Final Journal
For this week, consider how prejudice and monsters are connected. How do we create “real” monsters? How do we use monstrosity to separate us from those we do not want or understand? How is monstrosity used to “other” people?
Consider Monster Thesis 4 this week. The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference. We as a culture push out people/groups/others out of our group to make them monstrous. The monster originates within.
Any kind of alternity can be inscribed across (constructed through) the monstrous body, but for the most part monstrous difference tends to be cultural, political, racial, economic, sexual (Cohen 7).
Look for examples where we make someone or something different from us into a monster.
Comment below with a link to the text and your summary and response.
Monstrosity in the context of Cohens Monster thesis IV is about fear and ignorance. Fear of the unknown, fear of difference and diversity. How does a racist feel about themselves when exposed to something “not them”? They are afraid and filled with an impotent rage if not acted upon in some manner. Either through violence or maligning “them”, perhaps verbally amongst friends or silently through scorn. Now it would appear that that hatred can be conveyed in the voting booth, too, sad to say. A bigot is much like an anti-body in the immune system. The anti-body thinks “they” are foreign invaders and do not belong so it has an innate desire to destroy it. Except, bigotry is more like an auto-immune disease. It desires to destroy something that is not harmful at all, but there is a chemical messenger that is not being received so it perceives that something of self as an invader present to do it harm. We, as a species, are all the same. We are just people, bi-pedal animals with desires, dreams, fears, needs. Ridiculously horrible atrocities have been committed by racists, fascists, and in the name of imminent domain. My upbringing left much to be desired but I am very relieved I did not have to grow up in a house where one or more parents were bigots. It is brainwashing to grow up hating a person for no reason whatsoever. Unnamed, unjustified, unreasoning fear of what you don’t understand and a fear of “not self”.
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How do we create “real” monsters? How is monstrosity used to “other” people? We live in a very judgemental society where everyone expects everyone to look the same dress the same and when someone decides to be their own self that’s when society starts bashing and creates these horrific labeling ,bullying not thinking that as a society we are in our mind, are creating a monster, when in reality there a no monster just because someone wants to be different from the rest or might look different from the rest that does not make it a monster but in society we consider it a monster.
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