Alienation separates the speaking subject from itself and allows it to act against the external factors that would otherwise determine its existence. But alienation can only be genuinely emancipatory when we recognize it … Paradoxically, it is only through being distanced from itself that the subject can most be itself. One arrives at singularity only by giving up the lure of belonging.
Todd Mcgowan’s Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn’t Try To Find Ourselves, loc 603-608
Thus, the most treasured of our self-proclaimed nouns may well come apart as we come to value translation and the important possibilities that the loss of mastery opens up for the making and sustaining of a livable world.
Judith Butler’s Who’s Afraid of Gender? loc 4072
Mark Carrigan 