rejected or seduced, but instead to be understood, liberated, coddled, recognized.' I can see the sense of what he is suggesting however if you consider one of my previous posts where I talked about Carter's and Freud's idea that other becomes normalised through ambivalence. At the moment I would suggest this is more of a truism than Baudrillard's idea as with his idea the other remains othered but accepted, desired even, whilst with the other it has become normal because it has moved from the edge of society to the centre. This is an idea that is still formulating in my mind and may well, if I am honest, change it because it is clear cut.