Trump's Card

[Nefertiti2]

I would be very happy to have achieved a fifth as much as Judith Butler has- or to express myself one tenth as well.

[Nefertiti2]

Having some time in the company of such people, I'm increasingly of the opinion that they often go out of their way to make their work inaccessible. They also often seem to think they've discovered something new when they really haven't.
.

What a ridiculous generalisation

I can't say if the second part applies to Butler - as you say, she is regarded as essential and I certainly agree that gender is a perplexing phenomena worthy of study - but I find her writing style is just terrible. People smarter than me have found that too. Perhaps it is just my limitation, but she's hardly the only example so I think it isn't just my fault.

Well why say it, then?

[Lang Spoon]

This thread has taken a turn for the weird.

[ursus arctos]

Not for the first time, nor, I expect, the last.

This is an interesting piece on apparent gaps in the wording of 45's pardons by a former senior member of Mueller's team.

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1353535312627163136

[anton pulisov]

Having some time in the company of such people, I'm increasingly of the opinion that they often go out of their way to make their work inaccessible. They also often seem to think they've discovered something new when they really haven't. I suppose the pressure of publishing in academia is largely to blame for that.

Yeah the people in my field (Earth Sciences) certainly do that. It's infuriating.

[Hot Pepsi]

Well, they might have the excuse that they don't know how to write and its inherently very technical. But when I see people holding tenure in English departments writing like that, I dispare a bit.

[laverte]

i have only read Gender trouble, Bodies that matter, and a little of Butler's stuff about Palestine. (i haven't read this piece in the Guardian.) i find her writing complex but clear. Sometimes i will need to re-read a sentence or a paragraph one or even two times, but once i've grasped what she's saying, it is crystal clear: there is no ambiguity and no possibility of misunderstanding through sloppy or opaque writing. Sometimes it can feel a little laboured because it is working so hard to be clear, but it is neither dense nor abstruse.

When i have tried to read some of the 'obscurantist' academics she's compared to – Spivak, Bhobha, Derrida – at times i feel as though i'm trudging through thick mud. With Butler, never. Yes, sometimes it's like following a tiny thread of silk through light and shadow: it is certainly demanding. But perhaps because i have read around the subject a little, i don't get lost in the way i do with, say, Deleuze, another clear-but-complex writer, whose linguistic palette is too abstract for me.

i wonder what Donald Trump's thoughts are on Capitalism and schizophrenia.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Well, they might have the excuse that they don't know how to write and its inherently very technical. But when I see people holding tenure in English departments writing like that, I dispare a bit.

Excellent typo.

[Hot Pepsi]

Excellent typo.

You know, I wrote that and knew it was wrong, but for a moment, I couldn't recall the right way to spell it so I just let it go.

That's happening a lot lately. Not the "letting it go" part, but the complete brain cramp on simple things.

[anton pulisov]

I wouldn't assume that tenure at a prestigious university necessarily has anything to do with being good at anything. There might even be an inverse correlation. This is just my cynical view of academia.

As for Butler's books, I haven't read them, and nor am I a specialist in her field, so have no idea about her really.

[Hot Pepsi]

i have only read Gender trouble, Bodies that matter, and a little of Butler's stuff about Palestine. (i haven't read this piece in the Guardian.) i find her writing complex but clear. Sometimes i will need to re-read a sentence or a paragraph one or even two times, but once i've grasped what she's saying, it is crystal clear: there is no ambiguity and no possibility of misunderstanding through sloppy or opaque writing. Sometimes it can feel a little laboured because it is working so hard to be clear, but it is neither dense nor abstruse.

When i have tried to read some of the 'obscurantist' academics she's compared to – Spivak, Bhobha, Derrida – at times i feel as though i'm trudging through thick mud. With Butler, never. Yes, sometimes it's like following a tiny thread of silk through light and shadow: it is certainly demanding. But perhaps because i have read around the subject a little, i don't get lost in the way i do with, say, Deleuze, another clear-but-complex writer, whose linguistic palette is too abstract for me.

i wonder what Donald Trump's thoughts are on Capitalism and schizophrenia.

Perhaps I just don't care enough to work that hard. Perhaps I should.

[Amor de Cosmos]

You know, I wrote that and knew it was wrong, but for a moment, I couldn't recall the right way to spell it so I just let it go.

That's happening a lot lately. Not the "letting it go" part, but the complete brain cramp on simple things.

Welcome to the aging process. At least two or three times a day I can't remember how to spell a relatively simple word, or can't even recall the word I'm looking for. I deliberately concentrate on going with the occasion, instead of worrying about it, as the latter achieves nothing. The mind, even in its decline, is truly amazing.

[Nefertiti2]

i have only read Gender trouble, Bodies that matter, and a little of Butler's stuff about Palestine. (i haven't read this piece in the Guardian.) i find her writing complex but clear. Sometimes i will need to re-read a sentence or a paragraph one or even two times, but once i've grasped what she's saying, it is crystal clear: there is no ambiguity and no possibility of misunderstanding through sloppy or opaque writing. Sometimes it can feel a little laboured because it is working so hard to be clear, but it is neither dense ...

Yes, sometimes it's like following a tiny thread of silk through light and shadow: it is certainly demanding. But perhaps because i have read around the subject a little, i don't get lost...

that’s a beautiful and very clear piece of writing in itself

[wingco]

Agreed.

[Hot Pepsi]

I was definitely smarter in a lot of ways when I was younger, but I'm a lot wiser now, which more than compensates, in my opinion. Of course, it I were trying to be a world class mathematician or chess champion, that might be a problem, but it's ok.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I was definitely smarter in a lot of ways when I was younger, but I'm a lot wiser now, which more than compensates, in my opinion.

Absolutely.

[Satchmo Distel]

Dominion is suing Giuliani.

[laverte]

Thank you, Nef and wingco.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that they often go out of their way to make their work inaccessible.

This doesn't apply to Butler so much, but with other postcolonial and queer writers, there's a sense in which they are writing to alter language itself. The 'linguistic turn' in theory means that we now see language as part of the ideological apparatus of power. Writing against power implies that we must also be writing against language. That can involve making new words, emptying out old ones and refilling them with a new meaning, or messing around with grammar and syntax. When the meaning is supposed to jar – to make us stop and rethink what we thought we knew – perhaps the form should too.

i should say, on this matter, that i generally find myself more receptive to the theory than to the practice.

Perhaps I just don't care enough to work that hard. Perhaps I should.

i don't think should enters into it. i wanted to read Butler because her ideas had been cited in other, less highbrow works that i had read, which i wanted to agree with. But without having seen her argument first-hand, i wasn't sure i had enough of a grasp of it to be able to cite and it and use it confidently (eg, in arguing against transphobes, or in trying to make sense of my own discomfort wrt my sex and gender). Some people would be able just to take her ideas on trust: they would make sense straight away. Others may have no need to go further than understanding the gist of her main arguments. i think she's an important enough figure that we should know broadly what she has contributed to the discourse around gender (which many of us already do without realising it*). But i reckon it's possible to let other writers do the difficult work of reading Butler, and to draw on their simpler and more accessible interpretations, without feeling that you have missed out on something vital.

i wonder what Donald Trump's thoughts are on The limits of performativity.

*The word performative appears many times in this thread about Trump. It owes its ubiquity to Butler, who uses it in reference to gender: we 'perform' masculinity and femininty through repeatedly and semi-obliviously enacting a 'script' of how men and women should be. It was on OTF that i began noticing how the meaning had mutated from this Butlerian usage to one that implies a much more cynical and deceptive motivation, akin to masquerade. It's tempting to see the trajectory of this word – which, before Butler, had mostly been used to describe correctly functioning machinery – as a potted history of America over the last 75 years.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Thank you, laverte - that last post in particular I found really useful. Helpful.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yes. Thank you laverte.

Also, I'm sure that I'm one of the people who's (mis?)used performative most on this thread. I had no idea that it had an earlier and different meaning in modern discourse. It seemed like a very clear word to describe what was happening. Ted Cruz's outrage at election results is not a sincerely held belief. It is purely an act. So I think of it as a performance. Is there a better term to use, then, than "performative outrage" to describe what the act that right-wing opinion-shapers do, massively over-egging puddings in order to go puce with rage* at nothingnesses or trivialities in order to drive enthusiasm amongst a base that thrives off resentment.

* I've decided that this isn't a mixed metaphor. An over-egged pudding will be full of cholesterol and therefore likely to increase blood pressure.

[ursus arctos]

Yes, another outstanding post. Especially impressive given the weekend's disappointment.

I'm afraid that insincerity has become an essential element of "performative" behaviour in current USian discourse, particularly in the political realm.

It is far from the first term whose meaning has been twisted in that context.

[wingco]

So, I'm wondering at what stage the state cases against Trump are? Are they already in motion, were they waiting for him to step down on the 20th, or might they wait until after impeachment?

[ursus arctos]

Several of the New York cases have been underway for well over a year and appear to have gained a bit of pace after the election. The Dekalb County (Atlanta) prosecutor is also actively investigating possible state charges over the "you gotta find some votes" call to the Secretary of State in early January.

There really is no legal reason why other prosecutors would wait for the impeachment trial, though it is possible that some may feel more comfortable going forward if he is convicted.

[laverte]

Thank you, comrades.

Also, I'm sure that I'm one of the people who's (mis?)used performative most on this thread. I had no idea that it had an earlier and different meaning in modern discourse. It seemed like a very clear word to describe what was happening. Ted Cruz's outrage at election results is not a sincerely held belief. It is purely an act. So I think of it as a performance. Is there a better term to use, then, than "performative outrage" to describe what the act that right-wing opinion-shapers do, massively over-egging puddings in order to go puce with rage* at nothingnesses or trivialities in order to drive enthusiasm amongst a base that thrives off resentment.

This is a really interesting question. And a difficult one.

First off, i don't think you're misusing the word performative. The boat has surely sailed on that. What's more, i agree with you that it fits well with what it is now used to mean. Indeed, it builds on elements of its early, pre-Butlerian meaning, in that the performance (the show, the masquerade) is performative (it functions efficiently, it produces what it is supposed to produce).

It's probably inevitable that any theoretical term which enters the popular discourse will have its meaning altered or diluted. The danger here is that Butler's concept of gender performativity is going to be misunderstood as a Trumpian charade that's empty, artificial and designed to mislead. In the context of trans politics, that could have awful consequences. We are already seeing this sense of performative being applied by the right wing, disparagingly, to young people in their quest to find a language that describes their gender.

Having said that, queer politics have probably been around for long enough now that we don't need the word performativity to describe what it is that Butler has conceptualised. The old idea that 'sex' precedes and determines 'gender' is on its way out, and many of the people who take for granted the dislocation between the two have never come across the word performative as Butler uses it.

i wonder what Donald Trump's thoughts are on the irony of Butler's anti-hegemonic ideas developing a kind of hegemony of their own, to the extent that the language she introduces in them might be turned against its intended meaning, without disrupting the widespread adoption of the ideas themselves!

Yes, another outstanding post. Especially impressive given the weekend's disappointment.

That's very kind, but i have no idea what you're talking about. Zero. [Fingers in ears] la la la la.

[Hot Pepsi]

Thank you, Nef and wingco.



This doesn't apply to Butler so much, but with other postcolonial and queer writers, there's a sense in which they are writing to alter language itself. The 'linguistic turn' in theory means that we now see language as part of the ideological apparatus of power. Writing against power implies that we must also be writing against language. That can involve making new words, emptying out old ones and refilling them with a new meaning, or messing around with grammar and syntax. When the meaning is supposed to jar – to make us stop and rethink what we thought we knew – perhaps the form should too.

i should say, on this matter, that i generally find myself more receptive to the theory than to the practice.

I think that's a generous way of looking at it. I just think they're either bad writers - a lot of smart people are. It isn't easy. Or they feel pressure to use a lot of jargon and use eight words when one will do. I've heard lots of anecdotes of papers being rejected by reviewers because they thought it needed more "theory" - especially if that theory is the reviewers favorite - or recommended more convoluted sentence constructions.

i don't think should enters into it. i wanted to read Butler because her ideas had been cited in other, less highbrow works that i had read, which i wanted to agree with. But without having seen her argument first-hand, i wasn't sure i had enough of a grasp of it to be able to cite and it and use it confidently (eg, in arguing against transphobes, or in trying to make sense of my own discomfort wrt my sex and gender). Some people would be able just to take her ideas on trust: they would make sense straight away. Others may have no need to go further than understanding the gist of her main arguments. i think she's an important enough figure that we should know broadly what she has contributed to the discourse around gender (which many of us already do without realising it*). But i reckon it's possible to let other writers do the difficult work of reading Butler, and to draw on their simpler and more accessible interpretations, without feeling that you have missed out on something vital.

I just don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by getting their pronouns wrong. Ideally, I'd like to understand why pronouns are so important and why we aren't just all switching to "they" but that may be beyond me right now.

i wonder what Donald Trump's thoughts are on The limits of performativity.

*The word performative appears many times in this thread about Trump. It owes its ubiquity to Butler, who uses it in reference to gender: we 'perform' masculinity and femininty through repeatedly and semi-obliviously enacting a 'script' of how men and women should be. It was on OTF that i began noticing how the meaning had mutated from this Butlerian usage to one that implies a much more cynical and deceptive motivation, akin to masquerade. It's tempting to see the trajectory of this word – which, before Butler, had mostly been used to describe correctly functioning machinery – as a potted history of America over the last 75 years.

That is a good point. My understanding is that Butler didn't mean to necessarily suggest that there was something especially wrong with performing those scripts - depending on the specifics, of course - but now that "performative" has come to mean "insincere or cynical," some people might read her that way. Do I have that about right?