Deleuze in his short essay “Post-script on the Societies of Control,” talked about the move away from the disciplinary society towards a control society, with the cage not as much being found in realms such as the hard power of architecture –the school is the factory is the prison– but within an amorphous system of abstract soft mechanisms attached to the individual-as-individual –such as social credit scores and competitive productivity– in which freedoms of movement and life are regulated, managed, advertised or restricted to encourage a specific ordering of society.

When we think of camps we think of Auschwitz, we think of Treblinka, we think of Vorkutlag, but these places were in many ways the crowning jewels of the disciplinary society –the school, the factory, the prison, the camp– and what is to say that the crowning jewels of the society of control are themselves not contained inside the very differences within its nature? Will the camp that we face present as an imposing architectural expression of domination, or more as an invisible imposition restricting our ability to live and breathe on our own terms?

There was a thread on the Musk app a long time ago about how to better support the trans women you're in community with and the statement "make room for traumagenic neuroses" burned itself into my brain the moment I read it.

I've done my best to embody that sentiment ever since.

I wish I could remember who the fuck wrote it, because I haven't come across a single statement that has had anywhere near that much of an impact on me since, and I wanna thank them.

Still

-------------------------

Still I try
to hold you,
still you slowly
go astray,
still I worry
I'll forget you
and the things
you used to say.

Still I wish
to see you,
still you always
hide away,
still I really
want to hear you
just this once,
please just today.

#poetry #poem