Distantiality is something like the pressure people feel to keep it real, a pressure that puts all of us, as individuals, in a state of constant subjection to others, the They, who decide what is and is not acceptable in the community. When we try to determine who They are, we realize that They are nobody. They are not definite. Like agents in The Matrix, anyone in the group can be the They at any given time and the They is never anyone in particular. It is generic and, as a result, extremely difficult to pin down or challenge. And this is decisive: The sheer inconspicuousness of the
...more