"If you aren't part of the Problem, you aren't part of the Solution"
In the category of transgression, one doesn't directly contribute to the bending of the social construct unless actively a transgressor. In order for people to accept something (or at the very least 'tolerate' it), one method of going from the conceptual extreme to a more workable area is by sheer exposure. Reworking the general idea of the "norm" by forcing oneself into it via exposure with a pinch of stubbornness. Aside from simple inclusion into norms, when something shows itself to be either outside accepted norms or without even a way to THINK about it in shortcut terms, then this causes those within the norm to think in new ways and new languages. That is the key to inciting change in peoples minds. People always think they have the world figured out, and they'll always come to the same conclusions unless a radical new perspective shows them that their world of what is what just so happens to be quite a bit narrower than the world that just IS.
That is the "pinging under the hood", the sound of something not quite fitting, that odd never before heard noise that causes the "driver" to stop driving for a moment and actually check to see whats going on, to see if their system isn't working anymore to work within the narrow world.
The human animal is a creature of shortcuts. It goes about living in a world as narrow as it can make and still get by. In the world of survival as the ultimate goal, its actually quite the advantage, being able to quickly make decisions and come to conclusions about the world at large, without having to take all of the staggeringly huge amount of information out there all at once. Unfortunately, in a world where living solely for survival is no longer all there is, where self-actualization and communal-harmony are possible, these heuristics fall short of being helpful. It is hard, however to know what heuristics are harmful and which are innocuous. Figuring that if you knock on a melon and it makes a certain sound will tell you if its ripe or not isn't going to hurt anybody, except maybe the poor bruised honeydew. However, when our shortcut has us thinking implicitly about sex in terms of dominant masculine concepts, then we're into a whole other game. It's unfortunate, really, but something as simple as having two gender concepts has one set of people being consistently demeaned in our very terms of thought. In this scenario, the cookie cutter not only truncates personality from both concepts, but consistently limits the terms for one of the two to even be properly UNDERSTOOD, let alone allowed its whole self.
Another part of the reading really had me thinking. In order to fix the problems inherent in our system of norms, should we as transgressors fight for inclusion into the system or fight the very function of NEEDING inclusion in the first place. One involves more immediate rewards and at least a language capable of bridging understanding gaps, but ends up just treating a symptom instead of curing the ill. The latter of the two involves a much more radical revolution of thought and action on many levels all at once, getting at the cause of the problems but being supremely difficult due to a lack of the consistent communication required for a smooth social transition. Personally, I believe that the first of the two is more realistically feasible in a society that requires that level of communication for change to occur, despite my recognizing the latter as being ultimately a preferable goal. I think we have to coddle our society into understanding our ultimate goal by at first using terms it understands, without undermining ourselves by confusing one another, and then using that progress as a stepping stone to bludgeoning the system of norms with its own rattle.
