The Glade 4.0

*goes to retrieve textbooks*

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Not sure you will need any textbooks ...

Queer Theory extends the Foucaultian notion of regressive identity (most particularly) into the realm of sexual identity, social identity, and gender identity. That is, society perpetrates its norms on the individuals and abnormal identities find themselves in a peculiar void relative the norm. Inasmuch as this applies to organizations, the notion is that the Organizational Entity (e.g. The United States of the America, the United Auto Workers Union, or even something as seemingly mundane as a high school Chess Club) exerts conformity pressures on its members. That peculiar je ne sais quois that is Organizational Culture, at least in this context, becomes the vehicle by which the Organization brings new members into its fold. Rather than being the collective manifestation of a group of individuals, Organizational Culture is an a-personal force that produces a uniformity of goal, method, and thought within a group.

Queer Theory is applicable because there always exists someone outside the normal within any give organization. Gender Identity, being particularly personal and often problematic vis-a-vis the hegemonic impetus toward heteronormativity, provides some neat insight into the organizational dynamic. Businesses, Clubs, Corporations, Governments ... these things all create their own "gender" norms or "identity" norms which in turn manifest in their members. I wonder, quite honestly, if the anti-social direction a lot of social groups take of late is not the result of such normatization.

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Well ****, that's much better put than my drivel above.

I also find it interesting that based on your theory that the abnormal identities tend to cluster into counter-culture groups that then create and perpetuate their own norms (ie: Goths, the Punk movement of the 60's&70's, Straight-Edge, even gangs to an odd extent, etc).

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They do. The maxim--"Birds of a feather flock together."--holds much truth in that there's either a biological or instinctive impulse to "be with those like me." We see this in dating and relationship paradigms, particularly as it relates to physical appearance and "race." The impulse for anti-miscegenation laws and behavior isn't so much racism as a manifestation of some core desire for things which are comfortable. "Sameness" provides a level of comfort that "alien" cannot. At least, that's how this works in the "West", so to speak. To think of it politically, nationalism is a manifestation of that desire to be like everyone else, no matter tenuous, arbitrary, or simple the likeness might be. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-colonialism]Post-Colonial Theory[/i], particular as it relates to nomad cultures in a post-empire/post-colonial region, covers a lot of ground on this subject. Obviously, Queer Theory applies as well because we're dealing with boundaries and cross-pollination of value sets. To put it back in terms of counter-cultures and sub-cultures, they are not so much identity sets until themselves but attempts to accept that which is different into the broader group. It is, interestingly enough, a problem unique to socially and ethnically heterogeneous society such as Western Europe and the United States. The nomad, in particular, becomes of interest because boundary concepts don't exist within said societies and cultures. Nomadic peoples and individuals move where life takes them (quite literally). Consequently, the Western compulsion to establish borders and countries created a foreigness in the nomad not present in run-of-the-mill ethnic xenophobia. The nomad is dangerous not because they represent someone different, but because the nomad by default must exist outside the thought-constructs and thought-rules of bordered societies.

Going back to organizations, the institutional nomad becomes either a pariah or a prophet. Because they can traverse the rule sets and normatives of a given organization without consequence, they either find themselves outside and leaving; or, as if often the case with charismatic and creative individuals, they become the impetus for changing the culture and direction of the organization (this can be either good--think Juan Williams and Fox News; or it can be bad--Vilfredo Pareto and the Italian Government).

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