[lbo-talk] Gender, Performance, Performativity (Rise of anti-democratic liberalism)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>[lbo-talk] Re: Rise of anti-democratic liberalism
>Ted Winslow egwinslow at rogers.com
>Sat Jun 19 12:33:11 PDT 2004
>
>Ian asked:
>
>>Why should "structuralism" need an ethical doctrine at all?
>
>By "ethical doctrine" I meant only the ethical conclusions deducible 
>from a given set of ontological premises, i.e. moral relativism is 
>an "ethical doctrine" in this sense.
>
>The conclusion that I ought to choose to be tolerant or that I ought 
>not to choose to be cruel can't be consistently deduced from 
>ontological premises that have no logical space for either choice or 
>ethical criteria on which to base choice.
>
>Butler's idea of "performativity," for instance, has no logical 
>space for the idea of a "will proper."  It "contests the very notion 
>of the subject": "There is no 'I' that can stand apart from the 
>prevailing moral matrix."
>
>>It is important to distinguish performance from performativity: the 
>>former presumes a subject, but the latter contests the very notion 
>>of the subject. The place where I try to clarify this is toward the 
>>beginning of my essay "Critically Queer", in Bodies that Matter, I 
>>begin with the Foucauldian premise that power works in part through 
>>discourse and it works in part to produce and destabilise subjects. 
>>But then, when one starts to think carefully about how discourse 
>>might be said to produce a subject, it's clear that one's already 
>>talking about a certain figure or trope of production. It is at 
>>this point that it's useful to turn to the notion of 
>>performativity, and  performative speech acts in particular - 
>>understood as those speech acts that bring into being that which 
>>they name. This is the moment in which discourse becomes productive 
>>in a fairly specific way. So what I'm trying to do is think about 
>>the performativity as that aspect of discourse that has the 
>>capacity to produce what it names. Then I take a further step, 
>>through the Derridean rewriting of Austin, and suggest that this 
>>production actually always happens through a certain kind of 
>>repetition and recitation. So if you want the ontology of this, I 
>>guess performativity is the vehicle through which ontological 
>>effects are established. Performativity is the discursive mode by 
>>which  ontological effects are installed. Something like that. 
>><http://www.theory.org.uk/but-int1.htm>
>
>But she makes ethical claims that contradict this idea.
>
>>Judith Butler GRD '84, a well-known theorist of power, gender and 
>>identity, spoke in front of an audience of about 150 at the Whitney 
>>Humanities Center Monday about her recent philosophical research on 
>>ethical violence and theories of individual moral and ethical 
>>responsibility.
>>
>>Butler touched on the inherent tensions between morality and social 
>>situations.
>>
>>She talked about the notion of subject formation -- how individuals 
>>form themselves in relation to certain social norms -- mentioning 
>>that individuals are embedded within certain social contexts and 
>>social norms influence people's moral principles.
>>
>>"There is no 'I' that can stand apart from the prevailing moral 
>>matrix," Butler said.
>>
>>Butler said she thinks a moral theories based on personal will can 
>>become morally "narcissitic" because the world is full of 
>>"unwilled" things. She said she thinks it is problematic for people 
>>to apply moral frameworks or social norms to their daily lives in 
>>situations in which the norms are no longer applicable.
>>
>>"When the collective ethos is no longer shared, it can only impose 
>>claims to commonality through violent means," Butler said. "[The 
>>precepts] are dead things that are circulating among the living." 
>><http://yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=23680>
>
>If "there is no 'I' that can stand apart from the prevailing moral 
>matrix," then there is no 'I' that can "apply moral frameworks or 
>social norms to their daily lives in situations in which the norms 
>are no longer applicable" and no 'I' that "can only impose claims to 
>commonality through violent means."  Moreover, the premises do not 
>provide ethical criteria on which to base an ethical judgment of the 
>"perfomative act" of "imposing claims to commonality through violent 
>means."

Since Judith Butler originally developed her thoughts on performance 
and performativity by thinking about gender, it may be easier to 
clarify them if we use examples about gender.

An example of what Butler calls performativity is that we have no 
choice but to perform _a_ gender in the world we live in, regardless 
of what we think about the morality of performing one and of dividing 
human beings into genders to begin with (even though human beings in 
the unforeseeable future may come to live in a world that does not 
divide them into genders).

Examples of what Butler calls performance may be that a person can 
adjust how he or she performs his or her gender (e.g., choosing to 
wear or not to wear makeup, consciously or unconsciously); that a 
person can switch from performing one gender to another (e.g., from 
performing man to performing woman, as a matter of choice or as the 
situation demands it); that a group of persons can change the social 
norms and symbolic meanings about each gender and relations between 
them; and that a group of persons can invent a new gender (e.g., the 
new category called "transgendered").

Performativity is a matter of history, incomprehensible in the 
register of moral choices of individuals.  Changing performance, in 
contrast, is possible through collective political organizing; and it 
is even feasible to adjust performance through individual choices 
(moral or aesthetic) to a limited extent.
-- 
Yoshie

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