Judith Butler

1
Judith Butler

• Some thoughts from the discussion Tuesday to
  consider
• From, The Psychic life of power Theories in
  subjection, 1997

2
Judith Butler

• The insistence that a subject is passionately
  attached to his or her own subordination has been
  invoked cynically by those who seek to debunk the
  claims of the subordinated. If a subject can be
  shown to pursue or sustain his or her
  subordinated status, the reasoning goes, then
  perhaps final responsibility for that
  subordination resides with the subject

3
Judith Butler

• Over and against this view, I would maintain that
  the attachment to subjection is produced through
  the workings of power, and that part of the
  operation of power is made clear in this psychic
  effect, one of the most insidious of its
  productions. Ifthe subject is formed by a will
  that turns back on itselfthen the subject is the
  effect of power in recoil.

4
Judith Butler

• What is it, then, that is desired in subjection?
• Is it a simple love of the shackles or is there a
  more complex scenario at work?
• How is survival to be maintained if the terms by
  which existence is guaranteed are precisely those
  that demand and institute subordination?

5
Judith Butler

• On this understanding, subjection is the
  paradoxical effect of a regime of power in which
  the very conditions of existence, the
  possibility of continuing as a recognizable
  social being, requires the formation and
  maintenance of the subject in subordination.

6
Paradox and dialectic

• It is this paradox of entrapment that I want you
  to consider when thinking about the dynamics of
  contradiction in both embracing and rejecting
  contradictory labeled identities (subject
  positions).
• What are the dialectic paradoxes of the Chicana y
  Chicana article and how does that relate to the
  My three cultures article

7
Passionate Attachment

• How are we complicit in our own attachments to
  our own identities?
• Is it only the marginalized that are entrapped in
  this paradox?
• Is it only the marginalized that is guilty of
  passionate attachment?