> I like this whole debate on "the subject". but my first question might be
> this what is "performativity?" I mean it is a concept throw around so
> loosely in certain circles of academic discourse. I associate the term
> with the lack of an "nature" or given behavioural norms. I mean since the
> modern subject has constructed all notion of biological nature it can no
> longer claim to have a meta-script to justifies his actions and as such
> finds himself in the a "lacuna" or void from which the subject must
> improvise a script, or performance. But the absence of "a nature" is just
> one aspect of this, we also have the death or deconstruction of the world
> (Holderlin), God (Nietzsche), Man, Science, Nature (Foucault), Art (dada)
> etc. All attempts to legitimate and understand the world according to such
> MetaTruths are futile and doomed to a certain Nihilism. So when you strip
> away MetaTruth all you have is performativity, a certain myth making while
> conscious that it is merely myth (Foucault meant myth here in the most
> derogatory sense of the word myth as a lie and falsehood) the modern
> subject experiences performativity with out "suspension of belief" (to use
> more theatre jargon in a phil context). The subject or we for that matter
> can not believe and this is what I meant in part by the Fragility of Being
> or Fragility of Appearance, in the sense that Nietsche states "woe to us
> if we even bump ourselves for we are made glass."
My point was that things like race, sex, etc. are not predetermined, but are
produced by the very actions that purport to result from those
classifications.
> I was at one of Butler lectures while back in Berkeley and at that time
> she made some arguments against this notion of performance as liberatory.
> And I think this is in part what you are getting at with this idea of a
> "pregiven" The Subject is already under he influence of "Tradition,"
> "Science" the historical knowledge structure with constitute and define
> his epoch.
Actually that wasn't what I was getting at, but a good point all the same.
When I referred to the "pregiven" nature of the Sartrean subject, I meant
that Sartre assumes a stable transhistorical subject.
> It is this Idea of Interpolation she take from Althussar and
> his notion of "interpolation" which uses the example of someone knocking
> on the door. The person who answers the door already knows who he is and
> that the subject already knows who he or she is, or that he or she is a he
> or a she, trapped in the biology of her or his bodily mapping!
I've read some criticisms of Afrocentric philosophy that make arguments on
interpellation. However, I don't remember precisely what interpellation is.
Could you jog by memory?
> As for Mob ized subjectivity I think it is a tricky notion , in the Gay
> Science Nietzsche sees the greatest danger in the fact man has become raw
> material of sorts.
In the same sense that the population is targeted in Foucault's work?
> So I would say you are right that for Neitzsche be
> an actor or performer seems "in line with a performative understanding of
> resistance" against what Arendt terms homo faber and Heidigger "man as
> builder". But my question to you is this how does one "resist one's own
> subjectification" and "bring into being a restive subject?"
Pastoral power is productive and subjectifying, right? In the act of
deciding her own morals and norms, the individual acts in a way that would
appear to represent a different subject position. In doing so, she
constitutes herself as a subject that resists the subject position she
considered to be naturally tied to. That seems to be an intersection between
Foucault (or at least Kulynych) and Nietzsche.
Take care.
> this what is "performativity?" I mean it is a concept throw around so
> loosely in certain circles of academic discourse. I associate the term
> with the lack of an "nature" or given behavioural norms. I mean since the
> modern subject has constructed all notion of biological nature it can no
> longer claim to have a meta-script to justifies his actions and as such
> finds himself in the a "lacuna" or void from which the subject must
> improvise a script, or performance. But the absence of "a nature" is just
> one aspect of this, we also have the death or deconstruction of the world
> (Holderlin), God (Nietzsche), Man, Science, Nature (Foucault), Art (dada)
> etc. All attempts to legitimate and understand the world according to such
> MetaTruths are futile and doomed to a certain Nihilism. So when you strip
> away MetaTruth all you have is performativity, a certain myth making while
> conscious that it is merely myth (Foucault meant myth here in the most
> derogatory sense of the word myth as a lie and falsehood) the modern
> subject experiences performativity with out "suspension of belief" (to use
> more theatre jargon in a phil context). The subject or we for that matter
> can not believe and this is what I meant in part by the Fragility of Being
> or Fragility of Appearance, in the sense that Nietsche states "woe to us
> if we even bump ourselves for we are made glass."
My point was that things like race, sex, etc. are not predetermined, but are
produced by the very actions that purport to result from those
classifications.
> I was at one of Butler lectures while back in Berkeley and at that time
> she made some arguments against this notion of performance as liberatory.
> And I think this is in part what you are getting at with this idea of a
> "pregiven" The Subject is already under he influence of "Tradition,"
> "Science" the historical knowledge structure with constitute and define
> his epoch.
Actually that wasn't what I was getting at, but a good point all the same.
When I referred to the "pregiven" nature of the Sartrean subject, I meant
that Sartre assumes a stable transhistorical subject.
> It is this Idea of Interpolation she take from Althussar and
> his notion of "interpolation" which uses the example of someone knocking
> on the door. The person who answers the door already knows who he is and
> that the subject already knows who he or she is, or that he or she is a he
> or a she, trapped in the biology of her or his bodily mapping!
I've read some criticisms of Afrocentric philosophy that make arguments on
interpellation. However, I don't remember precisely what interpellation is.
Could you jog by memory?
> As for Mob ized subjectivity I think it is a tricky notion , in the Gay
> Science Nietzsche sees the greatest danger in the fact man has become raw
> material of sorts.
In the same sense that the population is targeted in Foucault's work?
> So I would say you are right that for Neitzsche be
> an actor or performer seems "in line with a performative understanding of
> resistance" against what Arendt terms homo faber and Heidigger "man as
> builder". But my question to you is this how does one "resist one's own
> subjectification" and "bring into being a restive subject?"
Pastoral power is productive and subjectifying, right? In the act of
deciding her own morals and norms, the individual acts in a way that would
appear to represent a different subject position. In doing so, she
constitutes herself as a subject that resists the subject position she
considered to be naturally tied to. That seems to be an intersection between
Foucault (or at least Kulynych) and Nietzsche.
Take care.