Carrol Cox replies:
There is a way to test such propositions as this. Take a page or two of
> Butler and rewrite it. Then write an analysis of the two texts
> demonstrating that the rewrite does not change the meaning of the
> original. Even if that exercise were successful, however, it would not
> establish what is ordinarily claimed to be the _purpose_ of such
> (hypothetically unnecessary) obscurity. You write, for example: "Much of
> the technical language and obscure prose used by authors, even those who
> think of themselves as being on the left, exists to enforce a kind of
> intellectual exclusivity or to promote academic reputation." Possibly,
> but I'm not sure how you could demonstrate that these are the motives of
> the writer, unless you are capable of mind reading or can strap the
> writer down and administer sodium penatol.
This is a great test in theory. In practice, when you re-write Judith Butler in real, de-mystified language and reveal the hidden circularity and unsound assumptions, you are immediately attacked by those who claim you have stripped the text of meaning (want to re-mystify, in my view). Language is not algebra, or at least it's not a very good algebra and you can't just re-shuffle it. As in poetry, all writing can be done with an eye to maximum suggestion and implication. Suggestion, of course, is the stuff of persuasion. Implication is also important. In political theory, an author who mentions a part of a concept (even an uncontroversial part) is attacked by the opponents of the whole concept and proponents of the whole concept.
Carrol himself demonstrates this. When he says that LBO is anti-Stalinist, people who have publicly decried the vast majority of Stalin's policies are suddenly defensive, lest they be thought of as anti-Marxist in some way.
And so political theory writers are driven to a higher and higher level of abstraction and complex grammar so that they show people just how their ideas align among the constellation of leftist icons and taboos - and, to be honest, to mystify their critics. Finally you get a Judith Butler who seems to have taken this style of writing and made it a purpose in itself.
To critique her writing, as Carrol suggests, you have to re-write it, carefully undoing all the tightly-curled structure without breaking the tissue-paper-thin connections. Butler can make bold statements because in any given passage she'll get from proposition to conclusion three different ways. And because of the multiple levels of abstractions, she is able to use one of the most common devices in political theory writing which is basically pasting together maps of different scales to form a picture. Direct connections are thus "compared" with indirect, meandering connections.
So, you criticize what some revolutionary group wants today and you will be answered by people who cite their eventual, possible role in the dialiectic - a direct connection is compared with a meandering one - different time and probability scales are elided and conflated. But all's fair in love and war - politics.
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