In Defence of De-Persons by Johanna Hedva

I cannot think of a form of embodiment
that is not somehow disordered.
The enforcing of self-possession
has happened probably because
of the self’s radical disorder.
How this can feel unbearable has
resulted in the political implication
that we are all ungovernable. “Governance
then becomes the management
of self-management,” as Moten
and Harney write.
I forgive myself for my impulse to
call for the ousting of the Healthy
White & Propertied Male from the
throne of the universal subject position
that he’s sat in for so long. The
direction to go, we are conditioned
to believe, is up. Like birds trapped
in a room.
But it’s the throne itself that we m-
ust tear down: the throne on which
the universal sits. That there is a
throne at all is the problem—regardless
of who sits in it. We don’t need
to go up. Let’s look to the windows,
the way out.
We who are blasted apart, de-person-ed, detached from “being,” if we are looking toward
that throne of universality to consolidate and stabilize us as subjects, to make us
whole as people, to bestow upon us, finally, a political agency that we can call our own,
in that we can own it like a possession, then we are looking in the wrong direction. The
place to begin is by turning our backs on that throne, and toward an agency that doesn’t
depend on enlightenment humanism, on the universal, on the self-determined subject
of a rational mind, on the hegemonic figure who has power over himself and others.
Such an agency can only function by constructing against its human, the monster, the
monstrosity of the Other. If our kind of agency depends on anything, it will depend on
recognizing and honouring that we are all of us disordered, messy, incorrigible, that we
are in relationship to others and interdependent on each other, as much as we are each
of us different—and that is fine.
The APA has a “topic” page on their
website for “Emotional Health” that
defines it like this:
Emotional health can lead
to success in work, relationships
and health. In the
past, researchers believed
that success made people
happy. Newer research reveals
that it’s the other way
around. Happy people are
more likely to work toward
goals, find the resources
they need and attract others
with their energy and optimism—key
building blocks of
success.