Cutting Off Your Parents Isn't Mutilation; It's Surgery.
The New York Times recently published an absolutely dogshit op-ed from Celeste Marcus titled, "Cutting Off Your Parents Isn't The Answer." Inside, Celeste essentially generalizes parents as being similar to her own, rather than recognizing the actual damage other parents cause. The onus is placed upon adult children to fix the broken relationship between parent and child, and any responsibility or even will from the parents is entirely ignored. This is a glaringly obvious strawman built to easily burn down for the comfort of the conformist, cishet hegemony that demands obedience from children at all costs; parents are treated like incapable little babies, and adult children have to coddle them. Like, I shouldn't even be writing about this; giving the argument that "you shouldn't cut off your abusive, shitty parents because they're your parents" is just automatically, extremely stupid. It's thoughtless, it's reactionary, and no matter how many arguments are used to substantiate such a claim, it'll always fall apart with even the slightest bit of poking and prodding.
However, there is one particular statement in the article that is absolutely hysterical, and I felt that it needed to be addressed as somebody who has gone semi-contact with my own parents. It is, by far, the most revealing statement Marcus makes in the entire rag.
"Going no contact is kind of like amputation."
We've heard so many things alleged to be symbolically aligned with mutilation. Abortion is mutilation, gender affirming care is mutilation, double mastectomies as preventative care for breast cancer are mutilation. This line keeps fucking coming up time and time again from reactionary, head-ass concern-trolls who couldn't have less of a stake in the conversation they're having. I know this will come as a surprise, but it's the type of bullshit my parents would say.
My rebuttal is simple: when a limb begins to rot without any possibility of recovery or healing, you fucking amputate it. You don't just let the cancer grow because "it's part of your biology," you cut it out. You don't let necrotic tissue fester until you rot from the inside out, you fucking remove it. Yet, for some unbelievably heartless reason, people who seem incapable of putting themselves in other people's shoes are, yet again, casting judgement upon people they've never fucking met. I shouldn't have to explain that you don't need to amputate a broken arm, but we're not fucking talking about parent-child divides that can be healed here.
Another noticeable pattern from Celeste Marcus' writing that appears often in reactionary thought is the implied omniscience of the writer or speaker. They know everything about your relationship about your parents, and they think you're just being bratty and petty. You can't even explain to them the exact situations your parents put you through as examples of unforgivable behavior; it's always downplayed or disbelieved, because it HAS to be. The reactionary conformist must believe that parents couldn't possibly hurt their own kids because to believe otherwise requires discarding knee-jerk reactions and giving things a little bit of a think for once.
It's irritating to me how obviously heartless Celeste Marcus' take is, but it's even more frustrating to see how oblivious Marcus seems to be to her own ridiculousness. It's like watching a clown walk through a party without doing any gags or bits. What the fuck is this clown doing at the party if they're not being a fucking clown? How do they not realize what they look like?!
But of course reactionaries don't know how they appear. Reactionary conformity necessitates a complete lack of self-awareness; if these people had any, they'd realize they have no identity of their own. However, if these conformists like Celeste Marcus had realized how lacking their individuality truly is, perhaps they might recognize that they are the ones who have mutilated themselves for the sake of being just like everyone else.