Earlier this week, Caractacus ventured into the world of Michel Foucault. It’s a world which with, although I am not a philosopher, I have become quite familiar.
We people of the trans variety have often had to deal with the concept of normativity, a concept which Foucault wrote about rather extensively.
If you have not read any Foucault, you probably should, though I should warn you that there will be heavy lifting. After all, in 2007, Foucault was classified as the most cited intellectual in the humanities.
First off, let’s try to get a grip on the word “normativity”.
In philosophy, normative statements affirm how things ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong. Normative is usually contrasted with positive… Positive statements are factual statements that attempt to describe reality.