The feminismo trickster, in contrast, uses the prank as a loving tool for obliterating hierarchy, as a sacred leveler of elitist pretensions. She is not driven by revenge or oneupmanship. She empathizes as she disrupts, seeking not to discredit and embarrass the target of her mischief, but to shock it into becoming more itself. It's a celebration of the aesthetics of the erotic soul over against the sneaky agendas of the separative ego. The feminismo prankster loves what she profanes. Weaving her fate together with her targets, she honors her relationship with it even as she tweaks it out of its literalism.
A feminismo prank, though it may be surprising, is ultimately friendly. It romances the contradictions with crafty compassion. It's an eroticomic strategy to extinguish the glamour of the ancient Us Versus Them.
One caveat: Though the feminismo trickster borrows from the ethic of "commit random acts of kindness," she is also aware of Chogyam Trungpa's distinction between actual compassion and idiot compassion. The idiot kind is the short-term fix we offer a suffering person in order to console him, even though it might encourage him to keep doing what brought on his pain. Authentic compassion, on the other hand, might at first seem severe -- as when we refuse to buy into someone's habitual tendency to portray himself as a victim. If done lovingly, though, this more strenuous kindness serves as a wake-up call.
A feminismo prank, though it may be surprising, is ultimately friendly. It romances the contradictions with crafty compassion. It's an eroticomic strategy to extinguish the glamour of the ancient Us Versus Them.
One caveat: Though the feminismo trickster borrows from the ethic of "commit random acts of kindness," she is also aware of Chogyam Trungpa's distinction between actual compassion and idiot compassion. The idiot kind is the short-term fix we offer a suffering person in order to console him, even though it might encourage him to keep doing what brought on his pain. Authentic compassion, on the other hand, might at first seem severe -- as when we refuse to buy into someone's habitual tendency to portray himself as a victim. If done lovingly, though, this more strenuous kindness serves as a wake-up call.