Rajaati! hit the nail on the head as usual i see! :) i agree.. "the fact that cyberspace allows for the realisation of these hegemonic aspirations could lead to an interesting discussion" - it was exactly what i had attempted in my post... now i wonder if it came across clearly....?
However, am not sure if choosing to not have an avatar is resisting the hegemonic force
i mean.. you can always equate it to the voting process and sya choosing to not vote and voting for "nobody" is an active choice... but am not sure if thats a satisfactory argument for an avatar - an incarnation that depends on visuality....the counter argument would be that the absence would hint at the visuality.. but if all of us choose to not have an avatar? would undifferentiated absence challenge anything?
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probably not.
ReplyDeletei wonder now, exactly what you mean by hegemony on cyberspace and how precisely how you differentiate it from the "real" world..
i'm sorry if i have missed understanding this from ur earlier posts..
hey! dont be sorry!! if at all we have defined what we mean by hegemony and you have missed it, its our problem :) we didnt make it clear enough..
ReplyDeletehmmmm.. what i meant when i said hegemony is the fact that the cyberspace seems to be favourable to those who know more about computers, internet and so on... not that i cannot navigate through the space.. but that if armed with such knowledge, my explorations could perhaps be wider...
my friend confided once that he started visitng porn sites only afer he knew he could "clear history"....i dont know if this is example makes it clearer... the bottomline is this... Knowledge is power.
how different is this from the "real" world? not very different..but.. well..am thinking as i type.. i would imagine in the real world power doesnt necessarily mean only knowledge.. it could mean money, it could mean political support.. you catch the drift? but in cyberspace.. knowledge is a key factor and there are very definitely hangovers of the hegemony from the 'real' world... its because this hegemony is carried through to the virtual space that we are discussing how to counter such hegemonies...
have i confused you more?? sorry if i have! maybe we should talk about this then? :):) :)
love,
BHARGAVI
The bigger issue here is, I think, the fact that the biggest option the cyberworld throws open is choice. You can choose either way, and the only real judge is yourself. Agreed, the world out here is more liberal when it comes to allowing the sociopath and the social butterfly the same amount of leeway and welcome. The question that needs to be answered at any juncture of your existence in this world is how you think the other person thought you would like to be seen. And when you think about that, your arguments of "hegemony" and "gender-nullification" will fade away. What you appear as is merely a combination of who you are, who you want to be perceived as, who you think people perceive you to be, who you think you appear to be to others, and finally, how well you can portray yourself to fully justify all the above points of contention.
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