Diane,
Thanks for your remarks, I guess I was a bit rough in my reaction. The way
I see it, what I was saying is not binary opposed to your reply. I must
admit I have not read Butler (I'll try if I can), I am not a specialist in
this field. I am just a curious student asking a few questions, trying to
fit my point of view into this discussion. I have been working on a paper
relating Transsexualism to the philosphical mind-body discussion, but I
couldn't close the gap between theory and practice there. (I found a lot of
dissapointment and cruelty in the lives of transsexuals.)
So I have a few questions:
> We've proven our will to hierarchy.
Have we? And we if we have done so, isn't this something we have to fight
against?
>The idea is not to create a third position in a series...it's not like 1,2,3!
>We're talking about something else here, a third that challenges the
>binary. >The
>hermaphrodite challenges our dichotomies at a profound level. Butler uses the
>drag queen to do the same thing.
>It's not just the third in a series. It's a new game entirely...it's a
>step >outside logocentrism, if only for an instant. I think that's worth
>it.
I would like it if there was a world where we could step outside, for only
an instant, but the moment we're out of it, we are in somewhere else. With
your example of dragqueens challenging the male/female binary, you are
applying the male/female binary to them again. I would say dragqueens are
not both male and female, their not neither male or female. Dragqueens are
very much IN the male/female binary, that's the essence of their existence.
If they don't fit into this system there is another system where they will
fit in. So maybe it's a new game, it's still the old story.
Bottomline is that we cannot escape all systematic appproaches, we cannot
jump out of the system, but we can try to change it. Not from an
extraterrestrial point of view, but by analysing what we have, and by
looking at the places where it doesn't fit.
I agree with you that every instant of enlighted insight 'is worth it', but
I am not sure I understand what you are challenging the binary into. (and
why we specifically need the dragqueen to do this, isn't it time to
deconstruct the dragqueen?)
What I want to "challenge the binary into", is not being conceived as male
or female nor as male and female. Hermaphrodite's can "serve this
challenge", dragqueens certainly don't.
Hermaphrodites are not my weapon, nor my tool in challenging the binary.
They help me gain insight in the world as it is, and help me see what I
would like to change. Not because they are 'outside', but because they do
not fit.
Just some words on Nietzsche to finish:
I do read some of Nietzsche (FrOhliche wissenschaft, Jenseits von gut und
Bose, Zur geneologie der Moral), but I can never say I did read him.
Reading Nietzsche seems to be a 'special experience'. When I first read
him, it all seems dark and incomprehensibale, then his texts show me their
'flipside' and I get some sort of 'Aha-erlebnis'. The funny thing about
Nietzsche's work is that this 'flipping' happens all the time. I would stop
liking Nietzsche if he would say that "beyond' is a possibility, just like
that, without also admitting the contrary.
(Please God, allow me to be human....)
Jeroen
------------------
Thanks for your remarks, I guess I was a bit rough in my reaction. The way
I see it, what I was saying is not binary opposed to your reply. I must
admit I have not read Butler (I'll try if I can), I am not a specialist in
this field. I am just a curious student asking a few questions, trying to
fit my point of view into this discussion. I have been working on a paper
relating Transsexualism to the philosphical mind-body discussion, but I
couldn't close the gap between theory and practice there. (I found a lot of
dissapointment and cruelty in the lives of transsexuals.)
So I have a few questions:
> We've proven our will to hierarchy.
Have we? And we if we have done so, isn't this something we have to fight
against?
>The idea is not to create a third position in a series...it's not like 1,2,3!
>We're talking about something else here, a third that challenges the
>binary. >The
>hermaphrodite challenges our dichotomies at a profound level. Butler uses the
>drag queen to do the same thing.
>It's not just the third in a series. It's a new game entirely...it's a
>step >outside logocentrism, if only for an instant. I think that's worth
>it.
I would like it if there was a world where we could step outside, for only
an instant, but the moment we're out of it, we are in somewhere else. With
your example of dragqueens challenging the male/female binary, you are
applying the male/female binary to them again. I would say dragqueens are
not both male and female, their not neither male or female. Dragqueens are
very much IN the male/female binary, that's the essence of their existence.
If they don't fit into this system there is another system where they will
fit in. So maybe it's a new game, it's still the old story.
Bottomline is that we cannot escape all systematic appproaches, we cannot
jump out of the system, but we can try to change it. Not from an
extraterrestrial point of view, but by analysing what we have, and by
looking at the places where it doesn't fit.
I agree with you that every instant of enlighted insight 'is worth it', but
I am not sure I understand what you are challenging the binary into. (and
why we specifically need the dragqueen to do this, isn't it time to
deconstruct the dragqueen?)
What I want to "challenge the binary into", is not being conceived as male
or female nor as male and female. Hermaphrodite's can "serve this
challenge", dragqueens certainly don't.
Hermaphrodites are not my weapon, nor my tool in challenging the binary.
They help me gain insight in the world as it is, and help me see what I
would like to change. Not because they are 'outside', but because they do
not fit.
Just some words on Nietzsche to finish:
I do read some of Nietzsche (FrOhliche wissenschaft, Jenseits von gut und
Bose, Zur geneologie der Moral), but I can never say I did read him.
Reading Nietzsche seems to be a 'special experience'. When I first read
him, it all seems dark and incomprehensibale, then his texts show me their
'flipside' and I get some sort of 'Aha-erlebnis'. The funny thing about
Nietzsche's work is that this 'flipping' happens all the time. I would stop
liking Nietzsche if he would say that "beyond' is a possibility, just like
that, without also admitting the contrary.
(Please God, allow me to be human....)
Jeroen
------------------