[lbo-talk] Butler

[Miles Jackson]

Ted Winslow wrote:
> Robert Wood asked:
>
>   
>> Uh, Ted, to use the oldest and most cliched phrases from any grad  
>> school
>> class, could you unpack this?
>>     
>
> It's the same question as before.
>
> You claim that "knowledge needs a conceptual framework in order to be  
> produced" by which I understand you to mean that there are many  
> "knowledges" each one "produced" (in a sense that excludes any form of  
> self-determination let alone the rational self-determination  
> elaborated by Engels in the passage from Anti-Duhring) by "regulative  
> discourses,"  "frameworks of  intelligibility," "disciplinary regimes."
>
> But, you don't treat the "knowledge" you attribute to Butler in this  
> way, e.g. the "knowledge" that:
>
> "Fundamentally, heterosexuality is not an 'urge.'  Its a set of  
> knowledges and institutional structures that structure society."
>
> You characterize it as the "product" of "rational argument."  This is  
> self-contradictory.
>
>   
Well, it would be self-contradictory if--Butler argued that her 
discourse was privileged knowledge "outside" the realm of institutional 
and discursive structures!  However, time and time again, Butler points 
out that her own discourse is situated in a social context; it is not 
the product of free floating "rational argument".   Indeed, the whole 
notion that there can be some kind of pure, rational argument that is 
not a part of institutional and discursive structures is exactly the 
misconception that Butler is trying to bring to our attention.

Miles