Diane:
It is not possible to conceive or experience the human body
independently of human reality. All reality is human.
To even consider the possibility of accessibility to the human body as
matter independently of the rest of reality is nonsensical and at
most serves an ideological function.
Yours etc.,
Karl
> Colin:
>
> Butler doesn't say there is no materiality of the body. She simply notes
> that no matter how hard we try to get at it, we won't succeed. If there
> is a material body that PRECEDES discursive appropriation, we cannot
> know it. This is why some bodies end up mattering more than others. The
> point here is not to say 'oh, gee, there's only language and nothing
> else.' It's to say that we can't have the thing in itself...not even
> the body in itself. Even the matierality of the body--as we can know
> it--has a history. We will have always already, to use a
> heideggerianism, "thinged the thing." To assume that you can get at the
> thing in itself is to ... well, as you say, assume the status of a god.
>
> Butler does not. She's no humanist. She's a negotiator.
Yours etc.,
Karl