Critical Analysis: Beside Oneself By Judith Butler

In “Beside Oneself,” Judith Butler describes how the problem with violence is that it destroys the lives of humans, and it is sometimes not recognized because of pre-determined concepts of who is human. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldua explains how Mexicans are excluded because of how they speak both English and Spanish. The media molds our lives in many ways that we as people don’t even recognize by putting emphasis on the topics they find important while ignoring other topics.
Butler says, “Whose lives count…what makes for a grievable life” (114). The media decides whose lives are grievable. For example, let’s say there is a veteran who fought for our country but ended up homeless when he dies no one is going to grieve for him. This is despite all the service he gave society at large. Now let’s think about singer while their …show more content…
Anzaldua says, “We do make choices, but we don’t determine the options among which we choose” (57).The choices we make are predetermined by what society wants us to be. Since our society wants us to go to college and become college graduates society starts planting this idea since we are born. The decisions we are given to make are already pre-determined and most of them have no self-worth. I see a lot of people going to college just to end up dropping out because college was not what they wanted to do. Humans are constantly under oppression so that people think they are free to do as they please but in reality if you don’t comply with a set of predetermined rules you will be excluded from the system. People need to rethink their choices and see if this choice will advance them or just drag them down. People need to realize that we don’t want to take a step to change their way of life. People want to be spoon-fed and put no effort in making decisions on their own. People are too scared to look outside the choice that society offers