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gossamer_musingsI suppose most of you are already filled with questions at the title, though to me it seems quite self explanatory. Before I begin to explain why I've chosen to name my experience as such, and examine it a little further, let me disavow something.
I do not believe that any traits, behaviours, activities, beliefs, or even the concept of personhood, culture, and sapience itself belongs wholly to humans, and this is not something I intend to argue in my writings, ever. What makes these things human, for me, is when they are set into the broad context of human evolution, human history, and human cultures. In other words, the behaviours themselves are not exclusively human, but the context in which they become important to me is.
I know that I have felt ancient from a young age. I have felt disconnected from and denied personhood from very young too. I know when I was younger, I was much more animal, and much more aware at the same time. It's a specific locus of feeling that I can only label draconic in character. I felt subject to instinct because instinct was denied to me, and cursed to be an anthropologist among members of my own species. Some of this was likely undiagnosed autism, as I have come to realize decades later. And perhaps being autistic is the only explanation someone may need to understand these experiences. But, I was a dragon when I was younger, and I still am one today. In grade ten, I realized that the ostracism I had experienced from my peers, and the abuse from my father, resulted in a completely alien framework of morality that had no room for compassion--indeed, it had no room for anyone else except me. It was the small, cold, detached world of an ancient creature that I operated under. It was also the small, cold world of someone denied companionship, denied affection and care from a young age. Though, looking back, I think I make this disconnect worse and wronger than it was. I know, now, that it was a coping mechanism. If I could stop myself from caring, then the world could not hurt me so. But I resolved, then and there, to change it.
The long and short of the change which occurred that day in grade ten is that I resolved to make myself human. The kind of humanity I had read about in books, and heard talk of among adults in my life.
It is here that I want to make an aside to discuss the origin of our ideas of humanity within the Western cultural sphere. I will discuss Renaissance humanism, but I must first discuss the Age of Enlightenment, and the refusal of humanity to non-European humans.
It is imperative to understand that a continuation of the tradition of humanism, which was first explored in the Renaissance by humanist philosophers, made itself known in an abhorrent way during the Enlightenment period (the 17th and 18th centuries). This is the immediate post-contact period and the focal point of the consolidation of empire and imperial ambitions. This period sees the codification of the nation state as the primary political entity. Liberalism as a philosophy emerge from this context. Capitalism, though having begun the process of development a century or two earlier, begins to take on its modern shape at this point in time, and finds an advocate in Adam Smith.
Broadly speaking, the aim of Enlightenment philosophy was to construct human society on the basis of human knowledge and skill, rather than around a Divine plan. This was done through the separation of church and state, the abolishing of the divine right of kings, and the challenging of the idea that some men should have more power and privilege, more of a say than others. All men are created equal.
And all of this, all of this was done on the backs of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. The concept of corporations comes from the English and Dutch East India companies, the first joint-stock companies in the world. Any English of Dutch citizen could buy stock in these companies, and thereby directly profit from the colonial enterprise.
The restructuring of power to, in some limited way, be more democratic in the past, and the granting of citizenship to all (land-owning men) was only possible through the denial of personhood, the eploitation and death, the genocide of non-european peoples.
The definition of human originates from this period as a way to justify and accomplish imperial violence.
There is no easy way to reckon with this history, and I do not think it should be easy to do so, especially as we feel its repercussions today. Especially as BIPOC are still denied humanity today. I think my own grappling will have to come later, as it is beyond the scope of this essay right now. But it was important to me to acknowledge this fact and to build my own conception, not within its legacy, but in opposition to it.
I think the deconstruction of humanity as a historical construct is perhaps best saved for another essay. I need to consolidate my thoughts on that much more before I can come to any (necessarily preliminary) conclusion.
What is being human, to me, then?
Much more than a species identity, or the body I am in, humanity is a set of values, a guide to who I want to be in the world. These values, for me, consist of resilience, compassion, curiosity, and creativity. True to the original definition of archetropy, my understanding of humanity is shaped through the stories humans tell about themselves, though more than a specific role in fiction, I locate myself within the project of fiction as a whole being a way that the humans of this world use to make sense of it. Because that was what I did, and do. Even if I was not human, and am not human, I saw myself in that storytelling urge, that refusal to be only what we are, and instead imagine ourselves as what we want to be. Because I made sense of the world through story, I became the storyteller, and I became human. Gold dragons, too, strive to understand the world around us, and to make it better than how we found it. Because of this, and because dragons can take on a human form, I do not, in the end, see much conflict between my species and my humanity. They are not the same, but they are fundamentally alike.
My humanity has impacted my selfhood in ways beyond moral as well. My hobbies (gardening, cooking, storytelling, fibre arts, clay sculpture, painting, music) are also ways in which I feel connected to humanity as an archetrope. It is then fitting that I find myself mostly aligned with our ideas on paleolithic humans, and how they live. I have my vocation as philosopher, and potentially as archeologist to thank for it. My own hearthome lies within Paleolithic Europe and the Neolithic steppes of Anatolia.
I am rambling, now, and do not have much more to say. Perhaps I will expand on this concept in the future.
I do not believe that any traits, behaviours, activities, beliefs, or even the concept of personhood, culture, and sapience itself belongs wholly to humans, and this is not something I intend to argue in my writings, ever. What makes these things human, for me, is when they are set into the broad context of human evolution, human history, and human cultures. In other words, the behaviours themselves are not exclusively human, but the context in which they become important to me is.
-------------------------------------------------------
I know that I have felt ancient from a young age. I have felt disconnected from and denied personhood from very young too. I know when I was younger, I was much more animal, and much more aware at the same time. It's a specific locus of feeling that I can only label draconic in character. I felt subject to instinct because instinct was denied to me, and cursed to be an anthropologist among members of my own species. Some of this was likely undiagnosed autism, as I have come to realize decades later. And perhaps being autistic is the only explanation someone may need to understand these experiences. But, I was a dragon when I was younger, and I still am one today. In grade ten, I realized that the ostracism I had experienced from my peers, and the abuse from my father, resulted in a completely alien framework of morality that had no room for compassion--indeed, it had no room for anyone else except me. It was the small, cold, detached world of an ancient creature that I operated under. It was also the small, cold world of someone denied companionship, denied affection and care from a young age. Though, looking back, I think I make this disconnect worse and wronger than it was. I know, now, that it was a coping mechanism. If I could stop myself from caring, then the world could not hurt me so. But I resolved, then and there, to change it.
The long and short of the change which occurred that day in grade ten is that I resolved to make myself human. The kind of humanity I had read about in books, and heard talk of among adults in my life.
It is here that I want to make an aside to discuss the origin of our ideas of humanity within the Western cultural sphere. I will discuss Renaissance humanism, but I must first discuss the Age of Enlightenment, and the refusal of humanity to non-European humans.
It is imperative to understand that a continuation of the tradition of humanism, which was first explored in the Renaissance by humanist philosophers, made itself known in an abhorrent way during the Enlightenment period (the 17th and 18th centuries). This is the immediate post-contact period and the focal point of the consolidation of empire and imperial ambitions. This period sees the codification of the nation state as the primary political entity. Liberalism as a philosophy emerge from this context. Capitalism, though having begun the process of development a century or two earlier, begins to take on its modern shape at this point in time, and finds an advocate in Adam Smith.
Broadly speaking, the aim of Enlightenment philosophy was to construct human society on the basis of human knowledge and skill, rather than around a Divine plan. This was done through the separation of church and state, the abolishing of the divine right of kings, and the challenging of the idea that some men should have more power and privilege, more of a say than others. All men are created equal.
And all of this, all of this was done on the backs of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. The concept of corporations comes from the English and Dutch East India companies, the first joint-stock companies in the world. Any English of Dutch citizen could buy stock in these companies, and thereby directly profit from the colonial enterprise.
The restructuring of power to, in some limited way, be more democratic in the past, and the granting of citizenship to all (land-owning men) was only possible through the denial of personhood, the eploitation and death, the genocide of non-european peoples.
The definition of human originates from this period as a way to justify and accomplish imperial violence.
There is no easy way to reckon with this history, and I do not think it should be easy to do so, especially as we feel its repercussions today. Especially as BIPOC are still denied humanity today. I think my own grappling will have to come later, as it is beyond the scope of this essay right now. But it was important to me to acknowledge this fact and to build my own conception, not within its legacy, but in opposition to it.
I think the deconstruction of humanity as a historical construct is perhaps best saved for another essay. I need to consolidate my thoughts on that much more before I can come to any (necessarily preliminary) conclusion.
-------------------------------------------------------
What is being human, to me, then?
Much more than a species identity, or the body I am in, humanity is a set of values, a guide to who I want to be in the world. These values, for me, consist of resilience, compassion, curiosity, and creativity. True to the original definition of archetropy, my understanding of humanity is shaped through the stories humans tell about themselves, though more than a specific role in fiction, I locate myself within the project of fiction as a whole being a way that the humans of this world use to make sense of it. Because that was what I did, and do. Even if I was not human, and am not human, I saw myself in that storytelling urge, that refusal to be only what we are, and instead imagine ourselves as what we want to be. Because I made sense of the world through story, I became the storyteller, and I became human. Gold dragons, too, strive to understand the world around us, and to make it better than how we found it. Because of this, and because dragons can take on a human form, I do not, in the end, see much conflict between my species and my humanity. They are not the same, but they are fundamentally alike.
My humanity has impacted my selfhood in ways beyond moral as well. My hobbies (gardening, cooking, storytelling, fibre arts, clay sculpture, painting, music) are also ways in which I feel connected to humanity as an archetrope. It is then fitting that I find myself mostly aligned with our ideas on paleolithic humans, and how they live. I have my vocation as philosopher, and potentially as archeologist to thank for it. My own hearthome lies within Paleolithic Europe and the Neolithic steppes of Anatolia.
I am rambling, now, and do not have much more to say. Perhaps I will expand on this concept in the future.
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no subject
Date: 2024-08-11 12:34 pm (UTC)And, as a queer, disabled person of color myself, I do really like how you are acknowledging the horror of how humanity was first formed as a concept, and choosing to be human as a living testament that it should not be defined through such a narrow, bigoted, exploitative lens - that humanity is for all who claim it as part of themselves. That's another reason we love being human, really, to lay claim to something that could be taken away, clench it defiantly in my fist and say proudly that I am human, no matter what anyone else thinks. It's a word with a lot of baggage, for sure, but it's a powerful word to say is your own.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-11 06:00 pm (UTC)From One Gold Dragon to Another…
Date: 2024-08-11 12:54 pm (UTC)Upon reading this essay, I have found myself questioning if I too may experience a human archetrope on account of how you define it— albeit in a different way. I really appreciated your insight into the colonialism and imperialist histories behind how humanity is defined by ruling classes, especially as a black alterhuman. Even though I’m not human myself, I still see how the dehumanization and objectification of my community influences our subjugation in greater society to this day. I think it is time for me as someone who is both black and beyond the notions of human (in terms of species) embark on what humanity means to me. Not only as a form of reclamation, but as a form of closure as well. (P.S. shoutout to fellow gold dragons in anthropology!)
Thank you so much for this piece!
Re: From One Gold Dragon to Another…
Date: 2024-08-11 05:56 pm (UTC)I am honoured my essay has caused you to reflect so much on your own experiences, and would be delighted to read your thoughts on humanity and your relationship to it. I am also hoping to explore this more in writing in the future, but I want to first exist in this experience and see how else it fits me, and report back. I have a lot to think about regarding your panel during Othercon, and I believe it connects to this archetrope too!
no subject
Date: 2024-08-12 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-12 03:13 am (UTC)