http://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20081010/letters/gay-politics-and-everyday-life
Friday, 10th October 2008; Karl Consiglio, Paceville
My concern is not the obvious, symbolic political events but the politics that are an unobtrusive part of everyday life. This sort of politics has an inherent tendency to self-concealment.
A situation that people regard as natural without thinking deeply about it is actually produced by politics. For example, if a person is gay, what does it mean to "come out" (or be made to "come out")? Isn't it just a kind of confession? Whether you like men or women is a private matter. Why make it public? Such a response may be considered natural but it's a form of discrimination. Discrimination is always hidden in what seems natural.
Coming out is not just a confession. It challenges a boundary, the line that is generally drawn between the public and the private, the things that one calls private and must be changed if one is to live as a gay person.
Privacy is fundamentally a political concept. Etymologically, it is derived from the Latin word privare meaning "to deprive". There is no privacy that is not taken forcibly from the public realm. When we use the word "private" it is always based on the premise of public power. To problematise one's privacy is to question the power relationships that have been hypothesised as natural in the past.
The politics of private life is relevant to the condition of an alternative self or individuality in an age when egotism and individuality are best-selling products, the period from the 1990s to the present, in which the capitalist societies have achieved dominance through the spread of information technology. This endless industry thirst for labels, trends and fashions turns every individual style into another benign marketing plot.
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