Abject Judy

[Jim heartfield]

In message <v04011719b2935ca916f0@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>Jim heartfield wrote:
>
>>In 'Gender Imitation and subobordination' (reproduced in C Lemert's
>>Collection Social Theory, 1991) Judith Butler critiques the positions of
>>objectification (bad, obviously) subjectivity (bad she says because it
>>implies objectification of others, of which I am not convinced) and then
>>raises a third way, which avoids both of these traps...
>>
>>...the 'abject'.
>
>Hmm, I thought the abject was necessary for a dominant regime to function
>as a norm, and if the abject refused/played with their abjection it would
>fuck things up.

I've lent my copy out so I can't quote chapter and verse, but that's not
what I read there. It's subordination that you play with, abjection is
the play.

Maybe I'm making too much of the terms, but the meaning seemed to be
that resistance is futile. The 'abject' seems to me to be no alternative
at all, except an alternative to resistance.

-- 
Jim heartfield