because you misread butler as saying that pomos are youthful and irrational (and etc.) when she was characterizing what others say. there were a couple other similar misreadings so i just gave up and concluded it was wasted
effort. also? you're not engaged in sympathetic reading: putting the author in the best light possible in order to strengthen their work. again: why should i bother?
You surely don't have to bother, but my question will haunt you long after you have forgotten that I was one of those who posed it. So that's fine. In the meantime, for my part, I take it as confirmed that there is no political project, other than a common or garden liberal one, implicated here. Now, you also accuse me of misreading this:
"So 'postmodernism' appears to be articulated in the form of a fearful conditional or sometimes in the form of paternalistic disdain toward that which is youthful and irrational."
Your interpretation has this as saying that the postmodernists have a paternalistic disdain towards their critics (like me!) who are youthful and irrational. Either you are the one with the wrong interpretation or else Butler is way more deranged than I suspected! But surely you can see that it's the other way round, that the critics are being accused of being paternalistically disdainful and that she is on the side of the (youthful, irrational) angels?
Anyway if this sample that you provided is representative of her work, I have no intention at all of strenghtening it. I rather want it to be allowed to die its natural death.
Tahir
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