I hate when I cheerlead but some of the stuff I read on SM, by both the bloggers and commenters, is so exceedingly good that I have to just use the pom-poms. Shruti that was brilliant.

Mourning doesn’t replace what’s lost, but it does facilitate a transformation, and that implies the possibility of new politics of solidarity.

Alot is made of the politics of vendetta’s so this was a refreshing look at when barriers are broken. Again, brilliant.

Thank you.

The death knell of such a wonderful expression of solidarity arising from various social circles seems to be suburbia, or more to the point, a lack of proximity to other people. It’s so difficult to have meaningful conversations about solidarity (nevermind actions) when one’s reality allows one to hole up, to not intermingle and have seclusion and little dialogue pass as normal and acceptable. So I wonder, can what happened in NYC happen in Anytown, USA? Can it happen in LA, where immigrant communities are so heavily partitioned? I think the forces to huddle up with each other are greater than those that do the opposite, but damn, suburbia makes it difficult for the spirit to jive with reality. Great lesson in this story though.

Hmm… according to Judith Butler, the one human condition we all share is the experience of loss, which, constituted in part politically by the vulnerability of our bodies, becomes the basis for relationality. She says losing another makes oneself “go missing”; we are constituted and, consequently, dispossessed by our relations. Her project was to figure out what compensates for loss. If no one escapes loss and the vulnerability that accompanies it, then perhaps the compensation comes from the act of mourning it. Mourning doesn’t replace what’s lost, but it does facilitate a transformation, and that implies the possibility of new politics of solidarity.

If what you are saying about the difference between the city and the suburbs is true, then it means that suburbia dehumanizes its inhabitants by reducing their sense of their own vulnerability. Suburban isolation offers a kind of security that begins in blinding insularity and ends in that creepy contentment and self-affirmation you see in movies like Pleasantville. And this, of course, is in stark contrast to the equally unsettling fatalism you see in the millions of people who face the exact opposite of suburban security.

You’re right about the inevitability of feeling solidarity in the city, if for no other reason, then because the “huddling” leaves people with little choice but to be exposed to each other. (And yes, I think LA has difficulty with it because of the way it’s sectioned off — one of the reasons for the emergence of ethnic gangs in the mid-20th century.) Anyway, on NY and feeling the kind of solidarity that proximity cultivates: it truly is a great thing, as long as you keep in mind that feeling pain for another’s loss is not the same as sharing the experiences that led to it. It would be highly problematic if we used our feeling of pain for others to trivialize the issue of our own privilege (or lack thereof, as the case may be). As Virgina Woolf once said about our use of pictures (media), in looking at other people’s pain, one shouldn’t take for granted who the “we” are. But still, I think the greater threat here is in the conclusion that pain isn’t sharable, so I’m glad we’re being exposed to this in angles by which we can make connections to our own lives.

Stick to substance not repartee.

Do you realise how pompous you seem?

All you are “exposing”, dear, is your embarrassingly poor reading comp skills. The unbrown meanderings of this blog don’t vex you and you couldn’t care less about accountability. There, there. You got attention. Happy?