Thank you, Steve. That's the most intelligent comment I've seen on this list in some time.
Butler fans, reflect on this for a moment: "Capital trembles in its boots every time the name Judith Butler is mentioned." Notice how ludicrous that sounds? But substitute the words "Karl Marx" for "Judith Butler" and you have a real statement. Marx has scared the bejeezus out of capitalists for well over a century -- even now -- because he was not only brilliant but could, in his essential message, be understood.
We're talking *politics* here, gang -- not course credit, not tenure track.
Championing Butler and her ilk is not going to get the left back on the political map. BUTLER IS A *GIFT* TO THE RIGHT, a pop fly -- a writer so easily ridiculed that the left will be jeered off the stage so long as it wastes its few resources defending her and her ilk.
More than two centuries later, people still quote and are moved by the Declaration of Independence because its philosophical points could be clearly understood: "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." etc. What banner do you propose is suitable to rally under for Judith Butler?
When the left mattered to some degree, it's because it was able to bring laser-like focus on the real injustices of the world. Today, all too much of the "left" consists of wonky little dweebs playing word games.
The left has a great opportunity before it, and you're staring right at it -- the Web. The Web is something new under the sun. Potentially, it's something that can, for the first time, give the left critical mass in reaching out to huge numbers of people. But to do that, you got to have inspiring messages. I don't see that evolving from the pursuit of obscurity that Butler & Co. symbolize.
Carl Remick