[lbo-talk] Butler

[Seth Ackerman]

wrobert at uci.edu wrote:
>> Materiality and reality aren't being used as synonyms here, they're just
>> being put in analogous positions.
>>     
>
>      The problem is that they aren't even analogies.  If you took the
> trouble to read the broader argument, you would realize that Butler
> is stating that the meaningfulness of sex is not accessible through
> 'materiality', rather it is discourse that makes the body meaningful
> by transforming that 'matter' into something meaningful.  

That's true, she is saying that - but that's not all she's saying.

If she were just arguing that things in the world can't be apprehended 
directly but only through constructed patterns of thought, the argument 
would be incontestable. But that's closer to the position of the 
"moderate critic" she's arguing against.

What she is really saying is that it is in some sense "not right" to 
talk about any extra-discursive "sex" because in doing so we presuppose 
that we can distinguish between an extra-discursive "sex" and a socially 
constructed "sex." Since her epistemological position is that we can't 
do this, she wants us to strictly abjure any attempt to talk about 
extra-discursive sex. My point was: Try doing that with the gas chambers 
and see how far you're willing to take your epistemology.

Seth