It's no wonder, as Wendy Brown points out, that suffering has always been the barometer of authenticity, and authenticity has in turn become proof of identity. Your bleeding wound is the evidence that allows you to name yourself part of a group; shared wounds have historically been the impetus for political solidarity. Movements are brotherhoods of suffering that gather numbers and grow, forming the bonds that are the basis of our politics, our shared homes. But for Brown, this increased focus on the shared wound also yields the compulsive policing of membership in any given identity group. It can become an unnecessary distraction. It can prevent us from focusing our energies against the process of the wounding. It stops us from detecting and addressing the structural and historical elements that harmed us in the first place