In the beginning of the essay, she wrote of many of her apprehensions on speaking out (so to speak) on the subject of lesbianism. Yet she also addresses the need for the consideration of theory within politics.
If the political task is to show that theory is never merely theoria, in the sense of disengaged contemplation, and to insist that is it fully political (phronesis or even praxis), the why not simply call this operation politics, or some necessary permutation of it.(366)
I think here she is recognizing that what she is asking of us is pretty “radical” to the dominant collective understanding of relation between democracy and ethics. Maybe though what she is asking of us is to understand fundamentally that the notion of “coming out” should be viewed as a coming out of hiding and into the whole of society: “...so we are out of the closet, but into what?” (367) Because being kept “in” a closet assumes that those within it are assuming some sort of performative gesture in order to look like the heterosexual “original.” When we move out of the closet, however, we just simply move out into another space, another aspect of our identity.
Through a series of inversions, Butler demonstrates that there is no proper “origin” to sexuality. She aims to sort of “level the playing field,” and subtract all “derivatives” of the notion of sexuality so that neither heterosexuality or homosexuality can be viewed as basically normal, natural, or good.
She also refutes the idea that it is repetition which makes a certain identifying characteristic of oneself. A repetition, a constant reaffirmation, inherently means it the repeating act can be threatened, interrupted, or as Todd put it in class, irrelevant.
It is precisely the repetition of hat play that establishes as well the instability of the very category that it constitutes. For if the “I” is a sire of repetition of itself, the the I is always displaced by the very repetition that sustains it. In other words, does or can the “I” every repeat itself, cite itself, faithfully, or is there always a displacement from its former moment that establishes the permanently non-self-identical status of that “I” or its being lesbian. (369)
The point here is that we can't really look at identity in this way. There is no one thing that is the basis which underlies who you are. Sexuality, Butler argues, cannot be the fundamental aspect of identity. The simple fact is, people change in any span of time. What about eating breakfast or sitting in class has anything to do with your sexuality. At that point, sexuality has no bearing whatsoever on who you are.
Self identity is agreeably understood as fluid and unstable. It is impossible to place “I” in any category conclusively yet society thrives on labeling and defining based on narrow simplistic perceptions and assumptions. To consider that each person is playing a “role” and participating in a “performance” or a “string of performances” (369), then what differentiates one act from the next? There is not an identical reenactment and these alterations that occur from one act to the next, or from one role to the next, constitutes the instability of self identity. Although each person is constantly shifting roles, assuming or rejecting titles, or confirming or escaping “closets,” repetition offers familiarity, comfort, and understanding of oneself. Butler doesn’t refute repetition as a crucial component in self identification, but she just addresses its paradoxical function as both affirmation and erosion of the “I.”
ReplyDeleteThe differentiations between moments in these performances are why we are not always identified by our sexuality. The roles we assume are constantly shifting, overlapping, emerging, and escaping. We are not always playing the role of the sexual performer, but we can still remain secure in our sexuality because this role will reemerge and repeat. Adolescents might feel insecure with themselves and their bodies because they have not experienced repetition nor have they discovered all the extensive roles that they will perform.
Repetition can be better understood as the tool by which we assemble the idea, the identity, of “I.” Repetition is essentially habit; one who habitually reads is a reader; one who habitually paints, is a painter; and one who habitually sleeps with someone of the same sex is gay. Apart from professional titles, we refer to terms and labels everyday to express and explain ourselves. The “I” might just be a culmination of labels, an eternal rotation of “closets.”
I think this is a really good explanation of the "function" of repetition, or how it relates to identity, but I don't think I would call it a "tool." A tool sort of elicits this idea that we consciously choose to use it for a certain purpose. Repetition in behavior, whether inherent or willed, is an unavoidable "fact of life" for lack of a better idiom. But if you go about making yourself or choosing to repeat certain activities, wouldn't that make you a sort of phony? Artists create repeatedly because they have an innate urge to do so, not because they want to be an artist. This goes for any activity, including homosexual behavior. I might engage in multiple sexual acts with a woman, but would that necessarily mean that I ought to identify myself as a lesbian, or even bisexual?
ReplyDeleteThis arguement sort of relates to Sarte's "en soi" and "pour soi." (Bryan can help me out with this) "En soi" (in itself) is the part of wo/man that cannot be changed, is unaffected by the world outside of his/herself. This part cannot adhere to any label. On the other hand, "pour soi" (for itself) is the part that can be interpreted,the part outside of us and affected by others. To live "pour soi" is an example of inauthentic freedom, or "bad faith," in that you are willingly confining yourself to a certain identity or character.
Your personal identity is comprised of certain activities and choices--some original, some repeated--but can you ever really say, or rather WANT to say, that much of who you are is a repetition? How boring. Grounding yourself in these repetitions would be to reject your own freedom. Labels are a tool used by those outside of oneself so that they may differentiate who they are from who you are, thus creating an "other."
I would somewhat agree with you Hannah that certain aspects of Sartre would seem to indicate this. Sartre actually uses an example of a man who has erotic relations with men but should this make him gay? Not necessarily, precisely because that acts or desires do not ever make up the 'what' of human existence.
ReplyDeleteIf one takes it that sexuality is inherent (genetic, evolutionarily determined), then this would be the 'fact' (facticity) of one's existence but you still may act or not, desire or not, etc.
But this is what Butler takes to task. Precisely the issue of a repetitive performance that one could just act out or choose not to. Just as in a play an actor cannot constantly change whole pages of script so too would it be quite difficult not to just act out on one's deep-seated 'habit' (repetitive act), especially if the repetition on an inherence related to sexuality.
But that's why I don't think either Butler or Sartre would argue sexuality as inherent. Sartre never can be said to just dualistically divide Mind/free human-being (for-itself) from Body/determined, inherent nature (en-soi).
A human-being can never be reducible to one or the other. The human's "natural" sexuality is precisely the contingency of the acts that are repetitive and the importance historical forces that situate certain desires that may appear as innate causes. We are both en-soi and pour-soi (being and nothingness) that is: performers engaged in performances.
This is a great conversation about Butler's piece.
ReplyDeleteHannah, when you say: "To a certain degree, we all accept certain feminine or masculine norms that we can confidently assign as being truly feminine or masculine."—Shouldn't we modify this to say "To a uncertain degree, we all accept uncertain feminine or masculine norms that we can only confidently assign as being partly feminine or masculine."? Do you see what I mean here? Isn't Butler's point that these very labels never have the certainty or truth value that we assume we can assign to them? They always, as it were, involve a fundamental instability. This is what allows the play of changes that you all refer to at one point or another in your comments. We can change from eating cereal to reading to having sex; we can also change who we have sex with; we can also change how we think about things. No labels would be adequate to cement or guarantee one's identity at any point in this sequence. Identity is contingent, never 'certain'—but not any less significant for this contingency or uncertainty. Rather, we might even post that identity needs instability, which I think is what (in part) Butler is suggesting.
As for repetition, it isn't so much that it constricts 'freedom', but rather that repetition is what *makes* 'freedom' even possible. So, to take a somewhat crude example, you are free to write anything you like, based on a system of repetition that allows these words to mean something (and not be gibberish). Of course I am free to make gibberish too, like "djfdojfoiwjernjfsd"—but this, too, is shaped *as gibberish* by the repetitions of language around it, by the fact that we can recognize those letters as *not* a word in English (and words happen through repetition). So the repetition is not a confining force, but rather it is that which is *in* performance, that which lets performance *perform*, as it were.