In this weeks readings, we are introduced to a range of ideas and theories that I found to be very interrelated. The readings for the Case essay were especially intriguing. The way in which she uses the mythos of the vampire for an analogy to the lesbian experience. There were three main ways in which this metaphor functions. The first, which she opens the essay with, is that of referring to the hurling of the term queer as an insult. She equates this to a physical wound that is the mark of interaction with a vampire. Thereby, both the vampire and the "queer" are created by a wound. Most interesting to me, was that she also made the connection that this wound, on both sides of the analogy, was the locus of the desire associated with it. This seems to be the most insightful idea in this portion of the comparison.
The next association came in the practice of the discontinuation of life as well as the contamination of blood. To skim, typical vampire mythology has them dying and returning in a post-life state with specific ramifications, notably here the need to consume living blood. The basis of Case's argument was in what she described as the unnatural quality that sterile homosexual sex had long been demonized with. Because of this inability for the act to procreate, homosexual sex is devoid of the right to life, whereby heterosexual sex has the right to life in the creation of it. The main problems that I had with these arguments came from the fact that homosexual sex is an un-live practice. It does still involve living people. However, I suppose the distinction can be made that it does not directly pass life on. And then again, this can be countered by stating that this is an antiquated view and that there are methods of procreation available for most circumstances. There is also the distinct notion that a vast array of problems can limit the birth capacity of heterosexual couples as well.
The problem of the contamination of the blood by "queers" is a wholly social construct that has basis more in propaganda and xenophobia than fact, especially in case of the AIDS epidemic and how it was blamed at the start on the gay population.
The final comparison was more in tune directly with the lesbian experience. This view was equated to the invisibility of the vampire as well as a lesbian's alleged need to appear normal. While the vampire hides in darkness, it is the lesbian's invisibility that is even more pernicious, inherent in the concept of passing. I found this the most disturbing as it entails the negation of the self. Yet, it is in this that perhaps the best vampire reference can be found. The vampire is the death of one's previous self and the negation of it through something new and destructive.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Extinction of Queer
In reading Foucault's final notions of the body in his terms of the cogency of the power held in controlling death, we can see his (possibly extreme) views on the role of construction of sexuality and the notion of how that might be negatively charged. What this really leads us to is the concept form the Sedgewick readings on queer theory. Foucault's views of allowing the body to be constituted of itself presuppose some of the ideas in Sedgewick. In demanding that the only source of sexuality should be the body (literally) and pleasure, Foucault resists the socio-historical context of sexualities established by an ideological hegemonic apparatus.
If we relate this to Sedgewick then (and I think it's a pretty direct relation), then we can use her views of adopting the term queer. She spends a lot of time on this, with just cause. I really enjoyed the back-up that is described through the deconstructionist view of diction-based or linguistically charged idiosyncrasies and often contingencies within a text as a means of embracing a sense of dissonance. She makes it quite clear in her elaborations upon the precipitous trend in suicides amongst gay teens and adolescents that there is a feeling of going against the grain that comes in conjunction with an identification as homosexual. This same tension in going against the grain seems to be the very source of identification that Sedgewick seems to find in queer theory's application of the deconstructionist method of isolating those minor details and intricacies of excess in terms of the over all plot arc and theme of a text.
Compiled with the reader response revival inherent in the first person application of the means by which queer theory explores the meanings available within a text, this embrace of tension at a very personal level can be read as an embracing of the recently repossessed monicker of "queer." However, inasmuch as queer is now an umbrella term for the gay/lesbian/transgender movement, then semantically it doesn't mean simply homosexual. It would follow then, that queer has made a semantic return to something akin to odd. Although, it is likely more accurate to define it as apart from a proposed norm as opposed to simply odd or strange, both of which can be devoid of relations to a norm.
This would mean, then, that any who feel as though they have some factor of their embodiment or personality which deviates even slightly from the norm could conceivably be self-labeled as queer. TO the militant gay movement, this might be a sullying of a chosen term. This would be an oversight, though, in my opinion. The point of oppositional philosophies is to eliminate that opposition. Therefore, for queer theory to "succeed" (in the utopian sense) there would need to be a recognition by each and every individual that regardless of what society they inhabit they are quite literally an individual and as such cannot possibly adhere to every single norm in existence. In this way, any one can feel queer, because, in fact, everyone is queer. And if everyone is queer, then no one is. Oppostion negated. Unity reached. This is of course utopian; apart from the militant gay sector there would be opposition to this concept from both the conservative core who would cling to majority status and then the inevitable ignorance that surrounds the issue. So, possibly farfetched, but then again most ideals are. I do like to think sardonically that the meta narrative might have a teleology, however asymptotal.
If we relate this to Sedgewick then (and I think it's a pretty direct relation), then we can use her views of adopting the term queer. She spends a lot of time on this, with just cause. I really enjoyed the back-up that is described through the deconstructionist view of diction-based or linguistically charged idiosyncrasies and often contingencies within a text as a means of embracing a sense of dissonance. She makes it quite clear in her elaborations upon the precipitous trend in suicides amongst gay teens and adolescents that there is a feeling of going against the grain that comes in conjunction with an identification as homosexual. This same tension in going against the grain seems to be the very source of identification that Sedgewick seems to find in queer theory's application of the deconstructionist method of isolating those minor details and intricacies of excess in terms of the over all plot arc and theme of a text.
Compiled with the reader response revival inherent in the first person application of the means by which queer theory explores the meanings available within a text, this embrace of tension at a very personal level can be read as an embracing of the recently repossessed monicker of "queer." However, inasmuch as queer is now an umbrella term for the gay/lesbian/transgender movement, then semantically it doesn't mean simply homosexual. It would follow then, that queer has made a semantic return to something akin to odd. Although, it is likely more accurate to define it as apart from a proposed norm as opposed to simply odd or strange, both of which can be devoid of relations to a norm.
This would mean, then, that any who feel as though they have some factor of their embodiment or personality which deviates even slightly from the norm could conceivably be self-labeled as queer. TO the militant gay movement, this might be a sullying of a chosen term. This would be an oversight, though, in my opinion. The point of oppositional philosophies is to eliminate that opposition. Therefore, for queer theory to "succeed" (in the utopian sense) there would need to be a recognition by each and every individual that regardless of what society they inhabit they are quite literally an individual and as such cannot possibly adhere to every single norm in existence. In this way, any one can feel queer, because, in fact, everyone is queer. And if everyone is queer, then no one is. Oppostion negated. Unity reached. This is of course utopian; apart from the militant gay sector there would be opposition to this concept from both the conservative core who would cling to majority status and then the inevitable ignorance that surrounds the issue. So, possibly farfetched, but then again most ideals are. I do like to think sardonically that the meta narrative might have a teleology, however asymptotal.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Foucault and the Evil Baby Machine. Week 2
Like I stated in class Wednesday, the parts of this week's reading I was most taken with were Foucault's takes on the causes of why Victorian Puritanism came to be. Moreover, I was piqued at the the lasting effects that Foucault insists derived from this and the means by which modernity claimed to have solved these issues while (for Foucault) not really fixing anything. Foucault, as it would appear through his text, doesn't really seem to think that anything at all is being repressed, but rather that sexuality is basically being sterilized and pigeonholed into teleological digressions.
First, there is the part where Foucault makes the implicit claim towards this reification of sexuality. Foucault says that "there emerged the analysis of the modes of sexual conduct" (26). OK, so basically he is up in arms about this. There "emerged"? That diction alone seems to show that a criticism of sexual conduct did not exist prior to this period. He continues to say that this analysis sought directly to locate the "boundary line of the biological and the economic domains" (ibid). Reading more through this section, it seems apparent to me that Foucault is really not happy about this. It seems to him that sexuality, as part of the body and the body's interaction with others, should not be something that can be empirically rendered.
As we know from the Butler reading, Foucault views the body as the source of everything for people, not a disembodied mind, or soul. Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, says that the "soul is the prison of the body." To the post-structuralist Foucault, I would take this to mean that Foucault believes the only prohibition to the choices that we make are those that represent the historicity and situation we inhabit. Foucault, in my opinion is then equating the concept of an exterior presence influencing the self (read body, here), the soul, with the social, historical and situational factors that render so much of the existence that the self endures.
Then I would say that this matters to our readings in the connection that, in a society (a situation) where everything one does is a relational choice, that restricting the literal body in terms of sexuality, or even labeling and sterilizing it, is a means of the "soul" constricting the "body." In a bizarre way.
As a final note, Hegel said in one of his biggest (and I mean important and also just way too long) books The Philosophy of Right, there is no such thing as a subject that doesn't have something else, object or another subject, in relation to it. Subjectivity, the self-in-itself (to get all annoying and Heideggerian), only exists as a relation that allows it to be subjective.
First, there is the part where Foucault makes the implicit claim towards this reification of sexuality. Foucault says that "there emerged the analysis of the modes of sexual conduct" (26). OK, so basically he is up in arms about this. There "emerged"? That diction alone seems to show that a criticism of sexual conduct did not exist prior to this period. He continues to say that this analysis sought directly to locate the "boundary line of the biological and the economic domains" (ibid). Reading more through this section, it seems apparent to me that Foucault is really not happy about this. It seems to him that sexuality, as part of the body and the body's interaction with others, should not be something that can be empirically rendered.
As we know from the Butler reading, Foucault views the body as the source of everything for people, not a disembodied mind, or soul. Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, says that the "soul is the prison of the body." To the post-structuralist Foucault, I would take this to mean that Foucault believes the only prohibition to the choices that we make are those that represent the historicity and situation we inhabit. Foucault, in my opinion is then equating the concept of an exterior presence influencing the self (read body, here), the soul, with the social, historical and situational factors that render so much of the existence that the self endures.
Then I would say that this matters to our readings in the connection that, in a society (a situation) where everything one does is a relational choice, that restricting the literal body in terms of sexuality, or even labeling and sterilizing it, is a means of the "soul" constricting the "body." In a bizarre way.
As a final note, Hegel said in one of his biggest (and I mean important and also just way too long) books The Philosophy of Right, there is no such thing as a subject that doesn't have something else, object or another subject, in relation to it. Subjectivity, the self-in-itself (to get all annoying and Heideggerian), only exists as a relation that allows it to be subjective.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Cartesian Dualism: Wait people still care about that? Week 1
My initial reaction to Butler's Gender Trouble was that of most dense philosophical tracts. I lay the book open on my desk, pinched the bridge of my nose and then shrugged my shoulders. However, upon a methodical reading it isn't hard to parse out exactly what she means in a analytical, and often merely semantic, way. In the very first sentence she relates the skepticism that she has for the grounding of feminist theory, without denying the veracity of feminism in and of itself. She uses the word "assumed" to indicate that the aforementioned "identity" that consists of the category of "woman" is an illusion (Butler 2). Butler seems to imply that there is a feminist theory-- and therefore femininity-- however, the basis (woman) is altogether a synthetic construct. It isn't often a thing that is called to attention, but every theory, especially mathematical, must have a basis. This is basically what the Theory of Relativity did to physics, it established a base principle. And to some miniscule degree even the cosmological constant required some assumption.
This basis is then the challenge that Butler goes into with the first few sections. I found the musing towards the necessity that Butler sees in some forms of feminism to establish a "universal patriarchy" as a way of legitimizing their own goals funny (Butler 5). She clearly has some disdain for this lack of regard for cultural relativism when she claims these feminists are blaming societies of "non-Western barbarism" (5). As if to say, how dare they not feel oppressed, the savages! After settling her idea that this 'workers (women?) of the world unite' is frivolous, Butler begins to coalesce the concepts of gender and society or politics as inseparable. She states that "gender intersects with race, class, ethnic and sexual" influences as well (4). This is to say gender roles, and thus the role of woman, are inherently connected and manufactured by the means of society. And as she noted before, that can mean many different things. What it means for her, in a Western, "masculine hegemony," is that there is in fact a suppression of genders NOT masculine, of which she insists there are multiple (46).
What I take this to mean, and what the statement closing chapter one blatantly insists, is that gender is created by the mechanisms of society and thus can be changed by the very same means. The gender roles of 1950s businessman and his obedient housewife were oppressive then and intolerable now. In beginning to identify this role of the combination of sex, biology and gender in individuals, Butler and the other reading by Grosz bring out the concept of the difference between the mind and the body. The concept that the mind and body are separate is not new.
This is where I started to see some tie ins with my philosophy background. Descartes basically came up with the idea that the mind is the source of all subjectivity and reason and exists within a 'spirit realm' while the body lives in the 'empirical world' as a mass of dumb matter. Kant comes along and uses this in his morality. He uses the physical body and the concept of emotions, impulses, urges and other 'unwholesome' things to stand in opposition to the idea that one must, in every moral decision, act in a way that one would want to be expressed as natural law from then on out. Basically, don't lie or else you allow the world to be full of liars. The phenomenologists came along, followed by the French Existentialists and made a different distinction. They relied in part on the concept of humanism and a little on this speech Nietzsche made where he basically said that nothing in some ridiculous spirit world could have any causal effect on a physical body. For some, this debunked the mind-body dualism. It was taken further by a dude named Merleau-Ponty (a friend of Simone de Beauvoir's) who said that is is in fact the situation (i.e. history, presence, existence, personality, choices) of a person that lies their 'soul'. He insists that the body and the mind are one in that we perceive things with both our reflective mind and active body all at once. Basically.
So what this means for gender, is that, crudely, take the example of a transvestite like Izzard. His body has male physiology. He is attracted to women (male lesbian), yet he enjoys wearing high heels and make-up. His mind is not some separate entity that wishes to wear make up while his male body is biologically programmed for heterosexuality it is one consistent entity with fallacious contradictions construed upon it.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith Butler. Gender Trouble, Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity.
Routledge Classics, 2006. Print
This basis is then the challenge that Butler goes into with the first few sections. I found the musing towards the necessity that Butler sees in some forms of feminism to establish a "universal patriarchy" as a way of legitimizing their own goals funny (Butler 5). She clearly has some disdain for this lack of regard for cultural relativism when she claims these feminists are blaming societies of "non-Western barbarism" (5). As if to say, how dare they not feel oppressed, the savages! After settling her idea that this 'workers (women?) of the world unite' is frivolous, Butler begins to coalesce the concepts of gender and society or politics as inseparable. She states that "gender intersects with race, class, ethnic and sexual" influences as well (4). This is to say gender roles, and thus the role of woman, are inherently connected and manufactured by the means of society. And as she noted before, that can mean many different things. What it means for her, in a Western, "masculine hegemony," is that there is in fact a suppression of genders NOT masculine, of which she insists there are multiple (46).
What I take this to mean, and what the statement closing chapter one blatantly insists, is that gender is created by the mechanisms of society and thus can be changed by the very same means. The gender roles of 1950s businessman and his obedient housewife were oppressive then and intolerable now. In beginning to identify this role of the combination of sex, biology and gender in individuals, Butler and the other reading by Grosz bring out the concept of the difference between the mind and the body. The concept that the mind and body are separate is not new.
This is where I started to see some tie ins with my philosophy background. Descartes basically came up with the idea that the mind is the source of all subjectivity and reason and exists within a 'spirit realm' while the body lives in the 'empirical world' as a mass of dumb matter. Kant comes along and uses this in his morality. He uses the physical body and the concept of emotions, impulses, urges and other 'unwholesome' things to stand in opposition to the idea that one must, in every moral decision, act in a way that one would want to be expressed as natural law from then on out. Basically, don't lie or else you allow the world to be full of liars. The phenomenologists came along, followed by the French Existentialists and made a different distinction. They relied in part on the concept of humanism and a little on this speech Nietzsche made where he basically said that nothing in some ridiculous spirit world could have any causal effect on a physical body. For some, this debunked the mind-body dualism. It was taken further by a dude named Merleau-Ponty (a friend of Simone de Beauvoir's) who said that is is in fact the situation (i.e. history, presence, existence, personality, choices) of a person that lies their 'soul'. He insists that the body and the mind are one in that we perceive things with both our reflective mind and active body all at once. Basically.
So what this means for gender, is that, crudely, take the example of a transvestite like Izzard. His body has male physiology. He is attracted to women (male lesbian), yet he enjoys wearing high heels and make-up. His mind is not some separate entity that wishes to wear make up while his male body is biologically programmed for heterosexuality it is one consistent entity with fallacious contradictions construed upon it.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith Butler. Gender Trouble, Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity.
Routledge Classics, 2006. Print
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