hey folks,
some time ago, mark laffey wrote:
"Butler plies between this Scylla and Charybdis by granting that although "the subject is socially constructed", "this does not mean the erasure of agency". Ok, at least I can begin to see the fog lifting."
and brad (i think), exasperatingly replied:
"It's amazing how much progress we have made since the 1852 formulation that "[people] make their own history, but not under circumstances of their own choosing..." "
- elsewhere, i have the vaguest recollection that mark also mentioned the body/subject distinction, but only really mentioned. i also have a recollection that some of the discussion of butler has presumed that she is asserting a thoroughly social constructionist position, or that she is - in another sense - concerned with the distinction and interplay between agency and subject.
i think these ways of framing the discussion actually tells us much about how various people - including me - have defined or used the phrase 'socially constructed'. some think of it as implying that for something to be socially constructed entails the possibility of social reconstruction/deconstruction, hence the possibility of freedom, where - and this is important - nature is defined as the realm of constraint. in the second instance, some have a slightly different take on this - hence the substitution of 'socially determined' in place of the more affable-looking 'socially constructed'.
now, i think these definitions are evident in butler's work itself, and often she raises some really credible questions about them.
there are also certain attached definitions at work in our disussion so far: like, would we define the social as the space of constraint unless we are signaling, quite heavily me thinks, that we - unless this 'we' also includes various shades of naturalisms, whom i don't think have made themselves known as such here - that the individual is implied as the space of freedom, that the individual is agent?
but that's a secondary, even if interesting point, for me at least.
what i am maybe more interested in is in addressing butler's notion of the relation between mind and body, which is pretty much what occupies her as far as i can see, variously defined and figured, but always there as theme. butler is interesting for the reason that she knows the problems associated with seeing either nature/body or society/mind (and how problematic these links are...) as easily separable and mutually reinforcing definitions.
but - kelley, you there? - i reckon butler makes a final commitment to the mind side of this. repetition, citation, performativity, are all - anyone can correct me if i'm wrong - strategies of the mind that have effects on the body, and moreover, resistance is located within the mode of appearance, appearances challenge essence ssences?). }kelley: i'm still thinking thru your mention of excess, and was thinking of this in terms of adorno's 'preponderance of the object', zizek's 'kernel of the real', and maybe you're right; this is a way out of the impasse, but not one butler would agree with. (i'm still looking to see if she talks about this in terms of essence and appearance. does she?)
i guess, for me, it comes down to trying to not think of the mind-body (or nature-society) distinction/relation as always a distinction between essence and appearance, or to effect a definition of nature which hides the necessary internality of culture/society, or - conversely - a definition of society in which nature is regarded as external to nature, to be conquered, overcome, etc. no doubt, this means we would have to abandon a notion of nature as fixed, and (maybe here's the hard bit for all of us - like moi - who were reared on social constructivism) a characterisation of society as mutability.
any thoughts? (doug if you wanna quote zizek again, i certainly won't think it too much; nor kierkegaard from kelley, nor anyone else from anyone else...)
angela