Post Class Butler

The exercise in which men were not allowed to speak was very affective and it clearly illustrated what has happened to women throughout history. The most frustrating aspect of it was the time lag. Even if I had more relevant thoughts, I could not get them out fast enough to have the proper effect. Also, my thoughts were not read in the tone that I would I said them in, and therefore lacked the meaning that would have originally been conveyed.

The discussion of gender was of particular interest to me. How can it be that the "men" can't speak? You are then assuming that I am a man. But how did you come to that conclusion? id it my voice, my mannerisms? Is it that I have hair on my face? So do "women." Is it my clothes? Both genders wear jeans, both wear jackets and t shirts. it must somehow be known that I am a man. I've never known anyone who took me for a woman. What is it then? how am I a man and not a woman. What if I started to put clips in my hair and wear dangling earrings? Then I would wear a skirt and put eyeliner. Then am I still a man. Not in a lot of men's eyes. But to most I am still a man who "dresses like a woman." Then it must be my biological makeup and the difference in hormones that makes me a man. Nope, in that case we have just labeled penis=man vagina=woman. what if we inverted those labels at the start?

Francesca, Butler

In the history of feminism, there has been three distinct periods. As these periods are referred to as waves, each wave has held concerns that reflected the given era. The first wave dealt primarily with suffrage while the second focused on unofficial as well as official inequalities. Examples of such unofficial injustices included discrimination and oppression. These broad categories of feminist concern were recognized as issues that must be rectified in order to render official change. This attitude carried into the third wave, that which the theorist Judith Butler was writing in. Her desire to question the categorization of women as a specific group was motivated by the evidently discriminative polarization of gender relations in all subsequent contexts. Viewing gender as a binary opposition implies that gender is synonymous for the biological predeterminations characteristically referred to as sex. Yet, as gender is merely a social construct, it is consequentially an expression of the delineations provided by a given culture. Thus, Butler purports a recall of categorization in order to foster a subjectivity in gender expression. The ramifications of such subjectivity include an individualized expression of one’s identity, as ascribed not by cultural delineations but rather the person themselves. Such an imperative is a reflection of third wave feminist concerns for several reasons. Butler’s argument contends that the rectification of gender inequality must begin with the address of unofficial problems by means of theoretical debate. It is only when this predicament is taken care of the official concerns applicable to gender relations can begin to be effectively resolved. In addition, the issue of reclamation is predominant within the third wave. Butler is asking the reading to reassess the validity and utilization of a particular word, woman. By reclaiming a given word, the power of language is placed into she who is manipulating language. In conclusion, the theoretical nature of Butler’s work holds applicability to plausible situations its change would affect.

Eddie, Butler

Feminism is a tricky position to take. Judith Butler shares with us the problem of feminism and its crippling assumption that “the women” are what feminism seeks to aid and strengthen. She is concerned with that non-existent unifying “woman” which feminism enlists as their cause. A good part of this problem is actually brought about by the victories of feminism.

If feminism’s founding cause was to remove the unfair exclusion and oppression of the female population in society, they have succeeded in one significant way – it is now generally agreed to be wrong to publically object female equality. Supporting a group that seeks to maintain male dominance is now considered as ridiculous as supporting neo-Nazism or a coalition for pro-child molestation. Feminism has slain the evil demon. Yet the crumbling of the misogynistic underworld brought about a strange consequence: there is no longer a clear opponent for feminism. With the demon dead, its familiars rain upon the world as splinters and shards. Shadows of female oppression is numerous enough to appear anywhere, sharp enough to sting but never big enough to fuel their unified cause. Now, there is no clean group of victims to call “the women,” and this is the problem Butler speaks of. People often see feminists with fear and distaste, likely due to the perception that the feminists are struggling to find their fight and trying too hard to stay angry.

Staying angry may be more real of a cause than modern feminists would admit. Consider that feminism is supposed to bring about equality between women and men, yet by design, feminism maintains and reinforces difference. Is not feminism highly unwelcoming and exclusionary? It looms like a giant fortress, manned (or womanned?) by females and their supporters, and ready to punish all that stands in their way. Feminists remain partitioned behind the boundaries of a political group, so even if the two sexes are equal in every possible way, their insistence of them being the females and the others being the non-female will always provoke conflict. Butler speaks of ‘postfeminism,’ but it is more of a re-feminism. It should be called Feminism 2.0, where she wishes to patch it up and update it to accommodate modern needs and features. But I feel that feminism will provide no end to conflict. It serves to wrestle its enemies, break what limbs or tentacles latch onto their progression and grow to become the mighty force with walls too thick to penetrate. The walls are already quite think now.

So I suggest adopting the goal to ultimately eliminate the need for feminism. Militant protests and punishment only stops mistakes, but does not solve the causes. We should move towards political and social maturity through minimizing the separation of male and female. Women should not get “extra care” because they do not need that handicap. A feminist’s job well done is when people do not need to worry that they are disregarding the dignity of women, and keep their eyes on treating anyone and everyone as a proper human being. Sure, it’s idealistic, but why waste our time discussing feminism if all it does is keep the fights going?

Justin, hooks

In "Eating the Other," hooks says that, "Encounters with Otherness are clearly marked as more exciting, more intense, and more threatening. The lure is the combination of pleasure and danger. Hooks' discussion on the relationships between white and black people is interesting, because now I think it is very arguable that black people will sometimes react to this otherness with cooperation; they will act in a way that white people expect them to act when they are around white people as a means of distinguishing themselves. I got to know one of my best friends, who is black, when we were in middle school. At that point, he had many white friends and I had many black friends. Since then, for whatever reason, I don't have near as many black friends and he doesn't have near as many white friends. He talks a different way to his black friends and family than he talks to me, which is understandable. I'm sure I talk to my friends differently than I talk to him without necessarily noticing it. But the most interesting thing that I notice when he hangs out with my friends and me is that he will switch to his "black side" when it seems to be what people don't know him might expect. Often times he is intoxicated when he does it, which to me shows a truthfulness to what he's doing: it seems that he feels like he benefits from being the Other. The Other has become so commodified that he can switch it on as if trying to show his authenticity. I'm not talking here about someone that is acting fake, or foolishly. He's sharp and absolutely objective about the nature of race, and completely aware of it. It's just very interesting that what was a black characteristic of Otherness in white people's eyes can be acknowledged and utilized for the same type of reasons.

justin, 11/6

I think Foucault's discussion of the gaze is very important when it comes to the uses of the internet. The idea that there is someone watching is all that stops it from being a free zone for illegal acts. But the idea of the panopticon is especially important as well. When it comes to downloading music, there have been stories of downloaders being sued for great deals of money because they were being monitored. But how often does it really happen? Is that not more of a tactic to make an example, to open the window of the guard tower at least once to let the offenders know that somebody is watching, though they're not exactly sure when?
Shouldn't there be a gaze over the free space on the walls of the internet? Is there a way to stop every page with a comment box from becoming a bathroom wall, other than to do away with them? There are always stories on the news about people being caught for viewing child pornography on the internet. Though it's not exclusively for the purpose, don't these arrests serve as public humiliations for the offenders? Why shouldn't people be humiliated for covering a public space with hateful, racial slurs? It seems that a problem stems from the temptation of being able to do something without consequences. It breeds a taste for hostility that might not have been there in the first place. Is authority over commentary necessary?

Post-class, eric 11/6

The idea put forward by focault that "power should be visible and unverifiable" is an intersting one. I think however that visibilty is not neccessarily the right word for to describe the phenomenon that focault is referring to. Visibility implies that, in order for power to be an effective method of control, visual proof is required. One needs only look around them to find examples where a rumor or a news broadcast can control as well as an image of power.
Once instance is the air-marshal in post-9/11 America. After the announcment that armed air marshals would begin flying on domestic flights people started looking around their fellow passengers wondering which one of them was the air marshal. They made sure to act 'normally', to not arouse suspcion.
on the other hand perhaps some sort of visible is neccesary at certain times. power can not survive for long on rumor alone, unless it is an extremly pervasive rumor.
Conspiracy theories are rather interesting things. certainly, it would be reassuring to some sorts of people to know that the troubles in their lives and in the world in general were not the cause of incompetency or chance, but due to some evil plot working behind the scenes of the everyday world. the secret and the mystery have an innate power about them: the power of fear. Insular or secretive groups throughout history have made themselves the targets of the hate of others because of their closed nature or even their mere wierdness.
Freemasons, the Bavarian Illuminati, The Knights Templar, The order of the dragon, The jews have all been the subject of rumors about plots. Some people think that the lines in the sky from commercial jetliners are part of a government mind control program.

Anamnesis_dost class dududerrida

Derrida is problematic for me not because I disagree with him, but because I need to know what he thinks the implications of his philosophy are for life. I think it is important to point out the faultiness in de Saussure's model for signifiers. I think it's right that signifers are floating and that differance exists in everything. Yes, I think Derrida is essential. But I feel somewhat unfulfilled when I read him vs Foucault, who I think is more artful and more of a humanitarian. Both philosophers are historical, but Foucault's hsitory to me is the history that matters, the history which is critical and useful. And to be honest, I just think Foucault's philosophy is more interesting.

However, an interesting point in derrida's grammatology is the idea that there is not "unqualified presence" underneath the text. structuralists beleived that if the could jsut get to a certain point with a text then there would be an area of truth. I don't see how this can be true and I tend to side with Derrida that whatever meaning is implied is subject to immediate shifts and distortions. There was never an absolute meaning from which these shifts occur... it is all perceived anyway. I think this is particularly troubling for any form of ethics because the terms that are bound up with ethics (justice, morality, ethic) are subject to the most insidious scrutiny.
Also, deconstruction poses a direct threat to philosophy itself, calling into question its function on linguistic level and blurring the lines between "empirical" realms of study, like physics, with philosophy and indeed making no distinction between them. Deconstruction is able to do this precisely because of the idea that text pervades everything and in that sense even the theoretic speculations of philosophy and the epirical "facts" of science become fictions.