Academic code

I remember the first time I wrote something about 'inner' or 'private' here I felt as though I had violated some kind of academic code. I've been trained to look carefully at binaries such as inner/outer, or private/public, and to notice how what they're supposed to refer to often falls apart when you just stop to think about it for a minute.

But critical insight of this kind can also be deeply undermining. It may be true that what might be experienced as 'inner' is entirely made up of concepts, rules and mores from society and culture; or that much of what was once seen as private is now smeared across the internet, assessed by institutions, or stored on a database somewhere. But critique of 'inner' doesn't remove the sense of it.

'Inner' has no clear edges, no fixed form. But it knows itself nonetheless...