Judith Butler interview

[MotherofPearl]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/07/judith-butler-interview-gender?CMP=ShareiOSAppOther

Apologies if this has already been posted. I found this troubling to read. Am I misreading this or is Butler saying that GC feminism is fascist?

It's a bit like abstract painting IMO. It is trying to avoid classical forms to talk about whatever it's trying to talk about, and so give a purer and maybe fresher understanding.

But it also becomes very easy to fake the inner vision, ever to oneself.

‘That’s why all disciplines use technical language (though they don’t all do it in the same way). If you study most historical philosophy you have to do it with dictionary in hand for years and years. It’s no different to any discipline in that regard.’

But that isn’t true for other disciplines. As you have said, the meaning of homologous is biology is simple. It is however specific to biology.

So if I wanted to explain what homologous means in biology I could explain very simply using examples that most people can understand.

Because technical language isn’t particularly complex or difficult to understand. It is just subject specific.

Yeah - all philosophy makes use of the metaphorical qualities of language to convey a slightly more specific meaning. I could use “swappable” or “replaceable” instead of “fungible”, but then the specifically economic aspects of the idea that I need to be there would disappear. I’d simplify it, but lose part of the precision and meaning.

Ironically I’m the biggest advocate ever of the plain style when I’m teaching people to write or argue. 😂 But it does value some aspects of thought and repress others, and isn’t free of its own value-structure. I rather like reading styles of thought that aren’t in that tradition - they can all add to the ways we understand the world. There are important traditions in all areas of global philosophy that aren’t based around logic and clarity but instead about other things.

Plenty of people find the sciences difficult and have to study them with dictionary in hand for years, though!

There are plenty of technical terms in scientific disciplines you wouldn’t be able to explain very simply to the layperson at all.

Not all disciplines work in the same way. That doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed their own discourse and technical terms, though.

There are massive benefits of using language for reasons other than clarity.

The point made was about this kind of language because difficult to understand because it is technical, and technical language is difficult to understand, which isn’t true.

It may well be difficult to understand for other very important and valuable reasons, but it isn’t homologous to technical language in other disciplines.

As I said, different disciplines use technical terms in different ways. (And sometimes in similar ways, too - there are plenty of technical terms in specialised bits of the sciences and mathematics which work in a very similar way to philosophical terms, as well).

Off the top of my head, for example, just try explaining what an electron shell or a frameshift mutation is to a layperson - in a way they will actually understand it - and using no metaphorical language. Then report back….

Electron shells are metaphorical and we teach them to all 10 year olds.

@Theoldprospector

Electron shells are metaphorical and we teach them to all 10 year olds.

Exactly - they are metaphorical. Try explaining them without the metaphor.

Why would you explain something metaphorical without using a metaphor?

@FloralBunting, thank you for your responses. Very informative - this is a very interesting thread. overall.

I have done some post-grad study and some of it involved me reading philosophical guff. I remember reading some PoMo and thinking, 'Well, you say that, but I don't see any of you arguing with material reality to the extent that you are willing to leave your 4th floor offices via the windows'.

Mind you, a lot of what I read struck me as splendidly complicated ways of stating simple ideas.

And @RoyalCorgi, if your deleted post was the one about the Private Eye-style apology, it gave me a laugh and I have no idea why it was deleted.

different disciplines use technical terms in different ways. And sometimes in similar ways...

Be careful. "Similar" in geometry, as in similar triangles, means identical in proportion.

And sometimes, social sciences can't make up its mind what a term means, eg 'Liberal' in the political sense, which can mean on the right, the left, or the centre.

And @RoyalCorgi, if your deleted post was the one about the Private Eye-style apology, it gave me a laugh and I have no idea why it was deleted.

Thank you! Yes, that was the one. It was intended to be humorous, and I don't know why it was deleted either.

@Theoldprospector

Why would you explain something metaphorical without using a metaphor?

I expect the poster meant try explaining how atoms work to 10 year olds without using a metaphor, rather than starting from the position that you have to have metaphorical things

Why did Judith Butler select the language she did to smear women who disagree with her and style them as fascists?

Women who have attempted to discuss girls’ and women's rights and their experience as a sex class in this context have faced concerted attempts to have their meetings shut down and to silence them (Aaronovich, 2018; Kirkup, 2018a). Woman's Place UK was formed after a meeting to discuss proposed legislative reform that was targeted for harassment, and a 60-year-old woman was assaulted by male gender identity activists (Turner, 2017). Yet, women's organisations that campaign within the law to protect women's existing rights, such as Woman's Place UK and Fair Play for Women are slandered and denounced as ‘hate groups’. Accusations of fascism abound, directed at life-long socialists and trade-union activists, in order to justify denying these women a platform by any means. It is worth noting that the traditional left basis for no-platforming fascists is often misunderstood. This rests on the view that fascists will shut down democratic debate and organising through the use of violence against opponents (Trotsky, 1969 [1932]). The argument was not that fascist speakers have dangerous ideas which might influence their audience, but that there is no sense in trying to reason with violent thugs. Careless use of the term ‘fascist’ is far from new (Orwell, 1944), and the parameters of the ‘no-platform for fascists’ policy have been contested throughout its history from the early 1970s (Smith, 2016). But it seems that no-platforming has now been turned on its head, as those who oppose the democratic civil liberties of freedom of speech and association use no-platforming to silence dissent (Ditum, 2014). None of the feminists who have been no-platformed for gender-critical views have committed or incited violent acts. Accusations of fascism and ‘literal violence’ levelled against these women may appear comical, but have real consequences in dehumanising and monstering them, thereby justifying harassment and even violence against them.

SUISSA, J. and SULLIVAN, A. (2021), The Gender Wars, Academic Freedom and Education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55: 55-82. doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12549

Very helpful paper from earlier this year.

The most enthusiastic advocates of Butler's work I know are men. Which tells you everything you need to know really.

And thanks for the link to that essay. It was a good read

@Theoldprospector

Why would you explain something metaphorical without using a metaphor?

The point isn't the metaphor, it's the thing the metaphor represents, which we think is in some sense real. Why not just describe it directly? We can't, of course, is the reason, and that's just talking about observed material reality, or mathematical ideas.

In philosophy it's quite common to have more than one working model, with it's own language, and quite a lot of the discourse is between models.

I wish they'd repeat The Young Ones. By the time at was at university, the association of cries of 'fascist' with Rik did make us pause a little before throwing the word around.

Cross-Threading:

....The Young Ones, co-written by Catherine Mayer's sister.

‘The point isn't the metaphor, it's the thing the metaphor represents, which we think is in some sense real. Why not just describe it directly? We can't, of course, is the reason, and that's just talking about observed material reality, or mathematical ideas.

In philosophy it's quite common to have more than one working model, with it's own language, and quite a lot of the discourse is between models.’

We don’t describe it directly because it is complex and difficult to understand.

That’s the point of using metaphors. We take something very complex and make it simpler.

That is the point - technical language including metaphors is supposed to take things which are difficult to understand and make it simpler and more comprehensible.

@Theoldprospector

‘The point isn't the metaphor, it's the thing the metaphor represents, which we think is in some sense real. Why not just describe it directly? We can't, of course, is the reason, and that's just talking about observed material reality, or mathematical ideas.

In philosophy it's quite common to have more than one working model, with it's own language, and quite a lot of the discourse is between models.’

We don’t describe it directly because it is complex and difficult to understand.

That’s the point of using metaphors. We take something very complex and make it simpler.

That is the point - technical language including metaphors is supposed to take things which are difficult to understand and make it simpler and more comprehensible.

That's one way you can use a metaphor. It can also be used to add richness and layers to a description of something, to add greater understanding or nuance.

It's not like science never has more than one model to describe the same thing.

And I am not asking Judith Butler, or indeed anyone on this thread, to accurately describe the complexity of social and economic relationships as they really are.

I am asking them to simply describe the terms of their model or metaphor, in much the same way someone can very quickly and easily explain terms like habitat or electron shell.

And if you can’t do that then you are creating models and terms for something other than the usual disciplinary reason of creating simplified versions of reality.

‘That's one way you can use a metaphor. It can also be used to add richness and layers to a description of something, to add greater understanding or nuance.’

But that’s not the type of metaphor we are discussing here.

Great article by Jane Claire Jones about Enby Putin's latest offereing

janeclarejones.com/2021/09/07/smashing-the-binary-a-dissection-of-sex-denial/

Vice talk to the trans interviewer Jules Gleeson, including the question Gleeson proposed to substitute for the Wi Spa one (about Heritage Foundation/Texas abortion law), and a response to the Vice journalist from the Guardian:

www.vice.com/en/article/7kv3m4/why-the-guardian-censored-judith-butler-on-terfs

@Jaysmith71

Cross-Threading:

....The Young Ones, co-written by Catherine Mayer's sister.

Of the WEP? That could be a future subject.... There was some talk of a new Blackadder series set in a university, though I don't know what became of that.