Hostility and Subjectivity. *Updated*

*Had this up for a day or so, and then couldn't get it out of my head. So I pulled it back out of the ether and thought about it. The bit about the "inherent hostility" in the act of writing about other people really resonated with me when I first read it. But the more and more it turned over in my brain-meat the more I came to the conclusion that whatever little else the author and I had in common, we both came up and were raised in a way to feel that expression of self, if it might make someone else uncomfortable, was somehow hostile towards others. The idea that just by way of expressing your own perception of how things are, it's somehow an attack or some kind of violation of the integretity of the other's perspective. And raised in such a way to think that your own opinion, if it somehow might offend or reveal something that someone else doesn't want to be, should be squashed.

Live small, so that you might not offend.

Stay quiet. Stay out of the way. Don't attract attention.

I still struggle with that.

But you know... Fuck. That. Noise.

Whether someone else has a problem with something you say or do or express... whether they're offended, or hurt or put out... that's on them. That's their decision about how to feel and respond.

Stop living small and unfulfilled like some punk because you'd hate to offend someone.

[That last bit's for me as much as anyone else.]*

-- Original Post --

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel that talks about her childhood and her closeted gay father. She also writes the strip Dykes to Watch out For.

This is a fascinating bit about writing about family that struck me -

How I told my mother about my memoir. - By Alison Bechdel - Slate Magazine:

"Now I know that no matter how responsible you try to be in writing about another person, there's something inherently hostile in the act. You're violating their subjectivity. I thought I could write about my family without hurting anyone, but I was wrong. I probably will do it again. And that's just an uncomfortable fact about myself that I have to live with."