Although I don't have time to comment on this whole exchange, I do
feel that I should point out that pace Butler, Foucault, Deleuze,
the nonessential nonmateriality of the body is by no means equal to
it being 'just a fantasy.' Stating 'there is no "reality" that is
not the fantasy of a certain system' is not a statement that can be
usefully applied to, at least, Deleuze and Foucault, who consistently
have worked to destabilize the ideology/reality, fantasy/reality,
mind/body type dualisms with the analysis of the multiple
materialities of power.
To be more specific, your final example of the ideological cold (a
rhetorical rhinovirus, indeed) implicitly still presumes a
fantasy/reality distinction--you attempt to place the Butlerian
position into a Frankfurt-style system/realtiy dichotomy, framing it
in a colonial discourse where the substrate 'body' is
overlaid/infected/whatever by the ideological 'cold.' Again, this is
the wrong brush to be tarring Butler/Foucault/Deleuze with, as this
is not their argument, *especially* when you take the sort of
subjectivist voluntaristic position that the cold can be seen to be a
fantasy of *mine* and not a shared social reality.
And I'd like to if possible bring the rhetorical level down a few
notches. There's a truism on the Internet that trotting out the
Holocaust/Hitler/Nazis during a discussion is an instant discourse-stopper, a
'trump' that tends to render discussion moot. Rather than continuing
to be a discussion over concepts, discussion tends to get sidetracked
into arguing over the value of the Holocaust/Hitler/Nazi example and
whether or not it really applies, etc.
///Connor
_________________________________________________________
E.M. Connor Durflinger Philosopher for Hire
"Have Forestructures, Will Travel"
Reverend, Universal Life Church
bc05319@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx PIC Program at B.U.
_________________________________________________________
inspiration STATION:
http://philosophy.adm.binghamton.edu/durflinger/inspiration/
feel that I should point out that pace Butler, Foucault, Deleuze,
the nonessential nonmateriality of the body is by no means equal to
it being 'just a fantasy.' Stating 'there is no "reality" that is
not the fantasy of a certain system' is not a statement that can be
usefully applied to, at least, Deleuze and Foucault, who consistently
have worked to destabilize the ideology/reality, fantasy/reality,
mind/body type dualisms with the analysis of the multiple
materialities of power.
To be more specific, your final example of the ideological cold (a
rhetorical rhinovirus, indeed) implicitly still presumes a
fantasy/reality distinction--you attempt to place the Butlerian
position into a Frankfurt-style system/realtiy dichotomy, framing it
in a colonial discourse where the substrate 'body' is
overlaid/infected/whatever by the ideological 'cold.' Again, this is
the wrong brush to be tarring Butler/Foucault/Deleuze with, as this
is not their argument, *especially* when you take the sort of
subjectivist voluntaristic position that the cold can be seen to be a
fantasy of *mine* and not a shared social reality.
And I'd like to if possible bring the rhetorical level down a few
notches. There's a truism on the Internet that trotting out the
Holocaust/Hitler/Nazis during a discussion is an instant discourse-stopper, a
'trump' that tends to render discussion moot. Rather than continuing
to be a discussion over concepts, discussion tends to get sidetracked
into arguing over the value of the Holocaust/Hitler/Nazi example and
whether or not it really applies, etc.
///Connor
_________________________________________________________
E.M. Connor Durflinger Philosopher for Hire
"Have Forestructures, Will Travel"
Reverend, Universal Life Church
bc05319@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx PIC Program at B.U.
_________________________________________________________
inspiration STATION:
http://philosophy.adm.binghamton.edu/durflinger/inspiration/