The Responses Surprisingly, Benhabib does not in her response retreat very far from his prior positions and need to stake out an ontological subject. She questions the very validity/reliability of performativity by asking “whether Butler’s…theory of the constitution of gender identity can do justice to the complexities of the ontogenetic origins of gender identity in the human person…or whether…this view can anticipate, indicate, lead us to rethink a new configuration of subjectivity (108). Provocatively, she underscores what she considers faulty postmodern methodology which seems to equate a “historical study of culturally diverse codes which define individuality (structural processes and dynamics of socialization and individuation) …with
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But, Butler warns, philosophy’s transcendentalism, the false suggestive of universals, won’t deliver us there. Indeed, it is the very opposite – an “ungroundedness” – that informs our “contemporary “agency” (131) (touching upon the theme of a vulnerable universal from her first essay). Responding directly to Benhabib’s criticism, Butler notes her misreading of the “doer beyond the deed” (as opposed to the “doer behind the deed”). She uses this correction to locate individual agency within the change and alteration components of the very process of “performativity” itself, highlighting that “this is a repeated process, an interable process… precisely the condition of agency within discourse…. agency is to be found in the possibilities of resignification opened up by discourse…the possibilities of reworking the conventions by which we are enabled” …show more content…
The advent of a transgender movement and the subsequent tensions arising from self-identified radical feminists, and the question of what culturally/politically and even biologically what constitutes have cast an important epistemic gaze back at these very issues. (Perhaps even more so considering they emerged from the tumultuous froth of these ongoing debates.) I found it important to consider how open-ended the dynamics of this debate have left the question of identity and agency, especially in an age where cultural venues found it necessary to close down (Michfest) and legislation has emerged to block transgender access into public gendered spaces. Little if anything has been agreed upon regarding what constitutionally/legally/biologically constitutes a Self and Subject . I must wonder if the very nature of a debate – to stake out a position which is defended at all cost – has helped polarize the positions we see stubbornly entrenched today. Much like Butler, I find these results incredibly sad and, even more importantly, unproductive. For what is exchanged for stubbornly holding such positions if progress is sacrificed along the way? It seems clear (to me, at least) that some of the arguments pivot on mis-readings and retrenchments that do now
But, Butler warns, philosophy’s transcendentalism, the false suggestive of universals, won’t deliver us there. Indeed, it is the very opposite – an “ungroundedness” – that informs our “contemporary “agency” (131) (touching upon the theme of a vulnerable universal from her first essay). Responding directly to Benhabib’s criticism, Butler notes her misreading of the “doer beyond the deed” (as opposed to the “doer behind the deed”). She uses this correction to locate individual agency within the change and alteration components of the very process of “performativity” itself, highlighting that “this is a repeated process, an interable process… precisely the condition of agency within discourse…. agency is to be found in the possibilities of resignification opened up by discourse…the possibilities of reworking the conventions by which we are enabled” …show more content…
The advent of a transgender movement and the subsequent tensions arising from self-identified radical feminists, and the question of what culturally/politically and even biologically what constitutes have cast an important epistemic gaze back at these very issues. (Perhaps even more so considering they emerged from the tumultuous froth of these ongoing debates.) I found it important to consider how open-ended the dynamics of this debate have left the question of identity and agency, especially in an age where cultural venues found it necessary to close down (Michfest) and legislation has emerged to block transgender access into public gendered spaces. Little if anything has been agreed upon regarding what constitutionally/legally/biologically constitutes a Self and Subject . I must wonder if the very nature of a debate – to stake out a position which is defended at all cost – has helped polarize the positions we see stubbornly entrenched today. Much like Butler, I find these results incredibly sad and, even more importantly, unproductive. For what is exchanged for stubbornly holding such positions if progress is sacrificed along the way? It seems clear (to me, at least) that some of the arguments pivot on mis-readings and retrenchments that do now