'Deperson'

What does it mean to deperson someone? This is what I would like to consider today. Note, I do not speak of depersonalising or depersonalisation, though these are indeed associated experiences and referents. The word deperson, as I use it refers to the act of willfully denying another the expression or the meaning that they may wish to convey in an encounter with you. I may also put it as willfully ignoring the situation that the person may be representing to you, a situation in which they may be in, and in which you, through your encounter with them may share. Let us say that I were to ask you as to where you may have found your watch, telling me it's make would not be an answer to my question, and in denying the volition of my agency, you deperson me.

There is a sense in which, we are often told, perhaps by parents or wellwishers, that we should not take something personally. This may have been a difference which came to light in a discussion for instance. What is usually meant here is that we need not, or should not invest deeply in the antagonism discovered, that it may not be 'worth it' - let us call it a difference in priorities. Yet, inasmuch as a perspective is inclined to make this observation vis-a-vis us, it recognises a desire to do precisely this, that is to take an antagonism or a difference in priorities, or a disagreement seriously. Why may an agency wish to do this is a question which I do take an interest in.

There is a sense of legitimacy which appears in presenting the circumstances as such, yet in this minor formalization, I also place myself at a distance from the antagonism itself, which, in its genericity, does not affect me emotionally. Is this a means of protecting myself? It certainly may be, and in situations where we find ourselves depersoned, this may indeed be an effective strategy. It should however be said, that we lose nothing in representing this situation we are in, to another, in depicting it for them, and perhaps, through this, we may be able to alter it desirably.

However, as with any encounter, exchange, or indeed - conversation, we learn nothing but the place and relations of a master in subjecting ourselves to a monologue. And, inasmuch as this discourse refers to a body which is in other words inasmuch as there is one who can present the coherence of a congregation, we participate in semblances which we do not read in the same way.

Inasmuch as this may be the zero point of a beginning, perhaps not of a people or community, let us call it a gathering, it is necessary that we share these differences between ourselves, among ourselves, so that we may learn how our experiences, perceptions, and thoughts may differ, and also, how they may be the same.

This brings me back to the question or should I say the position of the master. There is probably no one in the gathering who knows what being depersoned is as keenly as him, to be a mediator of how others make meaning, is indeed sacrificial. The last pass is psychoanalysis (or one of the last passes) is the realization that there is no big other who guarantees the consistency of the symbolic order. This is often read, and indeed is a profession of atheism, in a very precise sense. It acknowledges, in this absence, the very possibility of personhood, of the expression of your volition in its radical freedom, ie. the freedom to change the symbolic order itself, and in this act, perhaps give our tired (or feigning) master a rest from his labours.